It's been a LONG time....

I think the last blog I posted on here was back in April, so a lot has happened since then. Sorry! :) Well, back March or April I was diagnosed with Grave's disease, it's an autoimmune disease. For some reason autoimmune disease's tend to run strongly in our family. When I first learned that I possibly had Grave's disease it really freaked me out. I had never heard of it before and the name scared the crap out of me. :) No worries though the name "Grave's" is named after it's founder. :) Some of the side effects are bulging eyes (more common with smokers), tachycardia (fast heart rate), difficulty getting pregnant, anxiety's, paranoia, chronic diarrhea (I just assumed it was from my gallbladder being removed), tremors, short term paralysis, shortness of breath, heart disease, etc. I had the majority of those symptoms (no bulging eyes or heart disease). There were a few treatment options available for me drug therapy, radiation, or surgery to remove my thyroid. Your thyroid levels are supposed to be within 10-12, mine the first day was at 68 and the second day was at 98. Very HIGH! The Rad tech's seemed really concerned and kept stressing the importance of getting into my doctor as soon as possible to go over my treatment plan. At first I decided to do the drug therapy, and then after I took the first pill everything just felt wrong. I called my doctor and switched to radiation. I had to wait 1 or 2 weeks because I had taken one of the pills. I did the radiation and had to stay away from my boys for at least a week (although I've been radioactive much longer then a week). One thing that wasn't mentioned to me was how much your throat hurts after doing the radiation. I didn't want to eat or drink for the first few days. I couldn't get comfortable because my throat hurt sooooooooo much. It only lasted about 4 days I think. I was put on a beta-blocker before the radiation to help control my heart rate and tremors. So the last week of May I went in and had some blood work done. They said that my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) still wasn't producing hormone yet, so they put me on some other medication. I hate it because I feel really antsy and high strung. I wake up pretty much every morning around 2:30 AM and can't get back to sleep until it's almost time to wake up. Grrrrrrrr! I was first told that I wouldn't be able to get pregnant or have a normal baby (most likely would've been born retarded), and then when I met with my Endocrine (thyroid) doctor she said that you'll still be able to get pregnant in the future just don't do it anytime soon (at least 6 months). That was great news for us. :) They want you to wait at least 6 months before getting pregnant because a lot of times when you've got the grave's disease and had the radiation you're baby could very likely be born without a thyroid and that would cause severe problems for the baby. The thyroid is what controls your metabolism, heart rate, etc. My big reason for opting to do the radiation was that sometimes it can take years to regulate your thyroid using the drug therapy which would be more risky if I wanted to have more kids in the future which I do. With the radiation I know that if I wanted to get pregnant in a year I can....I'm not sure how easy it will be to get pregnant. We hadn't used any birth control after we had Tucker and he's 2 and we only got pregnant once last year but I miscarried early in the pregnancy (associated with Grave's disease which I found out later). I'm excited because that means we'll still be able to have our little Chloe, someday...lol :)