YEAH, SCIENCE! (okay it's more about health than science but I wanted a Breaking Bad quote, sounded better than "Yeah, health!")

I may have been MIA for the past year, I have had a lot on my plate. Planning a wedding is way more work than I thought, and now I'm down to the nitty gritty (less than 4 weeks, ahhh!) and things couldn't be crazier. In the past year I have been planning a wedding, raising a 3 year old, babysitting a 1 year old and a 2 year old, have had a hospital visit, been diagnosed with Grave's Disease and treated for Grave's Disease, lost weight, gained weight...and well, things couldn't be crazier! I honestly don't even know where to begin. I think tonight I choose HEALTH!

So, Grave's Disease is an autoimmune disease, which commonly affects the thyroid. I was diagnosed with a severely overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) and had a pretty sizeable goiter. I was put on a cocktail of pills: anti-thyroid medication, which I had to take 6 of each day, and a medication for my heart. See, hyperthyroidism has a slew of shitty symptoms....

• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Difficulty sleeping
• Fatigue
• A rapid or irregular heartbeat
• A fine tremor of your hands or fingers
• An increase in perspiration or warm, moist skin
• Sensitivity to heat
• Weight loss, despite normal eating habits
• Enlargement of your thyroid gland (goiter)
• Change in menstrual cycles
• Erectile dysfunction or reduced libido
• Frequent bowel movements or diarrhea
• Bulging eyes

I was beyond exhausted, I looked like skin and bones (I am 5'7" and was weighing in at 127 at my thinnest - not a good look on me). I was eating constantly, pretty much every 3 hours on the dot or I would get nauseous and light headed, to the point of me throwing up. I didn't WANT to throw up, I enjoy food a lot, but my metabolism was ridiculously high and I couldn't constantly keep up with it ALL the time and if I let myself go too long after feeding time, I would just get sick.

Somewhere in time I got put on meds, got a good dosage and everything was cool. My doctor told me I had a very rare chance of my thyroid "correcting" itself, they call it remission, I call it "correcting" cuz I don't have cancer, it's just a stupid fucking disease. So anyway, my doctor told me I pretty much had the option of surgically removing my thyroid or taking radioactive iodine, but the thyroid had to go bye-bye cuz it was more trouble than it was worth. Before I even had time to research much about my options I ended up going into a "thyroid storm". Basically, my resting heart rate was 170bpm. I was sitting on my couch and I had felt like I ran a marathon when in all reality I was doing absolutely nothing. I woke my fiancé up at 1am and had him get our daughter up so they could take me to the ER. I was in atrial fibrillation. I was given a couple different IVs with a couple different things to bring my heart rate down and once they got the right meds, my heart rate dropped from 170bpm to something like 100bpm within minutes. I felt like everything was in slow motion and honestly, I felt stoned outta my mind. I felt like everything in my body just instantly slowed way, way down. So after about 3 hours in the ER (now around 4am) my fiancé & daughter are still by my side, we were told I was being admitted. So I sent my daughter off to the grandparents and Adam came back to hang out with me for the rest of the night. I ended up in the hospital for 3 nights (if you count coming in at 1am being one of those nights). Even though my heart rate was normal, I still had an irregular heart beat, which makes you more prone to clotting and heart issues, yadda yadda. They kept me on an IV, ran a trillion different tests, did EKGs, echos, all sorts of heart-related stuff. One cool thing they did was a sonogram on my heart and I got to see it in all it's glory. I loved that. I've always wanted to see my heart. I've also always wanted to see a picture or video of my brain... for no good reason other than just pure curiosity. Back on topic.... my heart rate and beat went back to normal and I got the go ahead to leave on the 3rd day. I was ready to get the F out, not even gonna lie.

So after my fun vacation in the cardiac unit at the local hospital I had to go visit my thyroid doctor again (Dr. Endocrinologist). They told me that my thyroid was coming out pronto. I opted to do the radioactive iodine because I didn't want a scar 4 months before my wedding and surgery scares me. So I went to the nuclear medicine place and walked on in, sat down in the room in the back and swallowed my RAI (radioactive iodine). I had to be quarantined at home for 3 days since I would be omitting radiation and that shit just isn't safe. So the family and the pets all went bye-bye and I was ALL ALONE, talk about boring. But my 3 days went fine and all was well until about 2 weeks after and I noticed my neck had swelled up tremendously. I looked like a linebacker without a chin. My neck came out to my chin, it was awful. I felt like swallowing was a little more difficult and I could barely move my head from side to side or up & down, it was just incredibly uncomfortable but not painful. I'll share my photos, no matter how unflattering they are. I just want to help out and share my story and if it helps someone who's going through the same ordeal, then my work is done.

This is my PRE radioactive iodine photo. Small, sexy little neck.

2 weeks post RAI. My chin basically melts into my giant neck. My face is swollen, everything is a mess.

2 days after the swelling started. Still a big neck, but not as swollen.

Not much of a change the next day. The area on my neck where my thyroid is started getting super super itchy.

Still swollen but it did go down a teeny tiny bit!
You can see the lower part of my neck is red, it felt like it was radiating heat and it was so itchy. Don't know why that happened but it sure did.

2 months post RAI. My little neck is back. Zero swelling and my goiter is even gone!
If you're having a reaction like I did, you really just have to power through but I promise everything will be FINE!

It took about a week and a half to 2 weeks for the swelling to go completely down. Now I am 2 months (to the day) post-RAI and my thyroid levels are low so I'm off all medication for the next 2 weeks, then I get more blood work done to see if I am becoming Hypothyroid (underactive). Right now I basically have NO thyroid, well I do have a little thyroid but it's not producing hormones like it used to and over time it will stop all together and I will be hypothyroid. So now I just wait and see how much time that is for me, Dr. Endocrinologist thinks that since I had such a severe case of hyperthyroidism that I will become hypothyroid much sooner than later (some cases it can take up to TEN YEARS), it's only been TWO MONTHS for me and I feel like a totally different person. And not in a good way.

So MY current symptoms go a little something like this:

• fatigue
• weight GAIN - too much weight gain (15 lbs in 3 months. Right before my wedding. FML.)
• sadness about the weight gain.. sometimes I cry when I can't fit into my jeans (maybe mild mild mild depression? Lady hormones? Stress? Who knows.)
• less of an appetite but I'm not losing any weight goshdamnit!
• I am cold all the fucking time
• and I think I've become more of a bitch.

So that's that and I feel like I just dumped a crazy ass story and I'm not going to proof read it so if you find grammatical errors and are the kind of person that's like "OMG becky, did you see she put "your" instead of "you're"? What a not-smart person she is." Well... you can S my D cuz I am still not proof reading this shit (there's that bitchiness I mentioned). I will update when I visit Mr. Endocrinologist again and let ya'll know how good life is treatin me! I feel like now is a good time to end this so Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight :)