We all like to put our best foot forward. We all like to have a view of ourselves we present to the outside world. Sometimes the presentation is real and sometimes it’s not. I admit that if you randomly stop by my house, often you will find it in chaos, but if I know you are coming it will have the presentation of being in order. This is why when some people scroll through Facebook, they may get depressed because everyone looks like they have a perfect life, but if you look behind the curtain….

That perfect family vacation picture a friend posted…. You might not see all the yelling it took to get everyone to stand still and smile.

That perfect dinner a friend posted….. You might not see the night that dinner was thrown out and they had to order out

That perfect marriage your friend always boasts about….. Well who knows.

Perfect lives are never perfect.

A Hypopara friend said this about me in our support group the other day…

I have to say this as someone who has followed your journey, I am so impressed by you! You recently started Natpara and was doing better on your runs and now things are changing again (hopefully temporarily,) the way you are handling it all (don’t know if you feel the same on the inside,) but on the outside it has been source of strength for me. *Hugs* my friend!

Like everyone in our small Hypopara community on Natpara, this came out of left field. We were all rocked. The morning before the news was released I literally uttered the words about Natpara, “I can’t go back.”

Well now I have no choice. Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe it’s not, but either way; It is what it is. What it is is sucky. For some it may lead to hospital stays, Calcuim crashes, and a host of things. I admit that I am angry. I am frustrated by lack of info. I am scared. Survey any Hypopara patient and I would bet that our number one fear is Calcuim crash. Second is probably Kidney damage.

I further admit that I am lucky. Even before starting Natpara I was able to do more than so many could. Don’t get me wrong it took it’s toll and I often told my family that I made it look easy to them; but it was pretty damn hard to get through the day. I fear going back to feeling that way. I fear the side effects of low calcium, hurting my kidneys, and not feeling like me again.

But these are the breaks. These are the cards being dealt me today (although I do have one week of Natpara). I learned a long, long, long time ago that in life there is much out of our control. Yes, you can get mad. You can get frustrated. You can be sad. What you can’t do is not deal with the reality that is before you. When you don’t that is when you will have problems.

So this next week, I will continue to touch base with my doctor. I will stock up on my meds. I will figure out how and when to take 2,500 mg of Calcuim and 100 mg Calcitrol during the day because your body can only absorb 500 mg at a time. Plus I can’t take it near my thyroid meds which I was already having issues with. I will plan. I will plot. I will fill up my pill box and I will adjust.

Meanwhile I still am planning to run a marathon. That will be for tomorrow’s post…….