A Husband's Perspective

Perspective - noun /pərˈspektiv

       1. A particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view

       2. True understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion

 

The above two definitions of perspective have a significant relevance in our lives. 1. We have both had our own perspectives towards everything we have been through with Hashimoto's Disease and after the revelations of the past couple weeks, our perspective of what was once an unexplained laundry list of symptoms has now become one of a very specific condition. My perspective will never be the same as Elisha's about this because of who we are, what our roles are in this journey, and what we each will experience but because of those differences, we hope that this blog will relate to anyone who is affected by Hashimoto's Disease. While I don't feel her fatigue, pain, anxiety, insomnia, and brain fog, I am absolutely affected by this disease too.

My wife doesn't deserve this. She is a kind-hearted person who wants to help people and animals. She desperately wants to contribute to the world and make a difference. This disease has prevented her from this. By the time she has any energy to do something, that energy is already fading away. She tries so hard and has struggled for so long wondering if she is just a weak person, not knowing WHY she feels the way she does. She worked 40+ hours a week while dealing with this for years, not knowing what was causing this and why she had nothing left in the tank by the end of the work day (and really during the work day). She would tell me she didn't even remember driving home and she was always exhausted, no matter how much sleep she had the night before.

We made one of the hardest decisions in our lives last August, when we decided that Elisha should stop working. Her job was extremely stressful and the environment was not one that anyone should be in, let alone someone with such a debilitating [still undiagnosed] condition. She would have panic attacks in the morning when her alarm went off and she would cry because she had to go to work so sick. Her brain fog was compounding her stress levels because it made her already demanding job even harder to do. After spending more than four days bed ridden with severe back pain and fatigue and a very unhelpful diagnosis from her PCP of a "slight back strain", Elisha resigned from her job. We had no idea how we were going to manage it but we knew it had to happen and the details would have to come later. So far, we have made it a year. We were very fortunate this past June when I started a new job, making a significant amount more than the previous one, but it still does not cover what our combined salaries were. Needless to say, the financial impact of this disease has not been kind to us.

One thing you will learn about me through my postings is that I am a financially minded person. This means that finance related issues are one of the biggest stressors in life. I will probably bring up the cost of things on more than this one occasion. I have read so many other blogs, forum posts, articles, websites, etc. and people rarely talk about the cost of it all. I don't want to sugar coat it... this disease is expensive. While we actually had it better than most (only 3+ years and 6 [useless] doctors), we have spent the better part of our relationship paying medical bills for doctors visits and tests with NO valid diagnoses. Ultrasounds, MRIs, CAT Scans, HIDA scan, blood panels, hormone panels, ER visits, blood sugar monitoring, etc. all with the same inconclusive results. At most, we would get "well this level is 'slighly' low" but no one could ever make a connection. In the beginning we would say "at least we know it isn't that" when we got a result back, but then we started just wanting a test to say "it is THIS", just so we finally knew. In the end [of the beginning], we ended up purchasing our own tests to get the results we could have easily had over 3 years ago (and really Elisha could have had 15 years ago when the doctor found her goiter).

We have a life-long journey ahead of us with Hashimoto's Disease but we are going to manage it, and I have every reason to believe that once treatment starts, Elisha will be able to start living a much more normal life, we can finally start growing our family, and we can continue to live the American dream we thought we were going to have.