When you become sick, you suddenly notice every sensation with an acute awareness.

Each pain brings up the question of whether or not this means something deeper is lingering underneath. Each flash of emotion brings the possibility of it being a medication side effect rather than just a life side effect.

Am I sad because I have cancer and life is tough right now? Or am I sad because my hormone levels are unbalanced?

Am I gaining weight because my medication dose is too low? Or am I just not exercising enough?

Each feeling, every detail noticed, becomes a potential shadow to something larger.

I used to just let my feelings be. I would think, “I’m tired today”, and I wouldn’t dwell any more on the subject. Perhaps it would merely result in choosing to go to bed earlier that night.

But now, I ponder more deeply when I think, “I’m tired today”. This is the third day in a row that I have felt this depleted. Did I forget my medication? Is it because I woke up an hour earlier? Did I eat something that caused my energy to drop?

My heightened awareness has created an inability to let feelings simply come and go. I can’t trust that my thoughts or my physical sensations are organic, natural.

Everything has to be examined.

Lots of people may experience moments of forgetfulness. But when “brain fog” becomes a concept recognized as a side effect listed on the side of a prescription bottle, it gets a bit more complicated.

Everything needs to be tracked. Doctors need details, not general statements.

The difficulty with thyroid issues is that many of the symptoms of irregularity are intangible. How do you quantify fatigue? Brain fog? Depression?

These largely variable feelings need to be assigned a significance.

I know when I go into my next appointment, they will ask me a series of compounding questions.

How long? How often? How intense?

So I log everything. My weight. My headaches. My energy. My sleep. My breakdowns.

How long? 2 months.

How often? 4 times a week.

How intense? A 6 or 7 out of 10.

Concrete, measurable, scientific. This has become my way of tracking my well-being.