Things like that happen in my life. I call them "character-building experiences" and whenever someone tells me what a character I am, I say it's because I've had so many character-building experiences! My (thankfully) minor tussle with the thyroid disorder Graves' Disease is a similar story...if it had been diagnosed when I was around 14 or 15, I wouldn't have lived my entire adult life with shaking hands and a ventricular arrhythmia, but it wasn't until I was 38 that my freakin' gynecologist asked if I'd been diagnosed with it! Told him I'd never heard of it, looked it up when I got home that day, turns out I exhibit those 2 (lifelong) symptoms, plus a third lifelong result--the "wide-eyed Graves' look" and had experienced another symptom in my teens, edema of the ankles with a peculiar orange-peel texture. Unlike the vast majority of people who have Graves', mine self-corrected after about 5 years on Synthroid. Another example of a character-building experience: money was tight, I had 9 days until payday, and I'd run out of Synthroid. We had a big dog at the time, my stepfather's "half golden retriever and half big black farm dog down the road", who also had to take Synthroid--at almost twice my dose, as an accident involving a pond full of chemicals had pretty much destroyed his thyroid function entirely. I wish I had a photo of my mom's face the day she caught me stealing the DOG'S medication!