mofo x

Timon of Athens, Act I: Scenes 1-2

If you do a Google search on “Shakespeare” sometime in early February, 2010, you’re likely to pull up a sad and tragic tale about a man whose life turned upside down after he won the lottery. His name — it’s true — was Abraham Shakespeare. His body was recently identified in the backyard of the woman’s boyfriend who “befriended” him after (of course, after) the fate’s dealt him a mega wildcard.

Nobody knows yet how it happened. But before he disappeared, Abraham was quoted as saying he would have been better off having stayed poor.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8489582.stm

It happens to so many people that it’s become a cliché. Rock stars gone bankrupt. Boxers risen from the ghetto, only to return to them after their fighting days are through. Actors in hock after buying up a few too many Irish castles.

Is it the gullibility of the fool with newfound riches? Or the influx of sudden wealth which distorts friends and turns them into flatterers?

In a great line from Mofo, one of U2’s most brilliant, unheralded songs, Bono sings/laments:

Mother, you left and made me someone

Now I’m still a child… no one tells me no

Timon of Athens opens with a poet, a musician, a painter, a jeweler and a merchant waiting to enter Timon’s household. Each has brought the best of his wares to bestow upon the master of the house.

When we first meet Timon, he seems one helluva guy. He bails out acquaintances, hosts a swell feast, seems willing to give strangers the shirt off his back should they ask because , well… that’s just the way his posse rolls.

Everyone around him thinks he’s a swell fella, too. And why wouldn’t they? All you gotta do is say you admire the man’s horse, and he’ll give it to you right out from under him.

TIMON: I weight my friends’ affection with mine own…

Methinks I could deal kingdoms to my friends

And ne’er be weary.

There’s just one little-bitty, eenie-weenie, itsy-bitsy problem here. And you knew this was coming, right?

Flavius, the man who watches the purse-strings, tells us the ugly truth in an aside:

FLAVIUS: What will this come to?

He commands us to provide and give great gifts,

And all out of an empty coffer…

His promises fly so beyond his state

That what he speaks is all in debt; he owes

For every word…

Though Flavius can’t tell the man what’s what, a man named Apemantus can. He’s a roving, caustic philosopher cast yet again in the role of fool.  Or the anti-fool, really, because he is no fool. He is the lone soul besides Flavius who sees the hard reality behind what’s going on:

APEMANTUS: Immortal gods, I crave no pelf;

I pray for no man but myself;

Grant I may never prove so fond

To trust man on his oath or bond,

Or a harlot for her weeping,

Or a dog that seems a-sleeping,

Or a keeper with my freedom,

Or my friends, if I should need ‘em.

Amen. So; fall to’t;

Rich men sin, and I eat root.

He’s the lone abstainer from the kegger Timon lavishes on the fraternity boys and sorority girls in his upscale neighborhood.

Timon and the merrymakers consider him churlish and misanthropic. But I have a feeling that e’re too long, the tables will turn.

And it’s gonna hurt bad.

Late 2009….

Bryce Aime met up with the Mofo, in a secret north London location.

The plot was to shoot previously unseen pieces from Spring Summer 10.

Here are the results!

Photography: Mofo

Styling: Beth Buxton

Model: Mel Booth @ Select

Hair: Michael Jones

Make-up: Emma Little Creative

Wearing PPQ.

Well, got my labs and things back from the doctor– and we have a TSH of 0.2, FT4 of 29.0, FT3 of 6.1, and a detectable Tg… cute!  Somehow despite all of the good things with my TSH and T4, I still don’t feel great.  I’m still extremely tired and just feeling generally hypo.  Oh well– hopefully that’ll clear up soon.
Along with the lab results, I also got the recommendation letter to give to the nuclear medicine doctors in HD for my second therapy.  The endocrinologist made it clear in his letter that he has high hopes for remission following this upcoming treatment– which would be great!  Then just follow ups every 6 months!

Otherwise, things are going pretty well– studying for my physics exam that has been looming in front of me for the past 4 months, and going to the gym regularly.  It’s hard to explain, but I think my body has become addicted to cardio workouts– it’s almost as if when I don’t go, I feel bad.  I’ve been doing Tae Bo courses, as well as some stomach and back specific mini-courses… I also tried Kettelbells today– which, for those of you who have recently had thyroid surgery, really seem to strengthen the right neck muscles without making you feel like your head will fall off– I would highly recommend it!  I will also try the sauna tomorrow, after my Tae Bo course.  I can’t wait!  I haven’t been in a sauna for about 5 months– and recently I’ve been afraid because of my heart.  But I figure that if I was able to keep up in the Tae Bo courses for at least 2 in a row, my heart will withstand the heat- and hell, if I get a round of palpitations, I can always just leave and take a cold shower.

I have some pictures I took of my scar over the past few days:

January 13th-- some swelling can be seen.

I'm glowing, mother fucker! Well, not anymore, but soon again!

Scupdate from today!

I’ve been holding off on posting for a while, just until I could get my thoughts more centered– I’m not sure how centered they are now, but, ey, fuck it!

So, here’s a little update on what’s been going on:
I had an appointment with my german endocrinologist last Tuesday. (Just a little background, I had been at his practice before, for my Hashimoto’s– once, last year but he hadn’t seen me, one of the other doctors had (I assume it was because I wasn’t “interesting” enough)- I wasn’t terribly impressed as they, too, just told me that they wanted to watch the tumor grow.)
I arrive at the doctor’s office a bit early (just to be safe), check in, pay the 10 euros, and sit down.  As I’m sitting, people around me in the waiting room are just staring at the scar on my neck.  Oddly enough, none of them had one!
After about 10 minutes, the doctor calls me in, and I realize that it’s the real guy this time (considered in Germany to be the endocrine-pope)!  He escorts me into his office, we sit down, and he says “so you have a chronic thyroid disease, and you’re hypothyroid”.  To which I responded, “yes, and I also have thyroid cancer”, pointing to my scar.  He looks at me and says, “well, it doesn’t say that in your chart”… at which point I gave him my medical records that I had brought with me.  He then spends a few minutes leafing through it, not reading it very well– he then comes to the part where it says what type of thyroid cancer, he writes it down and says, “well, you’re relatively low risk”.  To which I responded, “that was a T3 tumor”.  “No, you’re mistaken, that would be a huge tumor… you have T1″.  I found this funny, because I am the patient and I’ve read/heard about my tumor before.  I then showed him where it said on the pathology report that I had a T3 tumor. “Well, it must be wrong.”  At which point I translated “extrathyroidal invasion” for him, and he said, “oh!  Ok, that’s why it’s T3… well, ok, then you’re not low risk, you’re right.”
That was fun.
He then proceeded to ask me what I had done already with the cancer treatment (1 radioactive iodine treatment, attempted (but failed) TSH suppression, etc.).  He then told me that the german protocol is that one has their ablation dosage of treatment, and then, 3 months later, one undergoes a second radiation therapy which also doubles as contrast for the scan after the second therapy.  I had my ablation on October 28th (or so–give or take a day or two), which would make me due on the 28th of January.  He took about 12 vials of blood, and said that if my Thyroglobulin is “ok” I can wait until the end of the semester.  In the mean time, the university has offered to work with me on this, whether I have to do the radiation on the 28th of January, or whether I can wait a bit.  Unfortunately, Germans are radiophobes.  This means that all thyroid cancer patients who receive radioactive iodine must do it isolated in the hospital.  They put a geiger counter to you regularly and when the number is low enough (legal level), you can go home.  For me, if I have uptake from the iodine, I will be facing about 2 week in the hospital– no visitors, nothing.  (I’ve heard that there’s a possibility that one gets a roommate for the radiation… can you imagine?  Being locked in a room with someone you don’t know for 2 weeks straight?!)
Mr. endocrinepope then asked me how I was feeling on my current L-Thyroxin dose (synthroid)- I responded that I wasn’t feeling very well… I was very tired, progressively gaining weight, having some memory problems, etc.  He then said, well, you’re not hypothyroid, so move around a bit more, get more fresh air.  To which I responded, “I do exercise regularly- I am vegetarian, and I eat healthily.  My t4 is undoubtedly not in normal range, and my TSH is skyrocketing.” He said that was impossible with the amount of L-Thyroxin I was on.  We’ll see when the tests get back, but mr. pope owes me an apology, I believe.
He also did an ultrasound and said he didn’t really see much thyroid tissue remaining, and although my lymph nodes are indeed swollen, they don’t look suspicious.
I will pick up my medical records (which he wanted to read through at his own leisure) and a letter of how he wishes to proceed with my care in a week.

Otherwise, I haven’t been doing amazingly well thy-wise.  I’ve had a lot of pain from salivary gland swelling, tear duct scarring (actually, sometimes I cant get any tears to come out on my left eye which with this weather and wind hurts a lot!), the incision, from my lymph nodes (extending from my jaw down past my left breast), and some neck pain.  I have some pretty heavy duty pain meds for it, but I don’t really like them.  I need something that is both strong enough to kill the pain, but also non-narcotic so that I don’t feel like I’m sliding around everywhere.
I was also given some new medicine which made me violently sick– I spent many delirious hours vomiting bile and anti-nausea drugs.

In other news, I’ve been going to the gym lately- I’ve attended a Tae Bo course and a stomach-focused course.  Both of which I think are absolutely great!  Medically speaking, the Tae Bo course really didn’t mix very well with my heart, and I went “faint blind”, which for me manifests itself by complete blindness where all I see is bright white light.  I needed to sit down for a while, let my heart slow down a bit and my brain get more oxygen… and I actually continued with the course, albeit a bit modified.  The stomach class was great– medically speaking, though, there were a lot of exercises for which one had to hold one’s head up without any support– I lasted for about two repetitions, then my neck gave out.
I intend to continue with these classes though!  They are excellent for my body.

Scupdate to come later this week.

Merry snow-creature-making! (even if you’re not, you should!)  I’m going to make a snow thyroid (snowroid)!

Mofo in 2006.

For the cover shoot in Grazia of Sadie Frost… Glad to hear he’s still Sadie’s snapper of choice

Check it out:

http://www.nerve.com/photography/

AW09 Teeser Top: Exclusive to Apartment C

Sadie Frost covers up in Bryce Aime AW09 Teeser Top following an exclusive unairbrushed photoshoot with the Mofo for Grazia’s opening January edition.

Sadie Frost in Jan edition of Grazia. We decided it was a New Year, new start, and chose for the final shots to leave unretouched…and she looks fucking great.

Mofo x

2nd shot black n white – wearing Bryce Aime

I wrote a letter to my thyroid and it was published by DearThyroid earlier today.  Take a look!

Happy New Year!  I hope this one will be soooooooooooo much better than last– for everyone.

I hope that the new year will be a cancer-free one, spent with a good TSH range, and minimal health problems!

This commencement of a decade rises in my mind, something that will happen within this decade, something momentous and life changing (hopefully not just for me), and that is, that by the end of this decade, I’ll be a doctor.  I’ll be able to help fellow thyroid patients and give them the care they deserve… not the poor current standard.

Well, last night’s festivities left me with a couch and a computer that have a pretty strong wine smell and some empty bowls- I’m off to bring the apartment back into shape.



Thyroid diseases and thyroid cancers are fun, right? Unfortunately not; they deeply affect us as patients and our families, indelibly leaving an imprint on our minds, bodies and souls. None of it is easy. If we’re going to bring awareness to this disease, we have to come together as a family. Our collective voices have the power to invoke change. Because the holidays are a time of celebration with the people we love and a time to reflect, what better way to ignite change, and move our stories forward, oh and have a laugh along the way, than to connect with each other?

Questions:

1)     Have the holidays and your experience of them changed since you’ve been diagnosed?

It has been less than a year since my diagnosis, but of course it came in time for the holidays.  Thanksgiving and the festivities surrounding it were extra special because some of my relatives thought I might not make it for the next couple of holidays and that they wanted to come after this traumatic bushel, so they thought they ought to come in to see me.  We had more than 20 people at our table.  I found that this year, the discussion wasn’t focused on me, but all of the eyes were.  Everyone looked at me while discussing other matters—as if to check and see if I were still alive.
During the other holiday season, I was back “home” in Germany, and with the other side of my family—I found that after the children were dismissed from the table, the questions began, but otherwise there was really no difference.

2)     What is your favorite holiday food/dish from childhood?  What is your favorite dish now? (Did you have to change your diet at all since being diagnosed?)

My favorite holiday dishes from childhood are mashed potatoes (with the skins) and cranberry sauce.  They remain my favorites—and luckily I got done with my low iodine diet before Thanksgiving, so that I could indulge in both.

3)     Off the top of your head, is there one comment from friends or family that sticks out in your mind as a what-were-they-thinking kind of thing that brought your disease front and center for everyone at the holiday function to hear about?

At a university holiday party in Heidelberg a professor of mine said, “Wow, your haircut is really horrible”.  To which I responded “radiation, hormones”.  He then continued to make a big fuss about it until he finally listened to me and then asked “well, what does that have to do with your hair”—I then said “I have cancer.” He looked at me shocked (but I am aware that the administration in the medical program definitely had told him) and I added, “the hormone imbalance makes me lose lots of hair, and the doctor suggested I just cut it super short so that when they fall out, they’ll match coming back in”.  Most of my classmates were standing around to witness the event, which made it super awkward for those who didn’t know why I had been gone for the past two months.

4)     How do you get through the stress of the holidays, paired with a disease? What are your coping strategies?

Because my TSH has yet to be regulated, I have the nice effects of a rapid increase in L-thyroxin (Synthroid) dosage.  When I get upset or stressed I get heart palpitations.  So I’ve tried to take the most stressful moments with humor—although it makes me look funny, sitting there while everyone else is screaming at each other, laughing, it has kept any medical professionals from needing to use paddles.

5)     Do you feel the need to enlighten and educate your loved ones about your disease when you get together for holidays, as people are often curious about our illnesses?  If so, how do you educate them?

I do not usually feel the need to enlighten or educate those around me during holiday get-togethers—mainly because I don’t feel like scaring any of them.  As is, my nuclear family is on a need to know basis about my thyroid cancer—they have yet to understand the magnitude of a stage 3 tumor and the ridiculousness that I only had 3 lymph nodes removed.  If they knew this, though, I promise they would be either be inconsolable with complete confusion, in disbelief, or just be plain super upset.

6)     Has your disease ever showed up at the wrong time on a holiday and ruined the day or moment?

No, not really… during Thanksgiving, my neck muscles were in their ripest stage following the surgery and sometimes they’d just give out and my head would plop to the side—in order to prevent such an occurrence or related injuries, I wore one of those neck pillows that looks like a toilet seat.  I decided not to wear my pillow that evening, and just as I was engaged in conversation with my aunt, my neck gave a bit.  It was awkward, and then I had a few complaints of various pains (these I would ordinarily expect to be ignored)… I have a feeling that that really pushed my disease to the forefront and gave my family a bit of a spank-in-the-ass reminder that I was “sick”.

7)     Have you thought about submitting a letter to Dear Thyroid? If so, would your letter be a love letter or a hate letter? Would it be to your thyroid or from your thyroid?

I have and did, it was a hate letter to my thyroid and will be published in the beginning of January.

8)     If you could tell the world one thing about thyroid disease (or thyroid cancer) that you feel they don’t understand, what would it be?

It isn’t all the same.  I loathe hearing people say, “Oh yeah, my friend had that, but she’s just fine now.”  Or “Yes, I knew someone who had that, and it was hard in the beginning, but once she got over it, she was fine for life.”  That makes me boil inside, the problem is, though, I know that they’re trying to relate to me or console me, so I don’t lash out at them (despite the extreme urge) and explain that everyone’s body works differently, and living without a thyroid is different from living with out a thyroid because you had thyroid cancer, etc.

9)     What is the greatest misconception regarding thyroid disease and thyroid cancer?

That it’s curable and can be easily fixed by a simple pill once a day.  I wish this misconception would stop being propagated by websites and unknowing doctors.  If you’ve found a way to cure cancer, you better go tell someone ‘cause you’ll get a fucking Nobel Prize for that—until then, stop telling me that I can be “cured” (my Thyroglobulin is still detectable… and I don’t see it going away any time soon, despite the radiation treatment  went through).

10)  What is the stupidest thing someone has said to you regarding your illness that, to this day, still makes you laugh or makes you angry?

The stupidest thing someone has said to me was probably the day of my diagnosis, after I had received the phone call, I arrived at my parent’s house crying, and I told my mother, at which point she started yelling at me, asking me for a “term to google” and I told her “papillary-follicular thyroid cancer”… two minutes later she ran out of her office and screamed “I don’t know what you’re so upset about, it’s curable!”

Dear Thyroid is a literary thyroid support community and blog. Thyroid patients are invited to submit Dear Thyroid letters; love letters and hate letters, among other thyroid literary things, such as Thyrants, Thygraphs, Thykus, Thyetry and Thysongs, etc. Our goals are for all of us as a community of patients to connect with each other and our diseases, and to bring awareness to thyroid diseases and thyroid cancers, we need and deserve a face and a voice. For our non-literary crew, we have monthly Flickr pools. Recently, we launched Dear Thyroid Local Meet Ups for offline support. Dear Thyroid Forums are forthcoming in December.

Today is funny… not funny good or funny bad– but just funny.  I went to bed a bit before 1am last night, and woke up around 4am in a really bad night sweat, only to realize that I had a fever and that it took all of the energy my recent sleep had collected, to sit myself up.  I had some water, and couldn’t really hold my body up much more, so I let myself sink back into bed.  A few hours later I woke up to a nightmare which I now only vaguely remember… but it had something to do with my new apartment and my relatives who live in the USA.  It was, to say the least, a nonsense dream.
I then decided that, although I hadn’t slept to my goal hour in the morning, I would just lounge about in bed until then.  As I rolled over to check my emails I saw another (of a recent series) cold, daunting email from my ex.  I finally picked myself back up to write an upset email back to him, went outside for some fresh air, and told myself that I am better than this.  I came back inside, tried to distract myself by reading what I thought was a book of humor, but it turns out, only some of the quotes are humorous! I showered, made myself some food (first time using the stove here!!! It was awesome! Heated up really fast and everything!), and sat down to work.  And as I began, I heard a loud explosion, and looked out the window to see a very fat cat sitting on my window sill.  It was bizarre.  I have yet to understand what the explosion was, and I believe the fat cat belongs to my landlord.  Anyway, what relates my morning to my thyroid is that with every step of this morning, my neck has had a different pain.  It’s bizarre.  Not to mention my body’s neutrophils being super pissed off at the radiation and giving me these fevers and weakness.

I’m heading off to Hamburg tomorrow, so I suspect this might be my last post before the Thyoliday Blues and Truths post on the 28th!

Stay tuned!

Exactly 3 Months Post-Op

Also, I noticed that that little speck next to my scar, on the right hand side on the picture, is actually where the end of my stitches is… it’s where there was a wee thinger hanging out while the tape was on it… and probably the reason for my thyknife!  Anyway, just an observation!