This is a little embarrassing, but if it can help any of my ageing friends, so be it!

So I have  lot of health challanges. Nothing I can't handle, but I now have a deeper understanding of chronic conditions now that I have a bunch of them. I'm not complaining. I'm sharing. I'm sharing two of them because maybe it can help one of my good friends who are also facing middle age.

Testosterone

It’s not the best of times when your urologist doesn’t even want to say it out loud. “Testicular Failure” she had written it and pointed to it. Do you know what this means she asks? It means you’re low on Testosterone, you are at 200 and “normal” is 300 to 1,000.

How could this be? Me. Low on the man hormone. No way. I have kids. I have sex. This can’t be right. I am manly if I do say so myself. Come on throw me a bone.

What did you say that made me suggest we test you? I said, “I feel older than I should be. I am not the man I used to be. I’m weak.” OK OK.

So I’ve been getting a Testosterone shot every two weeks for about three months now and have been confirmed “normal” and I must admit that the results are anything but!

Call me a new man! I’m still 45. BUT I AM STRONG and I’m not tired all the time! I’M NOT OLD!!!

Thyroid

Seventeen years ago something similar happen to me when my thyroid decided to go super hyper active on me and Grave’s Disease almost did me in.  Prior to diagnoses my brother said our mother wants to know if you moved to Aspen to die of aids? I said I don’t think I am dying of aids, shouldn’t be dying of aids, but since I was so sick again I would go the doctor to find out. I got a blood test and took a serious personal inventory. I had lost 60 lbs. was on my third case of bronchitis this year, had the shakes, sweat profusely, my hair was falling out, and was having trouble keeping up with my two jobs. I was also seldom sober.

Dr. Mass said I got good news and bad news. You are HIV negative! But your Thyroid is higher than I‘ve ever seen. If this is Graves we are going to have to radiate your Thyroid and put it out of service. You will then take a supplement for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. I was young and I was dumb. At 6’ 3” 205 lbs. I was still strong. I was not fat for the first time since college! I was going to heal my Thyroid. That didn’t work out so well for me. I remember I was on a favorite hike with a few good friends. We were going up to Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs and I couldn’t make it. Half way up I got really weak and my strength never came back. I saw fear for me in the faces of my friends. When I went back to Dr. Mass I was just under 150 lbs. and suffering from another nasty respitory infection. I asked for that radiation thing and she said she was afraid I may have waited too long. I said too long for what. Too long for you to recover. I was too tired to argue.

So I made it to my appointment the next morning at the Aspen Valley Hospital’s Nuclear Medicine Department to receive my single massive dose of radioactive iodine in a single giant horse pill. For the rest of the year I felt like Superman!

So I take a Thyroid pill every morning and a Testosterone shot every other week and for the second time in my life I feel like I can take on the world! If you’re a man and not feeling like the man you used to be, test your hormones. I did and it changed my life, twice.