DEAR THYROID -- WAIT FOR IT --

Dear Thyroid,

You really aren’t so clever, you know. You think attack is something new, something radical. But you’ve got to realize that I, myself, am the best at attack and destruction. My mind’s been cutting away at pieces of my own cells for years and years, ever since childhood and well before you started dropping your hints here and there: well before the red hair; well before the yellow skin and childish rebellion in my back and legs and kidneys; well before the blotches of itches and puffy cheeks, and the so-many tears since; well before the years and lines of my life had been erased (and even with photographs before me I still can’t remember the stories everyone else seems to know by heart, which usually makes me cry too); and sometimes the dark skin lines to remind me how this body has stretched and squeezed into a new form. (As if I needed another reminder).

Doctors tell me you’re localized -- only you as that pretty butterfly shape at the base of my neck is affected. Well, I never liked butterflies anyway. They’re so delicate, like one pinch too hard and the wings disintegrate under the sticky hot fingers of children and beaks of birds. And I remember one summer when little black butterflies landed in twos or threes near our house. By the end of the day, we kids had caught so many and all but one of them had died just from the sheer pressure of fingers: index to thumb. Pretty things like butterflies never seem to last. I should have seen it coming. All those summers and paper-waif wings should have been the warning.

And so, I keep hearing the same thing: you can’t be cured; you’ll just stick around with all your complications and pain and embarrassment and all of the destruction you’ve already done. Whatever inkblot shape you’ve crafted for yourself inside of my neck will be left that way forever for me to keep interpreting and extracting some sort of meaning over and over and over. The only thing is that, I’m in the habit of fighting ugly things (and maybe even some things that are good and beautiful and don’t deserve a waged war. Sometimes lovely things just get in the way and end up in the battle). It’s nothing personal; it’s just my nature.

So look, there’s something I’ve gotta tell you; something you need to know: as close as we’ve grown over the years, as much as I know about you and as much as I think of you everyday, as much as you’ve taught me, as many new and good people as you’ve introduced me to, there’s something you should know. I think it’s only fair to warn you -- to be perfectly honest with you...
Thyroid, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, I’m going to kick your ass and you won’t know what hit you.

Love Always,
Liz Schau

DEAR THYROID, I MISS YOU AND I'M SORRY

I feel bad, like it's all my fault, you know, that you had to leave. Back when I was in Jr. High and High School I virtually pushed you over the edge with all that dieting, bingeing and purging. I wished that I could eat all that I wanted and still loose weight. I know now what I didn't know then, that I was growing into a woman and that curves are normal, even if they are accompanied by all those pesky and uncomfortable sexual feelings.

I know you tried to warn me that you were enlarged, begging me to take better care of us, but I didn't know you even existed then and no one who did took you seriously. I know that by the time I was pregnant at 23 you were only doing what you figured I would want, enabling me to eat as much as I wanted and still lose weight. That was the first time in my life when gaining weight was welcome. Honestly, it was liberating. I needed that, a time in my life when the pressure to lose weight was off. By the time I had nursed my first daughter for one month, I weighed less than I had in years, and I felt beautiful. I was able to eat and eat healthy foods and continue to lose weight. You know I would have kept things like that indefinitely, your doing all the work.

So, I can hardly blame you for swelling up, bleeding. I put you through three more pregnancies and plenty of drugs and alcohol, still with nary a thought... until it was too late. I thought a goiter was an old lady disease and I was scared when my midwife told me you were sick. I'd never even been to a doctor for a physical, even in the year I had insurance through my work and there were all those ten day fasts; I simply did not know.

And then, as soon as we met, you had to leave. You gave me quite a scare. You were so big and there were the fears we had cancer. They said I could nuke you, and I thought that was no way to live a life, and decided to have you extracted. There is a small bit of you still here, a withered portion damaged by our raging bits. Sometimes I like to think that it's just enough that you might miraculously grow back, but every year I discover no such thing has occurred and I take that pill every. morning. for. the. rest. of. my. life.

Sometimes I fear that some sort of natural disaster will have me scouring pastures for some innocent animal whose thyroid I must eat to survive, and I am humbled by my acquiescence a consumeristic society that makes a CVS or Walgreens at every corner a comforting sight. I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry for all those years I took you for granted. I know that with our family history we were bound to part eventually, but more love on my part may have postponed our premature parting. I can say simply didn't know, but wonder if that would have been enough anyway. I miss you.