Between feeling like shit and writing about Nane deciding to attack me like she did yesterday on Facebook, I haven’t really had time to get into Tom’s appointment and what’s been going on with me. 

I may have to work on this in spurts just like I’ve had to do the cleaning and laundry in spurts. 

Tom said that the male Arab doctor that he saw was friendly. As in professionally friendly. He didn’t come off as uncaring as Dr. D or anything like that. This is the doctor Nane had a problem with my not wanting to see. The REAL reason I didn’t want to see him wasn’t that I feared he was some secret terrorist that would kill me, but because I was afraid I would have trouble understanding his accent, and I also prefer a female doctor. No matter how sensitive a guy is and no matter how smart he thinks he is, only a woman can know what it’s like to be a woman. I don’t want my health in the hands of one who has to guess and imagine how I feel. I will see him, however, if Tom continues to like him and I don’t like the female Ecuadorian doctor I’ll be seeing. Meanwhile, he gave Tom some pills for his high BP and we’ll see what the blood work says. 

But for Nane to have called me racist is just ridiculous. Do I like Muslims as a whole? No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I hate every single one of them. Funny how she went on and on about her ex-husband being black-American, the love of her life being Greek, and the guy she keeps taking back after they break up is Turkish. Well, I had a one-nighter with a girl who was part black, part Puerto Rican, a 6-month relationship with a Cherokee woman, and another one-nighter with a Mexican girl. So I’d say I’ve done my share of race-mixing as well. :) 

Decided to spend the next year or so selling all my dolls, even though, contrary to some people’s beliefs, doll collecting among women truly is very common. Maybe it’s not in Europe, but it is kind of pointless to have them sitting around collecting dust, so I think I’ll eventually sell them on Amazon. I’m going to be stubborn about the prices, though. If I don’t make a profit, ok. But I want at least what we paid for them. Even for Peyton, the doll I just got. She was to complete my trio of 18” dolls. I had a green-eyed blond, and an Asian doll with dark hair and eyes, and so I wanted to add a blue-eyed redhead. I will let people know once they’re up for sale. 

Still more to write about regarding these scary spikes in the heart rate I’ve been having, but I’ll get to it later. 

Later… 

Looks like my sister was right about the spikes in my heartbeat being caused by my thyroid. I thought it was unlikely because I’ve got hypothyroidism and not hyperthyroidism. But from all we’ve experienced, researched and learned over the last year, that’s almost certainly what’s been causing my problem as opposed to medications or anxiety. Don’t get me wrong; the whole thing has made me anxious as hell on top of it all. Having your heart suddenly race is terrifying and you can bet your ass it’s going to cause anxiety and maybe even panic attacks. 

The problem was when they upped me from 50mcg to 75mcg. See, my thyroid isn’t 100% dead. If it were I’d have gained a ton of weight in just 6 months and not 30 pounds over a decade. Some days my thyroid actually works a little better on its own, and the problem comes in when the pituitary gland starts screaming commands at it to work harder than it can. I was put on meds not because the gland is dead but because it works harder than it can. But the pit gland isn’t smart enough to know that it’s being overworked by being told to work harder than it can. It’s like a runner who wants to run at 8 MPH but can only run up to 6 MPH while some drill sergeant is screaming, “Run faster, run faster!” This is what causes the scary spikes in heart rate. 

The 50mcgs showed my thyroid was still a bit underactive, but 75 made it go haywire. Then when I stopped the meds that caused my thyroid to dip and once again the pituitary is throwing a shit fit over it. So we don’t just need to regulate the thyroid gland to but shut the pit up as well. They’re pretty much intertwined. The 75s made me feel worse than not taking anything at all, but I definitely need to get back onto a much lower dose of something. 

Last night after Tom crashed I had some scary spikes. One had me almost considering waking him up and getting me to an ER, but I just did some deep breathing and reminded myself it was not life-threatening. Just scary as hell. 

This morning I was hoping to sleep in till 10:00 so I’d have fewer hours alone, but I awoke at 7-fucking-30, unfortunately. Not wanting to get up and face whatever tortures my heart was going to put me through, I lay there for over an hour. Then sure enough, I felt a wooziness come over me, then boom, boom, boom! I jumped up and took a chill pill, but fortunately, it settled down fast and I haven’t had any other spikes during the day and evening. Who knows what’s in store for me later on, though? It’s unpredictable, though heat from hot food or hot showers can trigger it. 

Never was I more grateful that I don’t drive. Yeah, it’s a pain in the ass at times having to rely on Tom to finagle his schedule so he can take me where I need to go but to think that this could’ve happened while I was driving is enough to spike my heart rate all on its own! 

I started to fear I might have a case of tachycardia that could be dangerous, but we’re still pretty confident my heart itself is ok. When Tom’s asleep or at work I email him when anything happens. When I got up, this was waiting in my inbox from him: 

I have done a little more research on heart rates and I found a post from a doctor responding to a woman with similar questions (I know she doesn't have your symptoms but it does show that a variation in heart rates is not a big deal). The woman is 44 and said that during a workout her heart went from 130 to 165 to 57 to 120 to 130. She also said it has been as high as 215. The doctor said variations between 57 and 165 are okay but 215 is getting a little too high. He recommended that she have her thyroid checked. In this case, I think the doctor suspects hyperthyroidism is causing the extremely high heart rate. The point is your heart is fluctuating between something like 80 and 140 which is a lot less than the 57 to 165 that the doctor wasn't even worried about. I think as long as you take the chill pill on days that I work you will be fine until your appointment. If there is any risk at all the doctor will send you to a specialist within a few days of your appointment. Of course if there were any real risks your last doctor would have already sent you to a cardiologist, doctors are very worried about being sued so they are very cautious when it comes to heart issues. Remember when I had chest pains they had me do a stress test for my exercise-induced asthma. I think the reason they were concerned with me was that I had the pain but no other symptoms. Because you have a number of different symptoms they are able to tell that it is not an issue with your heart. 

My old endo doc was confused from the get-go cuz when she asked me how I felt and I told her I felt the same, I think she was under the impression that I’d always felt tired when in fact that was actually one symptom I never had. I have just as much energy as I did in my 20s. I think that the miscommunication and my not knowing enough about it back then to understand things is part of what got me all messed up, not that Sutter as a whole is a good medical group to be with anyway. The office staff is just a nightmare to deal with. Tom’s going to request the records from them in a week or two. 

Last night I was looking out the window longing to be out there on my bike in the dead of night when the park is asleep and no mutt walkers or traffic is in my way, but I knew that I couldn’t be because I didn’t want to risk having a spike when my heart was already elevated. I miss not having to give a second thought to such simple little pleasures in life. These spikes suck to have if you’re just lying in bed or sitting still in a chair, but you DON’T want it to happen while exercising! We talked about getting a gear wheel for my bike since it’s gearless, or even a motorized attachment that’ll push the bike uphill for me, but that’d be like cheating. What’s the point of working out then? I just want to wait till they stabilize my thyroid and, thus my heart. I miss being out there! Not just to keep in shape but because biking is fun and I love the fresh air, especially since I work at home. Tonight I just did a quick run on the treadmill after Tom came home. Enough to keep my joints and muscles strong, but not to overdo it. Definitely don’t want to push it at this point even though I’d love to hop on the bike, feel the wind in my hair, and just zip through the park. 

I knew it, though. I knew I didn’t just suddenly develop a killer case of anxiety independent of the meds, naturally a bit anxious/emotional or not. But I’m really surprised it wasn’t all due to the meds themselves. 75mcg is still way out of the question. That dose not only spiked my heart big time but it totally fucked up my brain chemistry. That feeling of suffocation and utter doom and despair was horrible. I also knew I didn’t “overdo” my workout. Sorry, but fat or not, I’m in pretty good shape. 

I really want to live to see him retire and maybe move to Florida and have more family around, etc. Really wish Andy, Tammy and Aly lived locally at times. 

All in all, Hashimoto’s is a shit disease to have. Really thought I wouldn’t have to deal with these kinds of things till my husband was retired and didn’t have to juggle his schedule to help me deal with it. I definitely feel more comfortable with him around during this rough patch and was glad to take a nap for a couple of hours this afternoon. That made it seem like I was alone for two fewer hours. 

The OT money is awesome, though, and we just got some stuff on Amazon, mostly for the car and rats. A new stereo, a camera to put in back of the car, some bedding and plush beds for the rats, and a Kindle stand for me. This way when I’m lying in bed reading, these little hands and short fingers of mine don’t have to hold this surprisingly heavy device.