It wasn't the food that did the damage - I swear ;)

Growing up with a grandmother who was on the heavy side and the fact that I LIVED TO EAT, I was always teased about how much I ate and that one day I would also look like my grandmother. My relatives would sit around the table at Thanksgiving and tell the story of “imagine if”. Imagine if Dawn was a waitress – oh that would be funny – your food would be half eaten by the time it got to your table, or imagine if Dawn was locked in a room with no food – you get the picture…..imagine if you idiots would talk about something else is what I was thinking. I never had a weight problem. I was told at two years old I could eat two chicken cutlets, I would consume a whole can of chicken noodle soup with crackers and apparently tap my spoon for more (I was a woman who even then knew what she wanted). I was never a heavy child or had any weight issues. I used to love when I worked in an Italian bakery how these women would come in and say “oh, how do you stay so thin working here”, and I would say, oh, I don’t eat the stuff…..little did they know, the cheap fuck I was working for charged us for everything you would put in your mouth, so foodie over here found a way to sneak stuff in her mouth and not pay for it, and it was good shit!

Around the age of 11 or 12 years old, I was diagnosed with slight scoliosis of the spine. I was taken for x-rays every year for a few years. I am mentioning this because this might have been one of the factors that threw off my thyroid but I will never know – I can only speculate.

When I first starting working for my current employer about twelve years ago, I was working crazy hours and got caught up in the crazy consulting world that was fast-paced and exciting. The crazy energy made me feel alive. After a few years, my mom would notice that I put on weight and I just assumed from working a lot of hours, eating late and not working out as much as I used to and getting older was the main factor – nothing serious and my reasoning all made sense –right – we all go through this in life. At one point, my mom also noticed my arms were getting fuller looking – well I said, that is because since you last comment about my weight, I have been at the gym and trying to get in shape and I am working on my arms so of course, I am starting to look like Arnold mom – duh! My mom also comment on my neck looking a little swollen by my thyroid – well, that was it – I just ignored her because after all, she is the woman who has raised me, knows me like a book but who is she to start telling me I am looking fat. Okay, she was trying to put it in a nice way – your neck looks swollen – I mean give me a break. I would then look in mirror and ask my friends do I look swollen to you? Do my arms look like they got bigger? Of course not was the answer and THAT was the answer I wanted to HEAR!

Little by little things started creeping up on me – I was not able to lose weight as fast as I could a few years back. I remember when I just had to cut out a piece of lettuce and I lost five pounds in one week but now it was more difficult. My mom told me to ask the doctor about my thyroid which I did when I had my doctor’s visit. It was fine he said…….and I had a sigh of relief and thought to myself, of course it is fine, and my mom is just trying to make me crazy.

Years went by and my energy started decreasing but I always kept myself going. I am non-stop all day and that does not stop when I leave my job because I like to keep myself busy and push myself. I assumed that from all that I did, that was the reason, again it all made logical sense to me. I also noticed that I was only sleeping 4-5 hours a night. Some of the reason for this is that I was taking some acting classes and they would end very very late and I would not get to bed until after 2am, and the other times, I just assumed I had too much on my mind with work and juggling all these different things in my life and that was the reason why. Still made logical sense. The fact that it felt like a vampire sucked the living life out of me while I was sleeping when I woke up did not register. Again, all I was doing….busy busy girl living the Sex And The City life – still made logical sense…..oy.

I never realized these were the SIGNS of my thyroid slowly declining on me. Nobody knew the signs, even the doctors were not aware. My test results always came back normal and if they were not normal, nobody was saying anything because what is a normal number on a thyroid is something different to another doctor.

On one visit for my yearly physical, I got the call from my doctor that he wanted to see me to go over the blood work that I took. Well, that was it. I thought to myself I was dying or had some strange disease that was not curable and my life was over – okay that was the crazy side of my brain saying this (and we all do this), the logical side was like okay, this is normal procedure and you are fine. When I met with my doctor he told me about my thyroid levels getting higher every year and now he felt I was borderline of it not working. He would be putting me on synthroid which is used to treat low thyroid hormone and I would be on this for the rest of my life. As much as I respected my doctor, I left feeling, this does not sound right. I then decided to take action. I found a nutritionist, an acupuncturist, got myself in a Pilates and yoga classes and got a trainer – all good for now I thought. My company also changed insurance, and needed to find a new doctor so I found the top one at a great hospital who specialized in this. I scheduled a visit and told him all the great things I was doing now to help with my thyroid and you would have thought I called his mother a bad name – he did not seem impressed and pretty much was like, you probably won’t lose that much weight and you will need to stay on synthroid for the rest of your life – again, something with the rest of my life, does not sit well with me, hence maybe that is why I am not married –rest of your life = death sentence to me to be honest! I was doing great for a while with my “holistic health team” who I am truly grateful for every day. I did lose weight and I was feeling great. I got to a plateau and knew in my gut that something was still wrong. I just got back the results from my last blood test and the doctor told me everything was fine and that he did not have to see me for a year. I said a year – I have a thyroid condition and a year seems way too long to wait. I also felt for all that I did with my exercising, changed my eating habits, and the running around I do alone would make anyone a size 0 – why wasn’t the weight coming off quicker and faster – I was still not happy with my number and I know you can’t focus on that but trust me, even though I did not look like it, my number was what two construction workers who are buff would weigh in at – I was upset by that – it was as if something was not working right in my body.

Funny in life how things/people come in for a reason. I received a call a few days later as I was trying to wrap my brain around something else I could incorporate in my life to make help this process and my old friend Anita Cortes called me. I worked with Anita many years ago at a law firm and the girl was always ahead of her time with information on the body, etc. She was going to a doctor back then that was the first to diagnose her thyroid condition with a special test he did. She did tell me about him years ago and we are on the “thyroid” conversation and a Big Thanks to everyone who had to listen to that shit all the time – that is all I spoke about – thyroid this and thyroid that – I was trying to understand and fix what I had. She gave me the doctors’ name again and I can never be more thankful! I made an appointment with this doctor and he sat with me and went over everything. Not only was I dealing with the thyroid issue I had but I also had another battle going on – some genetic stuff and I was fighting two battles. I told him that I knew in my gut something was wrong and he said to always follow your gut instinct – he also wrote that is about how to follow your gut instinct when it comes to your body. I have now been going to this doctor for a few months now and the results are truly amazing. He is fixing and balancing everything in my body and I am losing weight, I am sleeping 6 plus hours each night (I never realized how I love SLEEP now). The supplements I am taking are helping me in every way. My thyroid will eventually one day be balanced. I can’t tell you how it feels – I am getting something back that I lost. I am also reading the book titled “Breakthrough” by Suzanne Somers and this is another woman who I am so thankful for putting the information she has out there – she has a section on the thyroid that I encourage every woman to read.