This Is The Face Of Hashimoto's

Hi. My name is Hashimoto's. I'm an invisible autoimmune disease that attacks your thyroid gland causing you to become hypothyroid.
I am now velcroed to you for life. If you have hypothyroidism, you probably have me. I am the number one cause of it in the U.S. and many other places around the world.
I'm so sneaky--I don't always show up in your blood work.
Others around you can't see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me.
I can attack you anywhere and any way I please.
I can cause severe pain or, if I'm in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.
Remember when you and energy ran around together and had fun?
I took energy from you, and gave you exhaustion. Try to have fun now.
I can take good sleep from you and in its place, give you brain fog and lack of concentration.
I can make you want to sleep 24/7, and I can also cause insomnia.
I can make you tremble internally or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal.
I can also give you swollen hands and feet, swollen face and eyelids, swollen everything.
I can make you feel very anxious with panic attacks or very depressed. I can also cause other mental health problems. You know crazy mood swings? That's me. Crying for no reason? Angry for no reason? That's probably me too.
I can make your hair fall out, become dry and brittle, cause acne, cause dry skin, the sky is the limit with me.
I can make you gain weight and no matter what you eat or how much you exercise, I can keep that weight on you. I can also make you lose weight. I don't discriminate.
Some of my other autoimmune disease friends often join me, giving you even more to deal with.
If you have something planned, or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away from you. You didn't ask for me. I chose you for various reasons:
That virus or viruses you had that you never really recovered from, or that car accident, or maybe it was the years of abuse and trauma (I thrive on stress.) You may have a family history of me. Whatever the cause, I'm here to stay.
I hear you're going to see a doctor to try and get rid of me. That makes me laugh. Just try. You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can help you effectively.
You will be put on the wrong medication for you, pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills, told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given anti-anxiety pills and antidepressants.
There are so many other ways I can make you sick and miserable, the list is endless - that high cholesterol, gall bladder issue, blood pressure issue, blood sugar issue, heart issue among others? That's probably me.
Can't get pregnant, or have had a miscarriage?
That's probably me too.
Shortness of breath or "air hunger?" Yep, probably me.
Liver enzymes elevated? Yep, probably me.
Teeth and gum problems? TMJ?
Hives? Yep, probably me.
I told you the list was endless.
You may be given a TENs unit, get massaged, told if you just sleep and exercise properly I will go away.
You'll be told to think positively, you'll be poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, not taken seriously when you try to explain to the endless number of doctors you've seen, just how debilitating I am and how ill and exhausted you really feel. In all probability you will get a referral from these 'understanding' (clueless) doctors, to see a psychiatrist.
Your family, friends and co-workers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and just how debilitating I can be.
Some of them will say things like "Oh, you are just having a bad day" or "Well, remember, you can't do the things you use to do 20 YEARS ago", not hearing that you said 20 DAYS ago.
They'll also say things like, "if you just get up and move, get outside and do things, you'll feel better." They won't understand that I take away the 'gas' that powers your body and mind to ENABLE you to do those things.
Some will start talking behind your back, they'll call you a hypochondriac, while you slowly feel that you are losing your dignity trying to make them understand, especially if you are in the middle of a conversation with a "normal" person, and can't remember what you were going to say next. You'll be told things like, "Oh, my grandmother had that, and she's fine on her medication" when you desperately want to explain that I don't impose myself upon everyone in the exact same way, and just because that grandmother is fine on the medication SHE'S taking, doesn't mean it will work for you.
They will not understand that having this disease impacts your body from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, and that every cell and every body system and organ requires the proper amount and the right kind of of thyroid hormone medication for YOU.
Not what works for someone else.
The only place you will get the kind of support and understanding in dealing with me is with other people that have me. They are really the only ones who can truly understand.
I am Hashimoto's Disease.


Many thanks to all of you that's sent prayers up for me. They have been heard and answered. I finally got a diagnosis. It may not be what I expected but God will continue to be there to help me along. I know this disease is not nearly as bad as what some of you are going through but just like many of you I stand on my faith and we will make it with God's help. I'd like to be able to say I'll beat this thing but that's left up to God. There's no cure for it and when it starts it just keeps going till the thyroid is completely gone.  I've had Hypothyroidism for 22 years and been on meds every day since. I urge everyone that has Thyroid Disease to be sure and mention you want your Antibodies checked also when you go for the Labwork. I've been doing alot of research on this and thyroid disease in general. I already knew how thyroid disease whether hyper or hypo ( high or low ) can do to our bodies when it gets out of whack. The only ones that even have Antibodies are the ones like myself that has the disease.  If they find the Antibodies elevated then you're in a whole heap of trouble .Your Thyroid will go low and then high, back and forth. On the ultrasound they will find lots of inflammation that just lays there and spreads till it destroys the gland. In some instances they'll also find Nodules on the thyroid. Mine has lots of inflammation and all they can do is monitor it and adjust my meds. as time goes along. But God is still in control.

Many thanks to each one of you for your patience and understanding. I'm so sorry I haven't been around to visit much but I'm going to try my best to check in as I'm able. I miss all of your great posts. Ya'll make my day. Thanks again for your prayers and May God Bless. ~ Susie

Grateful For Shoes

It seems we all take fer granted the little things in life, never once thinking about what it would be like to do without.
Hard times were a way of life back when I grew up and my parents had it even worse.  Folks made do the best they could with what little they had. Just having food on the table, a bed to lay our head or something that we don’t even think twice about today, a pair of shoes on our feet was worth so much more. God’s blessings are poured down on us everyday and we don’t know how fortunate we really are. If folks had to live like that today they’d never make it.

My parents grew up in a different time and learned to appreciate even more so, the little things in life. They raised us six younguns the same way. My mama always said, “be happy with what ya got, there’s lots of folks got less”. and she also said, “all the finery in the world can’t bring happiness”. I came to find that out over time and sittin down to milk and bread for supper was a feast compared to some, or getting a new pair of shoes when school started in the fall.  I’m a simple person and it doesn’t take much to please me.

We went barefoot through the warm months so much that we had trouble getting used to shoes when school started. Our feet were as tough as a pine knot and rusty as could be at the end of day. But we knew to scrub em clean before we crawled under mama’s clean bed clothes or she‘d skin our hides good. When we got a pair of new shoes we wore em plum out or handed em down to the next one when we outgrew em. That seldom ever happened.

My mama told how she went barefoot not only in the summer but even after the frost. Her daddy worked hard to keep em fed and put clothes on their backs. She came from a family of ten younguns. Back then they had big families and lots of mouths to feed.
She talked about walkin to catch the school bus on cold, frosty mornings and how cold her feet would get. When the bus finally came she’d jump up the steps fast as she could and sit in the seat with one foot propped on top of the other just to get em warm. She’d rotate em back and forth till she got to school.
When her daddy finally worked out enough money to get shoes, he’d buy fer the ones that needed em the most and the others had to wear what they had till he earned enough at the sawmill. He’d cut a slim, straight stick and measure their feet with it and carry it with him to buy the shoes. All the others that had to wait their turn, he’d take a hammer and tacs and put the soles back together the best he could. He’d try to fix em so the tacs wouldn’t come through to their feet and keep the soles from flapping. He’d even put cardboard in between the shoe and the sole. She said, sometimes the tacs would work their way through to their feet but they weren’t about to tell their daddy or mama cause they had enough to worry about.

Back then shoes were a luxury and they were tickled to death to get a new pair even if they were brogans as my mama used to call em.
 She said some of the other younguns that were always blessed with new clothes and shoes made fun of em.  It really hurt her bad and one evening when she got on the bus to come home, this one boy that had been makin fun of her fer a while with his sniggerin and laughing met his match. She’d just got a new pair of brogans and she pulled one off and almost hammered his head through the floor of that bus. The bus driver had to pull over to get it stopped. She said what she was scared of the most was that she’d ruined her new shoes. When she got off the bus she looked em over good and decided that it only helped to wear em in. Needless to say, he never did speak to her anymore . She said he dodged her every chance he got.

It broke my heart when she told that story and now when I look back I realize that was one of the reasons she and daddy both worked so hard to give us more than they ever had. Along the way they taught us to appreciate it too, and never make fun of the less fortunate.
We may not have had the best of shoes or clothes and sometimes my brothers wore their britches with holes in the knees to school but one thing’s fer certain, they were clean. My mama always said, “rags are honorable but there’s to much soap and water to go dirty.”

She sure learned early on in life how to patch a pair of britches to last. Of course, having so many brothers and then four boys, she didn’t have a chose. Even in later years folks brought their britches to her to patch em. She couldn’t turn anyone down. Mama had a soft heart fer people cause she remembered her raising. And she always said, “be proud of your raising.”

 She always got the Sears and Roebuck or Speigel catalogs in the mail and every year they had big back to school sales. She called em the wish books cause we’d look holes in em. She ordered a lot of our school clothes on time and made a small payment every month. She couldn’t afford to order much. We mostly wore hand me downs. Since I was the oldest my hand me downs came from girls close to my age that lived in the neighborhood. That was after they found out it wouldn’t hurt our feelings none. Most people were worried about that back then. When I grew out of em I passed em on down to my one and only sister.

One year I found a pair of the most beautiful, yellow sandals I’d ever seen in my life. I wanted those sandals so bad that I could taste it. Mama didn’t mind ordering em but wanted me to have something that would keep my feet warm with frost fast approaching. All of my old shoes were worn out and there’d be none to fall back too. I kept on till she ordered them and I’ll never forget the day they came. I put those sandals on and pranced around like I was Cinderella.
 Sure enough when cold weather came, I was in a mess. We had to dig out a pair of my best, old shoes and take em to the shoe store in town to see if he could do anything with the soles. That man was the best at making shoes look like new of anybody I’ve ever seen. He put the soles back together like new. I wore em till mama got her bill paid down some. She ordered me some warm shoes to do me the rest of the school year. I certainly learned my lesson. Pretty is as pretty does.

Needless to say, that shoe repairman was a God send. He’s still there today in the exact same spot. There’s no tellin how many shoes that man has fixed over the years. And if anybody needs their shoes fixed today, he’s the man to do it.
He also has big racks of new and like new shoes. Daddy bought all of his from that little store. He claimed that was the only place he could find any that fit. Daddy liked his shoes a size longer. We all called them Clod Hoppers.  I’ll never forget one summer after he’d grown older and was showin his age, we talked him into getting some men’s sandals. We told him they’d keep his feet cooler in the summertime. We never dreamed he’d love em so much. He was comin in the front door one day and there was a step up ya had to make to get in the door and he stumped his toe and almost fell flat on his face. We tried not to laugh till mama said, “them Jerusalem Cruisers are gonna be the death of ya yet.”
Of course he and mama wore theirs till the soles fell off tryin to keep us in shoes.

 When I look back on the many times I run barefoot and stumped my toes nearly off, it brings joy to my heart and makes me wanna do it all again. There’s nothing that can compare to busting a big mud hole wide open, even if we knew we’d get the toe itch. But as my mama used to say, “ there’s nothing like being grateful fer shoes when ya got none at all and ya feet feels like a block of ice.”

                                                            © Susie Swanson, 2014

That Old Wooden Chair

 That old wooden chair was his favorite spot to be

Sitting in the sunshine in the warmth of the day

Looking out across the land he loved so much

It stirred up memories that carried him away

He always took pride in those big cornfields

 He plowed from sun up to sun down

There’s nothing left but underbrush now

Nary a stalk of corn planted in the ground

Those fields made good corn back in the day

He hauled many a load to the gristmill

Even if it took him all day in that wagon 

On an old gutted out road, most of it uphill

He always tried to share his bounty with others

Everyone wasn’t fortunate to have a good year

Even the stalks made for good fodder

That livestock sure did make it disappear

There was always plenty of planting going on

Whether it be corn or gardens growing so kind

Had to eat come summer or winter

Everything was canned, nothing was left behind

Even before the harvest had time to come in

He thought about winter and what it would bring

He had to keep the home fires burning, or else

If the weather got to bad and firewood got lean

He’d been all over those mountains and hills

Cutting and snaking out wood, it was the only way

That old mule knew how to work hard

He sure could pull that sled on any given day

One can never have enough wood to burn

In the winter when the sun sets low in the sky

Back when he was young and strong

Work was a pleasure, he could never deny 

He could still hear those cherished words

Come on home now, it’s suppertime

He’d grab a dipper of cold, spring water

A sure cure for a hot thirst every time

Sitting on the porch in that old wooden chair

With his sweetheart, wife and best friend

Meant more to him than anything in the world

Oh how he yearned to do it all over again

There’s that pretty little grove of apple trees

Been there many a year, and so content

She helped to plant them, they brought a smile

Even with their trunks so bowed and bent

Her pretty flowers still bloomed in the spring

He always told her she had a green thumb

More beauty than an old man’s heart could hold

He’d soon see her, she was waiting for him to come

Awe, it sometimes brought tears knowing

Time and circumstance had left him behind

Yearning for the things he’d lost and loved 

 Made him feel like he wasn’t worth a dime

He knew his life’s work was over and done

Remembering those bygone days brought a smile

They sure knew how to lift an old man’s spirits 

From the warmth of that chair, if only for a while

Today the old house is so empty and quiet

 Nary a sound but the mantle clock’s tick

Plenty of reminders in every nook and crack

Over in the corner is that little walking stick

The sun still shines on that little window seat

The little birds sing but there’s no one to hear

So much nostalgia and loneliness left behind

In the heart of that old wooden chair

© Susie Swanson, 2014

 Thought I'd better post something to let ya'll know I'm still alive and kicking. I'm still a long ways from kicking high but I'm getting there. I've missed ya'll and hope to be back soon. . Many thanks for the prayers. God Bless, Susie