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May 28, 2006

Taking a (hopefully) short sabbatical

Several weeks ago I was given a preliminary diagnosis by my doctor of Hyperthyroidism and had it confirmed Friday by the endocrinologist that she referred me to. Some of you are probably wondering what that has to do with PK. Well, if I might flatter myself just enough to presume that at least some of you noticed my conspicuous absence over the last few days, that ties in with the hyperthyroid issue... I think.

I remember vividly when my doctor called me a month ago with the initial results of the bloodwork she'd sent me to get done. I'd been having racing pulse-rate and according to the blood test results hyperthyroid was the culprit. It was a short conversation, but she told me that I'd be "hard to live with" and then after a short half-laugh she expressed sympathy for those close to me. I mentally brushed it aside thinking it was preposterous because I've always been known far and wide as a very easy going guy. Some have suggested that I'm too easy going, particularly as a single parent.

The thing is, while I know the starting point of my diagnosis, neither I nor my doctor know when it started. Although we're both assuming that it is fairly recent. At least not going back beyond the beginning of this year.

I kinda got into with Carla and TJ in comments the other day and haven't posted or commented since. Long story short, that disagreement moved to email and continued on. Which was probably a mistake because the disagreement only deepened into a rift. But, convinced of the rightness of my position I doggedly held out, not wanting to give an inch of ground.

So anyway, in frustration I decided to take a long drive this afternoon, contemplating quitting PK and who I was going to transfer ownership of the domain name to. And it wasn't until I was on the return trip home that something clicked in my head. You see, on Friday night I was watching Oregon Public Broadcasting TV as usual and there was a documentary on called Out of the Shadows which is about the mother of the woman who made the documentary. Her mother is schizophrenic and the movie was a very interesting glimps into the life of a child who was raised by a schizophrenic mom. Most of which is irrelevant to the point of this post. What is relevant, and which kinda clicked in my head as I was driving home, was that this extremely articulate and clearly very intelligent mom, even when she was on her meds and doing well, was completely oblivious to her schizophrenia. As far as she could tell she was perfectly normal and everyone else was just picking on her, including this daughter who had stuck with her thru thick and thin. She knew that she was supposedly schizophrenic and she was able to describe what schizophrenia is. But she couldn't agree that she was anything but rational. From her perspective, the fact that she kept ending up in mental institutions was conclusive evidence that she was being picked up unfairly.

Now I'm not suggesting that I'm schizo - LOL. But I do have to concede to myself that even though inside my own mind I'm perfectly rational..., that perhaps, not unlike this poor mother, I can't see my own irrationality caused by this hyperthyroidism thing bedeviling me right now. Then I remembered back to when I saw A Beautiful Mind and how at the end the character played by Russell Crowe was asked if he still saw the people who had played the central role in his schizophrenic implosion. He said that no, he still saw them but that he knew now that they weren't real.

That's kinda where I'm at right now. I still think that I'm perfectly rational and anyone disagreeing with me has either misunderstood me or is just actively disrespecting me. But, I can't honestly deny the very real possibility that it's all the hyperthyroid issue and that perhaps this is exactly the kind of thing that my doctor was talking about when she said that I'd be hard to live with.

So, I've got my first appointment with the endocrinologist under my belt as of this last Friday. I have two appointments not this week but the following week to undergo a diagnostic scan so that they can conclusively figure out what the extent of my thyroid problem is and then the endocrinologist's office will call me and make an appointment where I believe I will be given the one-time treatment which he told me Friday, based on his preliminary confirming diagnosis, will fix me up permanently. So I figure that I'm looking at the very least another couple weeks or maybe longer because it took me nearly a month of waiting just to get in to see him for the first appointment.

So for now I need to take a sabbatical from PK because I am presently entirely too argumentative and quite likely not in a place where I can even rationally argue anything. Or at the very least I can't trust what I think is a rational arguement originating in my own head right now. And I have no desire to offend any of you, much less my blog partners.

Oh, when I walked in the door after my long drive my oldest daughter (18 going on 30, naturally - LOL) was sitting on the couch in the living room. I asked her if I'd been hard to live with lately and her response was to give a half-laugh not unlike what my doctor had given and she said, "yeah, just a little," which I could tell by the look on her face was meant to be taken as an understatement.

So anyway... to TJ and Carla: Although I can't honestly say that I see it this way as of right now, I also have to honestly concede that you both could very likely have been entirely right and I was wrong, vis-a-vis our disagreements. If that's the case, and it seems likely that it is, then I apologize now and hopefully once the chemical soup running my brain right now is stabilized I'll be able to see it for myself.

Posted by Kevin at May 28, 2006 07:59 PM

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