It’s been a hot minute! I took a little bit of a break after a new development in my health journey, and now that I’m feeling a little more prepared I’m ready to start blogging again.

A lot has happened in the past few months. My birthday was in February, I ran the Disney Princess 10k, and I trained for a new role at work as a Yes Faciltator in the Magic Kingdom. I also was cast in the ensemble of a production of The Wedding Singer, and I’m also costuming it! I’m assisting with the costumes for a production of Little Shop of Horrors as well, but that’s not quite the beast that Wedding Singer is. I have some auditions lined up for the summer and fall as well that I’m excited about. And I’m working on a book for Camp NaNoWriMo for the first time (I have a completed outline ready to go!)

The biggest change, though, happened after my yearly physical. Disney has an amazing health services deparment on property for cast members, and I have a fantastic GP over there. My physical was absolutely normal, but my doctor asked if I had any questions, and I (very anxiously) asked if we could check my thyroid levels. She asked why, and I spilled out a whole list of symptoms that I’ve been experiencing. I never want to be That Guy who comes in with a self diagnosis from WebMD, but at the same time I was experiencing almost everything on the symptom list. Luckily, my doctor is wonderful and immediately agreed to check my thyroid levels.

I got a call three days later saying that not only do I have hypothyroidism, but I also have Hashimoto’s disease, and there was already a prescription waiting for me to pick up that afternoon, and that I needed to make an appointment for follow up bloodwork in eight weeks.

Well. That was a lot to happen at once.

To rewind a little bit, I was experiencing a lot of things that I assumed just came with getting older- tired all the time, muscle and joint pain, weight gain for no real reason. About six months ago, though, I started watching Kathryn Morgan’s videos on YouTube. She’s an amazing dancer and has a fantastic channel, but one of the first things I noticed was that her hair texture was really similar to mine, and I haven’t really seen that before. (If you watch my Evil Dead vlog, you can see how thin my hair is; it’s been falling out in handfuls over time.) Scrolling through her videos she had several about her illness- she has hypothyroidism and Hashimoto’s disease. She’s very upfront and well-spoken, and that’s when I started wondering if that could be what was going on with me. I started doing more research, and thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask about it. I told my mom about it while I was waiting for the results, and it turns out that thyroid problems are an issue for several relatives on that side of the family.

So that’s been quite a change. I’ve started my hormone replacement therapy, and while I have seen some positive changes, I’m looking forward to the results of my next bloodwork to see what the doctor wants me to try next. I’m also trying to make some major dietary changes, namely cutting out gluten and dairy. I’m hoping that, now that I have the correct diagnosis, my health will improve and I’ll start losing weight!

Do you deal with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s disease? What advice do you have?