Year In Review: 2023

Sun 29 Dec 2024:
I started this post on 12/30/2023, worked on it on New Year’s Day 2024 and again on January 10th, and never got back to it. As 2024 is coming to a close, I thought about completing it properly before starting my 2024 Year In Review, but decided I would post it as I last left it (with a few edits for clarity and privacy). This is more of a reminder for Future Diana about what happened in 2023, anyway, and the Brain Dump section at the end pretty much sums up what I had already forgotten.


It’s not that 2023 was a bad year, per se. Nothing super tragic happened to me or anyone in my immediate family. It’s just that my mental health and my physical health did some perverse do-si-do, my hormonal changes were magnified by work-related stress, and all of these things contributed to a feedback loop that I couldn’t shake.

That said, there were plenty of good times in 2023: Hanging out in Ann Arbor, visiting my Mom in NE Ohio, meeting up with friends here and there, and lots of generally pleasant family time.

Photo of Aaron, Connor, and Diana standing in front of Pinball Pete's in Ann Arbor MI
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Life With Half A Thyroid: Month Ten

Self-portrait showing my head and shoulders. I'm wearing a boat-neck sweater that shows off my light-pink thyroid scar.

My follow-up visits with the Nurse Practitioner at endocrinology following my thyroid surgery were unremarkable, which is a good thing. She’d look at my lab work, palpate my neck, ask me about symptoms, and declare me good to go until the next follow-up.

My most recent visit was with the actual endocrinologist. My most recent lab work showed a significant spike in my Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH), while my T4 levels remained on the low end of normal. Since I’d already gotten an education in how hormones work when I went through menopause, I suspected that the higher levels of TSH were a sure sign that I’d be put on thyroid medication — if not now, then eventually.

As suspected, he prescribed a low dose of levothyroxine. Now that I’m already on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for estrogen, adding another hormone to the regime doesn’t seem as daunting as it once did. In fact, I’m looking forward to seeing if it lessens any of the symptoms that could be attributable to my thyroid.

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