I’ve been feeling a sense of loss lately and couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Although it felt familiar, it seemed like it was attached to something filed away in the deep recesses of my mind. It resembles grief, but not the deep grief I experienced losing Mr. Virgo. It’s more like the feeling I had after a different life altering event…my overdose.

We’ve talked about that here in the past. It happened January 6, 2000…but it was a long time coming. There were seven long years of clinical depression, medical mismanagement, and self-medicating that led up to that sentinel event. And when I came out the other side, it was like waking up from a decade-long medically induced coma. I quite literally lost most of my late thirties into my early forties. I came out feeling robbed of my best years. I mourned that loss for quite some time.

The loss of Mr. Virgo caused a different type of grief, yet I still felt robbed of the future we had planned. Robbed of my partner, my standard of living, my understanding of who I was. It seems I had barely rebuilt my life from the overdose, when I had to rebuild it again because he died.

This is not nearly as intense as either of those, yet of enough import as to mention it here. One of the hardest things about hyperparathyroidism is the length of time it takes to get a diagnosis. The symptoms are so easily dismissed by doctors as being all in your head. I mean, really…who complains of pains that migrate from your left foot to your right arm to your left calf, etc? Getting forgetful? Well, you’re of a certain age now…it’s to be expected. Cranky? Hey, you’re post-menopausal. All women get that way. Can’t sleep? Hey, join the club. It goes on and on.

You truly have to be your own health advocate when you deal with the medical community. There are ways of approaching doctors that don’t insult them and make them feel you don’t trust their opinion. And, if they do get all that huffy, then you end up changing doctors and start the process all over again. I read a source yesterday that said the average time from the onset of the symptoms of hyperparathyroidism and the diagnosis and required surgery is 8+ years. It would be easy to feel robbed of those years that you could have been feeling better, if only your doctor would have listened to you and checked your parathyroid hormone. Eight long years. At this stage in the game, when there are less years ahead of my next birthday than there are behind it, that is significant.

I sat and contemplated that yesterday and looked for the silver lining. There’s almost always a silver lining. I think the biggest is the advancements in the surgery involved to removed a parathyroid tumor. If I would have had this surgery even ten years ago, it would be a major ordeal. The incision used to be at least four inches long, and sometimes a vertical incision was added creating a huge upside down, T-shaped scar. The surgery might take three or four hours making it a major ordeal. The risks were huge with a surgery like that. It wasn’t uncommon to clip the nerve to the vocal chords and cause you to lose your voice, or…God forbid…both nerves causing paralysis of the voice box. Then you’d have to have a tracheostomy in order to breathe. Not good!

Another benefit is, we caught it now…and not ten years from now. This is not an innocuous disease. It robs calcium from your bones, can cause kidney, heart and liver damage, and shorten your life by many years. I don’t believe I’ve had hyperparathyroidism longer than four years or so. Granted, over those four years, my symptoms have continually gotten worse, but…through my medical knowledge, understanding and self-advocacy, and through the sharp mind of a wonderful nurse practitioner…I’m ahead of the game.

Yes, I could feel robbed of precious time, but I’ve learned from the past, that doesn’t serve me. Being grateful for what you do have, and what you DON’T have, keeps your mind in the right place. It doesn’t help a bit to live in the past. And now that I know what this is, and that there are so many others who suffer from it, I can be an advocate and an educator. And that puts me in a much healthier stance. Always looking forward in gratitude and with hope.

Read more about hyperparathyroidism HERE.    

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“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

James 1:17 NIV