A healthier Green

Blogger Stephen Green of Vodkapundit explains his absence from blogging:

A couple months or so ago, I started to shake, to tremble. Figured it was all the caffeine and sugar I drank. After giving up cigars and changing my entire diet, giving up coffee and Cokes was almost easy. But the shakes got worse, not better. First my handwriting got comical. Then unreadable. Then I had trouble holding the pen. When I was finally ready to see an endocrinologist, she wasn't ready to see me for ten days. Those days were spent sometimes crying, often huddled, and always useless. I was too weak to pick up my baby. I'd become a lousy father, and half a husband at best.

I should have seen a doctor sooner, but couldn't. At first I was afraid I had the same thing that killed my father so young, and I couldn't face that. Couldn't even admit it. By the time I'd figured out I probably had some kind of hyperthyroid disease (thanks WebMD!), we were in the middle of changing our family health insurance. In the meantime, I dropped down to 116 lbs. I'm 5'10", people. At that height, doctors will tell you that 116 lbs is "not good."

Green did have a problem with thyroid, serious enough to have affected his judgement.

Henley told me that my thyroid was so hyper, that surgery wasn't an option. You know that before surgery, they clean the to-be-cut skin with iodine. Well. If that pure iodine got inside and touched my thyroid, it could kill me right there on the table. "OK, let's not do that," I agreed.

Two options left, and I started to weep. I didn't sob, I didn't wail; I wept. I could still speak, so I told her, "Whatever works fastest, just do it. If I have another week like last week, I just, I just can't." And literally, I couldn't have, I think.

Fortunately, Green's story has a happy beginning to recovery.

However, just because I'll be popping thyroid pills every day for the rest of my life doesn't mean I won't recover. I've made what feels like remarkable progress in just two weeks, so I'll blog when as I'm able, as my health and strength return. I can't make any promises, but now I can say at least that I have some sanity.

And when will you get the real-deal VodkaPundit again? The day I can throw my son in the air and not worry about catching him -- that's the day I'll return.

In the meantime, cheebus, it's not like I'm dead or anything. Laugh already.

We look forward to a speedy recovery and a resumption of blogging from one of the more interesting writers on the web.

Get well soon.