Friday, July 31, 2009

Dear Thyroid...

Wow, a whole lot of things happening at once. I'm going to do my best to post about all of them, but keep them separated (ie, i'm going to write a few posts today, and then post them over the next couple of days). But I'm gonna start with the exciting one first.

Imagine if you will shuffling through web site after website about thyroid cancer and just cancer in general, suddenly stumbling upon one blog that greets you with old 1940/50's pin-up girls, and talks to you in thyrodized phrases that only person with thyroid problems would understand. Then you take a closer look at the actual blog posts and find letters, letters written to thyroids. After reading through a few letters, I knew I wanted in!

That was back in late May early June.

The blog is called Dear Thyroid; it was developed by Katie Schwarts and Liz Schau. It is a place where you get to a write a letter to your thyroid telling them what's what. And it isn't just about thyca patients, but all people that have thyroid problems. Lets face it, thyroids control so much, and a lot of raw emotion builds up when they go wrong. While chat rooms and discussion boards are great to find other people like you, its even better to find a flat out rant that says all the things you want to say but don't know where to start.

But I found that its even more than just a place to vent and share stories. Its also bee very educational. I find that getting sick creates this bubble. One where I care most about my disease, I push for advocating my causes, and spreading awareness about thyca. Its not a bad thing, I mean that is what is important to me. But Dear Thyroid expands the bubble. I suddenly know a lot more about different types of thyca, hyper and hypo thyroidism, and grave's disease. It's actually a great educational/awareness tool; I've been forced to expand my own knowledge bubble.

So after seeing the blog for the first time through search engines, I decided I wanted to write my own post, and found myself stuck still in that position of reading a, "rant that says all the things you want to say but don't know where to start." I know, me lost for words, shocking isn't it. So it literally sat on my desktop for months. I was thrilled a couple of weeks ago when I saw that buzz for Dear Thyroid was picking up steam. It sort of added extra motivation for me to sort out the raw things I would say to my thyroid if given the chance. Speaches have gone through my head dozens of times in the past few years. I've even named him Thyridious. (At one point I consider drawing a comic strip where Thyridious Canasarus was the vilain... he dressed in a lab coat and had a thyroid shaped head w/ lab goggles and gloves on... this never made it to paper)... And so I came up with Thyridiocy, my letter to my ex-thyroid, which you can find here.

I want to thank the ladies over at Dear Thyroid for this opportunity; it was a lot of fun to write!

I encourage all of my readers to give the blog a look, and to submit your own letters!

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