San Andreas, the Movie and Hypothyroidism

It’s been a busy week and I’ve got an even busier weekend through Tuesday coming along. Then I slow down to nothing on my day planner for five days. I wish there was a way to space things out but the world doesn’t revolve around me and some things---like friends coming in from out of town---you just have to make room for on your already full schedule. 

Friday I went to a movie. I’m not a big fan of disaster films but there isn’t much point in belonging to a Movie and Lunch Club if you’re not going to stretch your comfort zone and go to movies you’d otherwise pass up if the choice was left up to you. The film we saw this time was San Andreas in 3-D and let me tell you that I was not looking forward to sitting through 114 minutes of a 9.6 earthquake. Buildings in cities on the West Coast were falling all over the place and catching on fire, the Golden Gate Bridge got pulled apart and even the Hoover’s Dam busted up. As if that wasn’t enough, a tsunami came rolling down the streets of San Francisco and tremors were felt on the East Coast. While all this was going on a search and rescue guy---Dwayne Johnson, The Rock---used every mode of transportation possible to look for his daughter and with his x-wife in tow they worked through their back story along the way. There were a lot of contrived situations that required you to suspend your disbelief but for an action/adventure film full mayhem and madness it was intense. And I liked it, as did all the rest of the ladies in my group. The special effects and 3-D had us screaming more than a few times.

For lunch we were supposed to meet at a steak house “a couple of blocks down the street.” However that turned out not to be true. It was directly across the street from the theater and I had trouble finding the place. I was going up and down the busy five lane street trying to stay within the old lady speed limit that requires one to drive no faster than our age and no slower than the age we were at menopause. At least I wasn’t the last one to get seated. Two others came in after me. Thankfully, I didn’t get seated next to a woman who frequently complains about the food. This time she did it when the checks were delivered. She told the waitress her potato skins were too dry to eat and she shouldn’t have to pay for them. If I didn’t have a “be nice” filter in my brain, I would have asked her if she remembered to put her teeth in that morning. 

A new lady in the Movie and Lunch Club, when she overhead another woman ask me if I’m still doing a lot of e-Baying, got very aggressive with me saying over and over again that I should teach a class at the senior hall on how to sell on e-Bay. “No way would I want to do that,” I said. “I don’t call it being in e-Bay hell for nothing.” I hate it when people try to badger you to do something you’ve firmly rejected. She went so far as to enlist others to agree with her and I went so far as to put her on my list of people not to sit next to in the future.

I got the results of my blood test to recheck the level of my thyroid. It’s still too low so I have to do another six weeks round of an increased dosage and then do a third recheck. By the end of summer I might be warm enough to take off my sweater. I get in a car that’s been sitting in the hot sun and it feels just right. I have to go back to the doctor on Monday to discuss a new treatment plan for my bones. What a pain! Three appointments with three different professionals for one stupid condition. A life time of taking thyroid medications leeched the calcium out of my bones; you cure one problem but you create another. Hypothyroidism causes a lot of issues so you can’t ignore treatment. It causes minor things like dry skin, thinning hair, increased sensitivity to cold, fatigue and puffy faces as well as more serious stuff like muscle weakness, elevated cholesterol levels, stiff and swollen joints, slowed heart rate, depression, weight gain, impaired memory and I recently learned it also causes hoarseness. I can’t believe I didn’t know that last one! I’ve actually been worried about how hoarse my voice has gotten and I was imagining the worst case scenario of throat cancer even though I’ve never been a smoker.

Oh, well, I’m not to a point where I’m ready to beg someone to take me out behind the barn and shoot me, so life is still good. Though I will admit I'm getting tired of being tired and board-line depressed. It's so hard at times to separate the organically created depression from the widow-living-alone depression. And being too quick to tear up is getting old and embarrassing. ©