In 2007 I was diagnosed with Graves Disease.\u00a0 It sounds like a death sentence, but it\u2019s not.\u00a0 It is named after the Irish doctor who discovered it, Robert Graves.\u00a0 It\u2019s an autoimmune disease in which your body attacks the thyroid gland causing it to produce too much thyroid hormone, thus sending your body into a crazy state.\u00a0 It affects practically every body system.\u00a0 My heart would race so fast that I would hear it in my head at all times, even when I slept.\u00a0 My metabolism was off the charts (to some women that may sound awesome) to the point that I would lose three pounds overnight.\u00a0 All the joints in my body ached, especially my right shoulder and left elbow.\u00a0 My hands would tremble so much that one time eating in the teachers\u2019 lounge my fruit cocktail flew off my spoon onto the table, talk about embarrassing.\u00a0 I also had strange things happen to my body.\u00a0 My hair fell out, I would sweat constantly, and believe it or not, my big toenails fell off!\u00a0\u00a0 I was also a nervous wreck all the time.\u00a0 Imagine your biggest fear or phobia.\u00a0 You know the feeling when you\u2019re in the midst of it?\u00a0 It\u2019s utter panic.\u00a0 You would do anything to get out of the situation.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I felt most times.\u00a0 It was downright exhausting.\u00a0 My mind would not stop worrying and jumping from one thought to another.\u00a0 My biggest worry and obsession was my eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grave Disease can attack the muscles behind the eyes.\u00a0 If you Google Graves Disease the images you will see are frightening.\u00a0 In fact, when I was dating my husband I made him promise he would never Google it.\u00a0 It\u2019s pictures of people with bulging, crazy, scary eyes.\u00a0 At the time of my diagnosis my right eyes was bothering me and both eyes ached when I moved them.\u00a0 I was so scared that my eyes were going to get worse and one day I would look like those images I saw on the computer.\u00a0 I would spend a lot of time staring at myself in the mirror, checking to see if my eyes were changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once diagnosed there are a few treatment options and one is to kill the thyroid with radiation, causing under active thyroid.\u00a0 Lots of people have an under active thyroid and it\u2019s treated by taking a pill of synthetic hormone each day.\u00a0 The radiation treatment was actually an interesting experience. It is given in pill form at the hospital and once it is administered the patient is supposed to stay away from all other people for twenty-four hours, so radiation is not passed to them.\u00a0 My wonderful family made me twenty-four little notes and gifts to open each hour to keep me company.\u00a0 And my mom of course, disobeyed and was by my side the whole day.\u00a0 Once the radiation is given it is a waiting game for the thyroid to die.\u00a0 Mine did not go down without a fight.\u00a0 In fact my symptoms got worse and worse.\u00a0 I would go for blood work every two weeks. The doctor would take one look at the results and say, \u201cThis is so strange.\u201d\u00a0 He would show me a graph on his computer and say, \u201c This line is a normal person\u2019s thyroid level\u2026and this line is yours.\u201d\u00a0 The line went straight up into the air and literally off the chart!\u00a0 Then he would mutter into his little handheld voice recorder, while I was about to have a nervous breakdown right there in the office.\u00a0 Months went by and I was ready to march in there and tell him to set up the surgery.\u00a0 I wanted my thyroid out of my body.\u00a0 It was at that appointment he finally had good news.\u00a0 My levels were slowly coming down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One day at school I was walking toward the restroom when suddenly my vision was overtaken by crazy moving rainbows.\u00a0 All I could think was, \u201cNow what\u2019s wrong with me?!\u201d\u00a0 I immediately called my doctor and he said, \u201cThat\u2019s it!\u00a0 Your thyroid is officially dead!\u201d\u00a0 Remember all the symptoms I had when my thyroid was overactive?\u00a0 The exact opposite symptoms happen with hypothyroidism.\u00a0 So now I gained 8 pounds in a week, I could fall asleep in a few seconds, sleep 12 hours and still feel tired.\u00a0 My heart rate was extremely low and I was freezing all the time. \u00a0My joints ached more than ever. \u00a0Every breath I took hurt my right shoulder (the doctor gave me strong anti inflammatories to help the pain, thankfully). \u00a0My nervous condition was better, but I still had problems with my eyes and worried about it quite a bit.\u00a0 But now there was a light at the end of the tunnel, and it was time to find my body\u2019s proper dosage for the thyroid hormone.\u00a0 In a few months my blood work came back perfect and I started on the road to \u201cnormal\u201d once again. \u00a0My joint pain slowly went away. \u00a0I even had good news from my ophthalmologist.\u00a0 My eye measurements stayed consistent and he wasn\u2019t worried about the eye disease.\u00a0 After a long battle, Graves Disease lost!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It may sound like I lost too.\u00a0 I lost sleep, hair, my toenails, and some would argue years off my life from anxiety.\u00a0 But to tell you the truth, God taught me so much during that time I would say I actually won!\u00a0 Through it all, I leaned on the Lord.\u00a0 Not because I\u2019m some super strong Christian.\u00a0 In fact, I was the exact opposite.\u00a0 It was because God left me in a place where I had nowhere else to go, but to Him.\u00a0 I believe God allows trials in our lives because it draws us to Himself.\u00a0 It is in those trials that we are tested, but I would also say it is when we see how reliable God is. \u00a0It’s as if He is saying, “Come closer…I have something to teach you.” \u00a0During those difficult days I took comfort in studying 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.\u00a0 In it Paul talks about a \u201cthorn in his flesh\u201d he pleaded with God to take away.\u00a0 Paul asked God three times to heal him, but God did not.\u00a0 I often thought Paul should have kept asking.\u00a0 If I asked God to heal me once, I asked Him a thousand times.\u00a0 When I used to read that I would wonder why God didn’t heal Paul?\u00a0 What if He doesn’t choose to heal me?\u00a0 But then I realized God\u2019s answer to Paul was far greater than a healing.\u00a0 He told him, \u201cMy grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.\u201d\u00a0 That was the answer!\u00a0 God\u2019s grace will see us through all trials.\u00a0 In order for others to see God\u2019s power He uses weak humans.\u00a0 That way there is no doubt it is God working since Paul, Tenille and Joe Shmoe could not do it on their own. \u00a0And isn’t that the ultimate goal of our lives, for God’s glory to be revealed to others?I like what Peter said in 1 Peter 1:7, “These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold, and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.”So in the end Graves Disease was not a chapter in my life I\u2019d like to forget, but a blessing straight from God.\u00a0 It changed my life for the better.\u00a0 I now am more thankful for my health than I ever was before.\u00a0 I know that I can get through difficult days with God by my side. \u00a0And most of all I know how faithful God is, and how real His comfort is in times of need.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love the song \u201cIf Not For The Storms\u201d by Larnelle Harris.\u00a0 It beautifully sums up the lessons I learned from Graves Disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Click here to listen to the song “If Not For the Storms”.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Originally written June 24, 2011<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 2007 I was diagnosed with Graves Disease.\u00a0 It sounds like a death sentence, but it\u2019s not.\u00a0 It is named after the Irish doctor who discovered it, Robert Graves.\u00a0 It\u2019s an autoimmune disease in which your body attacks… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/foodforfaithandfamily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}