I have Graves Disease and I need to wait 2 to 3 hours after taking my medication to breastfeed the Tiny Human. I take my medication twice a day, morning & night, taking pills when I wake up in the morning is the easy part. The difficult part comes with the evening pills, the Tiny Human has a late "schedule", is feed to sleep and due to being a lazy parent we co-sleep.
For a while I was taking my evening pills by 9pm at the latest to be in bed by midnight, however this went out the window probably around the same time I decided to create an entry for WOW (World of WearableArt). These days I am taking my pills once I get the Tiny Human to sleep, which happens some time between 9pm and 1am. Thankfully I don't have an early riser and we generally don't fall out of bed till 11am, but I am still up most of the night till as late as 5am. Some nights the only reason why I go to bed is because "I should" and if I stay up longer I the Bearded One will be getting up to go to work and then I won't go to bed.
The easy solution would be to start taking my medication earlier again, but my sleeping pattern is all out of whack and I think I could have a touch of insomnia.
Besides the company of the Tiny Human, I spent the majority of my day/awake time alone. During the week the Bearded One and I will see each other for roughly 3 or 4 hours each day (6 or 7 hours on a Wednesday, when he's not doing pizza delivery), I don't mind being alone but writing this has made me suddenly aware of how isolated my world is.
Being diagnosed with Graves Disease is described as a lonely road and it is. Unless you have it then the likelihood that you know what it is or anything about it, is slim to none; that was apparent when I posted on my Facebook account that I had Graves Disease. I know that people mean well and generally people just don't know what to say in these situations, but you would have thought I had told people I was dying with all the deathrow comments "If anybody can beat this you can" or "I'm so sorry for you hun. Hugs". I suppose with a name like graves people expect your life to have a grim outlook.
What I think makes Graves Disease a lonely road is that it is one of those amazing illnesses that nobody can see, so you must be okay, and unlike more popular autoimmune disorders like Type 1 Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Celiac Disease, your friends and family probably aren't going to know anything about it
There are many symptoms that come with Graves Disease, including anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, grave rage/anger, joint pain, bulging eyes, hair loss, dry skin, white hair, a racing heart, the list goes on and on.
One thing that I have noticed with the colder weather is that once I get cold during the day, I find it impossible to warm back up (it seems to take all day to warm up) and like a lizard I just shut down for the day and nothing gets done. But it's not only the cold that prevents things from being achieved,
For the past month I have been saying I will fold the pile of washing. I still have a pile of washing to fold and now have a pile of washing to do as well. I simply get too overwhelmed by the pile of things that I need to do, it all piles up and creates stress and then we get pissy because we're stressed and we wouldn't be here if there was more of me to go around, but most days I can only focus on one thing at a time.
It's now 4am, I took my medication two hours ago and it took me two hours to write this. I'm not going to wrap this up nicely in a bow with a question or something thought provoking, I'm just going to end it here, pick the Tiny Human and go to bed, otherwise it will be 5am again.