People ask me all the time “When do you write?”
Since I am currently unemployed while I wait for my next surgery, I started referring to myself as a ‘writer’, and I think anyone else who writes would have a similar answer to mine. I write when I have dozens or perhaps even hundreds of ideas floating around in my head until I can’t think of anything else except for those thoughts and I will not do anything else until they are put to paper. While I am not necessarily new to writing, I am new to allowing anyone at any time to read my thoughts with a click of a mouse.
While Graves Disease has robbed me of many things, including the answer to the question “So what do you do?” when I meet people, it has given me a new answer which holds more pride behind it than any job I’ve ever done in my life.
“I’m a writer.”
I feel confident saying that because it is more than just a job that pays bills for some people, it’s a personality characteristic like singing; you either ‘have it or you don’t’. What exactly makes someone a 'writer'? Is it based the amount of reads a peice gets, or is it the value of the words? While I search for my new identity after Graves Disease has taken away nearly everything I thought I was; writing has become a new comfort zone & release for me.
I am just finishing my first month of being off work which has left me nothing but time to let my thoughts wander through every capacity this illness puts a person through.
I am just finishing my first month of being off work which has left me nothing but time to let my thoughts wander through every capacity this illness puts a person through.
Here is just one of many;
On Beauty:
On Beauty:
With TV ads, movies, magazines and billboards nearly everywhere you look the message companies are trying to bombard you with is clear; being beautiful is important. There is a product to erase wrinkles, diminish dark circles, change your hair color and make you skinner. But what if your biggest beauty insecurity is only fixable through surgery?
No, I’m not talking about breast implants or a nose job. Those are for cosmetic reasons while getting an eye decompression is for sheer normalcy again. Haven’t heard of it? Neither had I until last year. This is a surgery I qualify for next year to scale down the protrusion of my eyes caused by complications of Graves Disease.
For those who don’t know, basically the surgeon makes an incison down your face, starting from the corner of your eyes outward, lifts your eyes & goes behind them to take tissue (or bone depending on the severity of your condition) and makes more room for your eyeballs to expand into; creating a more normal ‘non-staring’ gaze. The reason I have to wait is because the cycle in which Graves eyes change is about 18 months, plus a 9 month post waiting period afterwards, as they cannot do surgery while the eyes are still changing.
Your entire life, whether you acknowledge it or not, revolves around someone telling you ways to make yourself better. This is where my frustration comes in. There is nothing I can do to stop what is happening to me & society tells you that eyes should not look like this so I desperately try to cling to normalcy by spending hundreds of dollars yearly buying expensive eye make-up & false eyelashes to help cover it up.
Your entire life, whether you acknowledge it or not, revolves around someone telling you ways to make yourself better. This is where my frustration comes in. There is nothing I can do to stop what is happening to me & society tells you that eyes should not look like this so I desperately try to cling to normalcy by spending hundreds of dollars yearly buying expensive eye make-up & false eyelashes to help cover it up.
Something recently caught my eye on the internet; a campaign to get Mattel to create a “Cancer Barbie” which resembles a young girl going through chemotherapy treatments. While the idea is so simple, it is enough to bring tears to your eyes even thinking about the children in the hospital who play with their beautiful luscious blonde haired and perfectly sculpted Barbie’s wondering why they don’t look like that while battling an illness. I truly hope they can create this one day to teach the new generation that beauty comes in all shapes in forms.
If I could ask for only one thing out of sharing all my insecurities for the world to read is that one day a younger Graves patient stumbles across my blog and finds comfort in my words that things do get better. Not soon, not easily and not without pain; but they do.
If I could ask for only one thing out of sharing all my insecurities for the world to read is that one day a younger Graves patient stumbles across my blog and finds comfort in my words that things do get better. Not soon, not easily and not without pain; but they do.
When I was first diagnosed I hid it from everyone except my immediate friends & family. I felt shame for having a “Disease.” After months of pills, needles, surgery and leaving only bits & pieces of cryptic information on my Facebook for people to form their own opinions on; I decided it was better to educate people than to try and hide from people figuring it out.
That’s the beauty of starting a project like writing. This blog has grown from just my family reading it, to friends, to a newspaper featuring a story on it, to readers literally from around the world. I even recently took a chance & wrote to the Ellen show about Graves because; why not?
That’s the beauty of starting a project like writing. This blog has grown from just my family reading it, to friends, to a newspaper featuring a story on it, to readers literally from around the world. I even recently took a chance & wrote to the Ellen show about Graves because; why not?
The more people that understand what exactly this illness is and how it affect a person, the more accepted the patients of the future will be, hopefully making them more comfortable to come out into society with bulgy eyes and needle marks from the hospital visits… and who knows - maybe I can help pioneer the first ever Graves Disease Barbie in time!
So Cheers to the broken road; the one that seemed to take us on a twisted, complicated, dark path but lead us to a better place. It may have not taken you to where you intended to go but you ended stumbling upon on bigger & better dreams for yourself. Let the journey’s bumps along the road motivate you to help another, and never forget to be kind to others because you never know what they are going through.
“Until next time; "thanks for reading my blog" and please do me the courtesy of sending it to others....
-Rayanne Forbes
