With my father's passing in 1999 my distrust of doctors and hospitals was nudged a little closer to paranoia... Nurses assured me that he was stable and would be okay, so my mother, sister and I went home to rest. We were called back to the hospital the next morning to discover he had died in our absence . What his doctor insisted would be a simple operation to treat thyroid tumors and complications arising from them had cost him his life. For some time I had greived over my grandmother's needless passing... she had insisted to her doctor that she was ill, but he did not listen until it was too late for her to recover and she wasted away and died at our home. Now again I was brought to rage at the doctors. To add to the agony, my mother shortly thereafter was admitted to the hospital with a disease which threatened her life. Surgery was required to remove sections of her temporal arteries, and she is to this day taking steroidal medication to treat the remaining vestiges of the disease. This medication has meant adjustments to the drug regimen she already ingests for heart disease and cholesterol control. I myself had spent several years now on various treatments for depression and having very little success with any of them, continuing to dwell in a darkness of the soul and a physical exhaustion. After my mother's illness I returned to my home and visited my doctor again to discover why I was feeling constant lethargy and steadily gaining weight despite exercise and diet. Blood tests were run and results analyzed. While I waited to find out what the problem was, I saw myself gain two pants sizes in as many weeks. I was terrified, having never been so heavy in my life. Finally the doctor called me to her office for the results. I told her of the changes and she told me the diagnosis; hypothyroidism. A small, butterfly shaped gland at the base of my throat had decided to take a vacation. What next? "we won't be treating you for it...it isn't severe enough." I remeber fighting back tears as she said this, thinking that I was destined to be next on the list of family members to suffer the incompetence of the medical profession. Then she mentioned that she would be going on maternity leave soon... a glimmer of hope. The first chance I got, I made an appointment to meet with her replacement. Being a celtophile I was pleased to hear that the new doctor's name was Lewington. Taking this as a hopeful sign I readied myself with all the research I had done. I waited in the office to meet this new healer, prepping myself to aggressively assert my right to treatment. When the door opened and a smiling redhead stepped in, I felt somewhat more at ease, becoming a bit nervous when she went into a technical desription of the possible detrimental effects of the treatment. It seemed as if she was not going to help. I described to her what had been happening to me, and she agreed that many if not all of my symptoms could be traced to thyroid deficiency. I was almost resigned to having to seek another doctor when, without breaking stride in her description of the benefits and detriments of the medication, she took out a prescription pad and wrote out a prescription for a low dosage of thyroid replacement hormone. I was almost euphoric just to be treated at last. Having now been on the medication for several months, I have noticed so many changes and improvements I cannot begin to list them all here. I have felt more energy, seen my hair and nails grow long and healthy again, felt the depression lift, and watched the muscle tone return to my body that had faded despite all my exercise. I feel as if I have been given a second chance to live. I have felt the desire to die many times, yet now I desire to live. My life has been opened again, and yet I have no sense of direction. It is as if I have gone into death, the darkness and decay that the thyroid problem caused, watching my fingernails peel from my fingertips and my hair fall out in clumps, my flesh atrophied and even my eyelashes shedding to tiny fringes. With the medication I am reborn, growing, living, and wondering... Does this physical change perhaps come as a prelude to a life change? Does it merit an accompanying spiritual and emotional rebirth? If so, how do I go about inducing that change? Where do I start and what do I seek? I have the rest of my lifetime to fill; what path must I tread, or may I choose several and walk in ever widening circles around the sphere of existence?