1) The pupa of a butterfly (any of numerous slender bodied diurnal lepidopteran* insects including one superfamily, Papillonoidea, with broad often brightly colored wings).
*Lepidoptera is the order of insects encompassing moths, butterflies, & skippers, specifically the brightly colored ones that start life as caterpillars. (I didn't know either!)
2) a sheltered state or stage of being or growth, from the Latin chrysallid-, chrysallis (gold colored pupa of butterflies); from the Greek chrysos (gold).
Today's project is to find the contents of the golden chrysalis among the butterflies at the end of the rainbow (me). The reason for the search is that I was recently been diagnosed as "low thyroid," or hypothyroid, which according to my physician may be stress-related, and according to friends with similar problems, is likely to be lifelong.
Because the thyroid gland is butterfly-shaped, I've adopted the insect as a personal mascot. Where I now live, Sulfur butterflies abound (so called for their yellow color, the same as the nasty smelling stuff most of us recall from high school chemistry). They're small, not much larger than the actual gland that resembles them, so they seem an appropriate mascot--to say nothing of my efforts to emerge from a chrysalis I feel like I've been in since starting college. Contributing to this are, of course, my own tendency to not take the best care of myself at all times, but also other factors I'm now learning are potential hazards to the thyroid; to wit:
-exposure to a microwave tower only a mile from the house where I grew up in Connecticut, which seems to have been implicated in numerous episodes of thyroid cancer in several of my peers at a relatively young age. (It's still there, though no longer a microwave tower.)
-a diagnosis of mononucleosis when I was 16, possibly as a result of (or contributing to) what's known as adrenal fatigue & is rather difficult to diagnose, much less to treat until it's identified (a quest all its own, from what I've read).
My goals for the coming year are rather simple, if not so simply achieved:
a) lower weight, including a body weight & BMI within the healthy range
b) improved flexibility & general mobility (I've already been working out most mornings of the past year, so I just need to step that up a bit more)
c) a less stressful career in which I can actually relax on weekends & take vacations that DON'T result in so much backlog as to have hubby & I joke, "no good break goes unpunished."
Advice/counsel much appreciated if you have any to offer!
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