Hi everyone, I hope you are all well and have had a great week so far. Thank you for all the engagement with the last post particularly everyone who sent a message of condolence regarding my aunt. Thank you EG for continuing to be vulnerable about your journey and I am glad you can see via the feedback I shared with you, how this helps many women understand what’s happening to them. EG thinks we need a support group for deeper engagement, what do the rest of you think? I like connecting with those who read so please shoot an email to me. If you get this by newsletter, just hit reply, it comes right to me. This year, I will try to be more educative with Instagram, sharing information I read that helps with fertility and women’s health in general, follow @ourwombs. It goes against my personal goal to use the app less, but I pray to God for balance because that Instagram is a destiny stealing tool, LOL.
Let me jump right into things today. I am sharing Toyin’s journey with her thyroid and attendant issues related to it. Toyin is one of the blessings Ourwombs has given me, we connected when she emailed me about Onomoresoa’s story and I am humbled she opened up to me about her own journey. It is quite detailed so I will share it in two parts - This, and next week. I should also add that it is very intense and possibly triggering. Shall we begin?
Toyin begins her journey nine years ago so 2013, when she notices sharp abdominal pains. An abdominal scan will show multiple fibroids. Her gynaecologist’s promptly informs her to begin trying for babies and she took the advice seriously. After six months of trying with no conception, she proceeds to have her tubes checked via a HSG test which came back normal so it was on to ovulation tracking as the doctors suspected PCOS. It was quickly discovered that her ovulation cycle was weird, she could check today and the results would be ovulation yet to occur and then check back tomorrow and be told, oh now it has occurred! Did you not feel it? In 2015, she had a myomectomy taking out sixteen fibroids. She was asked to rest briefly and immediately begin trying before the fibroids reoccurred. In 2018, she successfully had a baby via caesarean section. The doctors had told her after a myomectomy, this was the only option. This is not true by the way, My sister has a CS for her first child and has had three vaginal births afterwards abroad. Nigerian doctors like to save time and cut you open. Hiss,
Right after the delivery, she noticed a swelling on her neck. The gynae told her it was a possible calcium deficiency and placed her on calcium supplements for a year. She had gained weight to around 95kg post baby and worked hard to shift that weight to 88kg but realized the swelling was not going down. Further endocrine tests will show that she had issues with her thyroid, the test results came back in the normal range but skewed towards the upper limit. I like how detailed she is in explaining the issues she faced, she doesn’t throw big words at me and leave me googling frantically *side eyes some of you former story tellers*, instead she explains step by step.
Toyin describes the Thyroids as the “gbegborun” of the body. I hope I spelt that right, I also chuckled there. So, I understand Yoruba and knows what she means but how does one translate gbegborun to others now. Google translate says it means “hundreds” ermmmmm nah Google. More like busybody. Back to quoting her “it is a butterfly shaped gland in your neck that regulates most functions like metabolism, heart rates, for women it regulates periods, hormonal levels, weight gain, and even hair growth”. Ladies and gentlemen, I agree at the description, this is a real busy body! She was advised to take a test to check three parameters - Thyroid stimulating hormones, T3 and T4. She explains this in more details and I really tried but darn, I couldn’t process it, it is not everything I will know last last so please read here for more details abeg. From what I gleaned, Hyperthyroidism is when you produce too much hormones in the thyroid. Basically, an overactive thyroid that makes metabolism incredibly fast causing rapid weight loss, heart palpitations and tremors. These are people who can lose like 10kg in a week with minimal effort. The reverse is Hypothyroidism or lazy thyroids when not enough hormone is produced so extremely slow metabolism, slow heart rate and weight gain amongst other things. She says she had just a weekend of bad eating and piled on 9kg in that weekend. *sprinkles the blood*.
There are two ways to correct thyroid issues;
Open neck surgery to take it out.
Radioactive Iodine pills given under doctor’s supervision to kill off the thyroids.
She was asked to research these options and lose some weight as it would be harder to do so when she had her thyroid removed. This was at the start of the pandemic and while she was doing her homework, we all went into a lockdown, and she got pregnant.
Seven weeks into the pregnancy, she woke up at night, bleeding, medium spotting. A scan would show that she had an open cervix with fluids in her wombs. She was placed on bed rest for two months with strict instructions not to lift heavy items including her son and the possibility of a cerclage to her cervix if need be. At about 18 weeks, she was re-examined, the bleeding had stopped, the cervix was closed and no fluids in womb, the baby was in good condition too. The very next day, she woke up about 1am with a sharp pain and lots of blood on the bed, she rushed to the bathroom with the urge to pee and there was a gush of water. She didn’t realize it then because she had had a CS with her previous pregnancy, but her water had broken, she was in labour and losing the baby. She states “Part of me knew it was done before I went into the hospital, I had lost the baby”. There was a lockdown and vehicular movement was prohibited, she rang her gynae who asked if she could wait it out till the morning. At first light, she was rushed to the teaching hospital in the city she resides in, a pad in place to contain the flow and a towel on the car seat to prevent leaks. By the time she arrived the hospital, the towel was soaked through. Due to Covid protocols and just the general madness of the start of the pandemic, she was asked to wait outside the barricade, and they were asking all sorts of “pandemic questions” to which she retorted, Do COVID patients bleed from their Vagina?". There she stood, in front of the A&E dripping blood on the floor and being told she couldn’t come in as she had to be wheeled in, a distance she observed she could have easily walked as opposed to bleeding out publicly while leaning on her husband for support as the hospital staff ran about looking for a stretcher a then more run around for sheets.
Once inside, the doctors informed her that she was in labour, and her body was trying to expel the baby. There was no heartbeat. Naturally, there was the drama of finding her hospital card, yes card as this is a teaching hospital and the list of things to be procured by her husband before treatment could commence. All the while, she lay in intense pain, still bleeding away. She was given Pitocin to help induce labour - two tablets placed under her tongue and one transvaginally. She describes it as “someone put a wedge to my uterus and squeezed and squeezed”. Finally, the baby came out, stillbirth, a baby girl.
The doctor then informed her that the placenta had not been expelled and he would like to get her into surgery to remove it or help pull it out by …sigh…inserting his arm into her vagina…and that is what he did. As the right elbow length gloves were not available, he improvised by cutting up regular latex gloves and securing it to his arm then went in, prodding about while simultaneously pressing down on her belly for force. Her screams reached the reception area, she had just lost her baby and now this? He pulled out the placenta, observes it and then states “I have to go back in as I think there are pieces”…Toyin states that she has a very high pain threshold but she lost it. She says, if I had a gun….
When the ordeal is over, and she has to get up for the bed to be cleaned, the bed was tipped to the side, and blood poured out in a large flow. She spent the night for observation and was discharged with antibiotics. A week later, she realized she was feeling unwell, a quick temperature check would show her body temperature dropping. She had developed an infection and her body was going into septic shock. Thankfully, her sister who is a medical doctor caught it in time and doubled her antibiotics and that curtailed things. Her GP informed her the miscarriage could have been due to her thyroid function…Let us go back to the thyroids she says…
This is where I will leave things off, to be picked up next week…This was hard for me to listen to and write, I have four audio files from Toyin and after the second one, I had to take a break. This two parts is for my sanity as much as yours…Till next time.
Love x Light
My God! The strength of women!
My God!