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“Is Lenox there? Oh my God, Reece, you could’ve told us. Hi, Lenox.”
I silently beg Reece to say something, but all he does is angle the phone toward me.
After several blinks, I say, “Hello, Breckyn. How’ve you been?”
Breckyn launches into telling me everything new in her life, clearly not as private as her brother, then pauses to ask, “So…am I going to be an aunt?” causing me to almost choke on my own saliva. Where did that come from?
“Breck,” Reece barks while giving me an apologetic look. “It’s not that either. It’s just…”
“Her thyroid?” she guesses, her voice small but curious.
“What makes you say that?”
“Because Charlie’s been having some trouble lately, and after looking up her symptoms, we think it might be that.”
Reece looks like he got slapped across the face. “What trouble?”
“I don’t know, just, like, feeling like crap all the time. Ask Charlie yourself.”
Another voice gets on, this one deeper than Breckyn’s.
“Why didn’t you tell me something was wrong?” Reece demands instantly.
“Because I didn’t know it was?”
I ease the phone out of Reece’s hold. Considering I was barely one myself, I’m no expert on teenagers, but that—a man making this about himself—isnotwhat Charlie needs right now.
First, I take the phone off speaker, then I draw a deep breath and greet Reece’s other sister.
“Hi.” She laughs awkwardly.
“I had an overactive thyroid when I was around your age, so I might know a little about what you’re going through. Do you want to talk about it?”
Emotion replaces humor, and her voice takes on a croaky tone as she tells me all the symptoms she’s been experiencing lately, including hair loss.
“I lost a lot of my hair, too,” I tell her, feeling the heat of Reece’s stare on the side of my face. “I dyed it as light as I could to make the bald spots less noticeable.” This is my first time telling someone the real reason for my hair color.
“Really? I’ve been so tired, too. I’ll wake up and get ready, then boom, I just want to curl up and pass out again. I assumed it was from school and…you know…”
“Yeah. I do.” Life for women, in general, is draining. Our bodies turning on us makes it that much harder. Charlie sounds exactly how I felt facing so many signs with no real idea what any of them were indicating. Without anyone to talk to about it, I went to great lengths to cover up my suffering. I don’t want that for Charlie. It definitely sounds like something could be going on with her thyroid, but whether it’s underactive or overactive I don’t know. The internet can help cast a net, but she needs professional assistance to narrow it down to an actual diagnosis.
“Have you seen any doctors yet?”
“Only our pediatrician.”
“Did they order any tests? Or refer you out?”
“No, she just prescribed me the pill.”
Charlie could go the next ten years down the same path I was on, one wrong prescription after another, one wrong diagnosis after another. That alone is enough stress to cause hormonal imbalances.
“I’m going to give your brother my functional medicine doctor’s information and he’ll send it to your mom so she can set up an appointment for you. He’s amazing and will figure out exactly what’s going on and what the next steps are to get you feeling like yourself again.”
Gwen mumbles something I can’t make out.
“My mom doesn’t think our insurance will cover that kind of doctor.”
Most insurances don’t. That’s why so few people seek out functional medicine.
