“Nothing goes away until it teaches us what we need to know”
– Pema Chodron
It’s not easy or natural to understand that something is wrong with one’s body. You’re never truly ready to deal with such a reality. I hadn’t been diagnosed with any terminal disease, but the concept of having something wrong with my body, of accepting that I was “broken,” didn’t sit well with me.
My hands started to shake, and my heartbeat was elevated. My moon cycle was never regular. Those were the initial hyperthyroid symptoms I experienced, although I was never told the latter was related to the thyroid until later. I had very little tolerance for alcohol or coffee. So I switched to decaf. I later learned decaf is more acidic and more harmful to your gut than regular coffee. My mood would suddenly drop; I could become hysterical quite easily, or develop an uncontrollable need to cry. I had lost ten pounds when I switched my diet, and then lost ten pounds more due to my hyperthyroid condition.
Imbalance overpowered my life, work, relationships, and family. I returned to an endocrine doctor who ran more blood tests, and the results still showed my thyroid was overactive. The doctor’s answer remained the same: take synthetic hormone pills for the rest of your life, or remove my thyroid. I couldn’t go along with that.
My love relationship was not very stable. We would live in paradise while traveling and catching waves in Costa Rica, then we’d return to a hell surrounded by alcohol and drug demons. We lived in extremes, him with his addictions, and me with my hyper and erratic behavior and my fear of failure. When darkness surrounds your own shadows, it’s difficult to break through and take the most fundamental action of survival: taking care of yourself. Refusing help or denying that one needs help is part of our human sickness, and when that happens, our own selves are our biggest enemy. It’s a vicious cycle we simply want to remain trapped in. Getting help or reaching out of the swamp of depression meant “growing up”, and that, my friends, is scary.
We made it through the dark tunnel somehow. I quit advertising school and decided to open a small fashion boutique in Wynwood. He slowed down a bit, and together we moved into a new apartment. One sunny Wednesday morning before getting ready for work, I sat down in our wooden porch to sip my cashew foam decaf coffee as usual and receiving an unusual call. Since my period was irregular, I had gone to the gynecologist to run more blood tests. I picked up the phone and it was the nurse telling me, “Pamela, you are pregnant.”
I sank. I felt the wood underneath me melting. I was just in shock for several minutes. There was finally a reason for my extreme hormonal responses, shaking hands, and rapid heartbeat.. I panicked.