Red Light Green Light

/ wvfurandroot / 6 Comments

What is it with people? I’m serious, folks – can someone explain the phenomenon of accelerating towards a red light? I just don’t get it.

I’m toodling along in my car. I see that the light ahead of me is red. I do not accelerate. I don’t assume that a light that’s just turned red is going to be green in 50 feet. And even if it had been red for awhile, I wouldn’t accelerate because there are too many stupid people out there who run red lights. [I’m entitled to say this as I was a stupid person once and did $6000 worth of damage to a car I’d yet to make the first payment on. I just didn’t see the damn light.]

As soon as I see a red light, I do not brake, but I do ease up on the accelerator. Besides just basic common sense (which as Twain said was neither), this method provides better fuel economy and brakes last far longer. I get more mileage out of brakes than anyone I know – and it’s not because I don’t ever use ‘em. It’s because I don’t do the foot switcheroo of racing to the stoplight only to slam on the brakes. At the appropriate time, I begin braking – a gentle process which does not send stuff flying off the seat of the car.

People, particularly those near the university, get annoyed with me. They pass me, race to the stoplight, slam on their brakes and at the next light, I who have had a serene stoplight experience, am still neck and neck with the Accelerator Asshole.

And it’s not just red lights. Something about the red, I think. The Matador and the Bull Syndrome, I call it. Red brake lights will provoke Accelerator Assholes too.

My Ex used to drive me crazy. We made a fair number of road trips, the most horrific of which was the annual pilgrimage to Milwaukee. There is no efficient way to get to Milwaukee from here without going through Chicago. As a matter of fact, going straight through Chicago is much less fraught with fear and anxiety attacks than is the by-pass around Chicago. Except for, roughly, the hours between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., the entire population of Chicago is in separate cars on the interstate. By the time you factor in truckers, tourists, and poor lost souls, 25% of the US population is trying to get out of Chicago. Hell is rush hour in the Windy City – it’s 80 mph bumper to bumper.

There would be a sea of red brake lights. Hundreds of cars with their brake lights quite visibly engaged. The man I was married to for 20 years would speed up every time. I’d kick a hole in the passenger side floorboards trying to hit that imaginary brake some folks think exist on that side of the car and which I think a real one needs to be installed on any car I ride in.

I’d glare at him. He’d look at me and say, “What?” I’d tell him what. Every trip we did this. Every trip we had this conversation. Every trip I needed a valium by the time we were hauling suitcases out of the car.

I was once a brake light that someone slammed into. In the guy’s defense, I guess, his story was that he was distracted by a dog and didn’t notice the light had changed. Nonetheless, I’d been sitting at the stoplight by the post office long enough to pull out the envelopes I needed to mail. [And believe it or not, the guy admitted fault to me, the cops, and his co-workers – he was in a company truck – and nearly 3 years later we are no closer to settling this damn thing than we were in April of 2007. Do not ever get into a car accident with a Major Utility.]

Because I am not and never have been an Accelerator Asshole, I am alive.

In 1979, I slid on a patch of ice at a railroad crossing and slid into a moving train. As was my wont, when I saw the train warning lights, I had eased up on the gas and was beginning the gentle braking process. Had I been either accelerating or going fast enough to need to slam on the brakes, I would be dead. Serious.

The cop at the scene said to me, “I expected to have to scrape you out of this car with a spoon.” As it was, the train dragged me a bit, but the ice would slide me around so it was bump, drag, bounce, bump, drag, bounce until the train finally stopped. It was the longest 10 minutes of my life – yes, a moderately-fast-moving train takes that long to stop. I didn’t have a scratch on me although I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. The car was totaled.

For years, I couldn’t drive over train tracks without a supreme case of the heebie jeebies.

Today, I am preparing to stop at the red light by the train tracks near the university. Accelerator asshole behind me whips his car around mine and runs the light. It was not yellow, it was blazing red. Some testosterone ridden frat boy (is that redundant?) was not to be outdone, so he ran the light too and the two of them raced to the next light. Dueling Accelerator Assholes – just exactly what I want on my morning commute. Yeah, boy.

There is no justice. Had I pulled a stunt like that, my butt would be in jail or, at the very least, in traffic court.

Believe it or not, I do not have even the slightest tendency towards road rage. It’s pointless and does nothing but ruin my mood. When these things happen, I marvel at the stupidity and continue toodling along in my normal fashion. I do take great delight in sitting at a stoplight and smiling at the driver, who three stoplights back, got his panties all tangled up because I was driving “too slow” – I always want to say, “Well, darlin’, would you look at this – here we both are and yet. . .” But I don’t. Other people seem to have bad cases of road rage and, with my luck, Accelerator Asshole would shoot me or something.

So,w hat stupid thing do drivers do that gets you to wondering about the collective intelligence of humans?

One-Five-Nine (No Kidding)

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments

You've got to be kidding me.

About 15 years ago, I went to my doctor and complained bitterly about brain fog, fatigue and general malaise. I was sure it was my thyroid. And sure enough it was.

As a child, I had been hyper-thyroid. Apparently, children as young as I was don’t develop thyroid problems at the age of 9. They’re either born with them (and often die before diagnosed) or it just doesn’t happen until later in life. Not only was I hyperthyroid, I was extremely so and had a goiter big enough to double as a softball. I’m in medical journals. There was no real protocol for treating children and I was a research hospital’s guinea pig. They did not want to remove the thyroid for a host of reasons. I endured weekly (and sometimes twice weekly) medical appointments and testing for the better part of two years.

The treatment was successful, but my parents were warned that I may never undergo puberty and might never have children. Well. I did undergo puberty – in spades – though I attribute my lack of cleavage to after-effects of massive doses of thyroid hormones. [Every woman on both sides of my family is very well-endowed to the point where breast reduction surgery is often undertaken. I’m a standout oddity.] I also have Chef Boy ‘R Mine as witness to my childbearing abilities.

I’d been complaining, 20 years ago, that something wasn’t right with my thyroid. For the first time in my life, I could pinch an inch. I couldn’t get enough sleep, etc. etc. I kept testing in the normal range. I tried to explain to them that although I wasn’t medicated, I had been somewhat hyperthyroid since I quit taking the meds when I was 10. I was on a downward slope, but I had no street cred with the docs and they couldn’t have cared less what I thought. Low normal was still normal – never mind that I’d been slightly hyper for years.

Fifteen years ago, I persuaded them to do the full thyroid panel and sure enough I was hypothyroid.

The full panel of thyroid tests reveals all sorts of things, but for people with my diagnosis – Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis – the TSH number is the important one. 3.0 is considered the upper range of normal. Most docs don’t like for folks to get below 0.5 to 1.0 or above 5.0. I don’t recall what that first TSH number was – pretty big. I TOLD them I felt awful; I still don’t know why they were so surprised.

So. That was my second real indication that I’m pretty in tune with my body – the first was sensing that Chef Boy ‘R Mine was fixin’ to be a miscarriage before there were any real signs. I know when things are wrong.

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. A simple explanation is that my thyroid thinks it is allergic to itself and keeps trying to commit suicide. Even missing my meds for just a day can provoke mayhem and carnage. Even medicated, periodic adjustments are required. A few years ago, I felt like crap and developed a goiter. I called the doc. My TSH was 39 –yes 39. Thirty-nine times the upper range of normal. He was astonished. I’d only missed three or four days of my meds.

The amount of Synthroid I take boggles the mind of my hypothyroid friends. Hypothyroidism is epidemic among women in this country. The last I heard, it was estimated that 40% of American women are hypothyroid with most of them undiagnosed. Since Oprah got diagnosed, I imagine that a few more are insisting their doctors run the thyroid panel. But regular hypothyroidism is not the same as Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. Look at it like this – there’s the common cold and then there’s bronchitis.

So, over the years, my thyroid acts up, I feel like crap, and I call the doctor. I’m always right and they no longer argue with me. We run the tests, we up the Synthroid, and off I go on my merry way.

Tired? I should be comatose.

I’ve been sleeping a lot lately, but I haven’t had brain fog and I don’t have a goiter. It’s been a cold, yucky winter and my stress levels are THIS HIGH. [Connie holds her hand two feet above her head.] I’m very in tune with my body and nothing was on my radar.

The family practitioner insisted we run a thyroid panel. I was opposed. I thought it unnecessary testing that would end up costing me a couple hundred dollars. We argued, she won. She also ran my cholesterol.

Well. My cholesterol is in the “needs medication” column and my TSH is, no shit, ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-NINE. One Five Nine. That’s 5300% higher than it should be.

Well, shit-fire, no wonder I’m tired. I should be near comatose based on past experience.

I’m inclined to think something went awry with this test. With a TSH of 39, I could barely get out of bed, every spot of arthritis in my body was screaming, my skin was so dry I was a cloud of dead skin cells, and I was thoroughly miserable. I was also unable to remember anything. At a 39 TSH, my world was wallpapered with sticky notes lest I forget something. No kidding, I had sticky notes to remind me to do stuff you wouldn’t think needed reminders. I had “brush teeth” on the medicine cabinet and “go to work” on the steering wheel of the car. I would forget what I was doing in the middle of doing it.

It was awful. If I do, in fact, have a TSH of 159, I should be too bumfuzzled and confoozled to type this much less actually awake at 8 p.m. The only hesitation with dismissing it out of hand is that my cholesterol is high. Traditionally, my cholesterol numbers are good when my thyroid is functioning well. Hypothyroidism correlates with high cholesterol. Many folk find that when they’re properly medicated for thyroid problems, high cholesterol problems go away.

So. Today I read that menopause is suspected to interfere with the body’s ability to process Synthroid. Upon reading that, I threw up my hands and ran amok in the hallways for awhile. Menopause’s unbloody hands appear to affect every facet of my life. I’m tired of it. And I’m tired. And I have a TSH of 159.

I’m still functioning and for that I’m grateful. I’m much too busy to crawl into bed for the 4-6 weeks it will take to get things up to speed.

If you know a woman who’s tired of being tired, suggest she get her thyroid checked. There’s no need to be miserable. Until they figure out why all of us womenfolk are having this problem, there’s not much to be done for it other than get a diagnosis and some prescriptions. (And if you have been diagnosed and medicated, but still feel like crap, get your B12 serum levels checked – B12 deficiency goes hand-in-hand with thyroid problems.)