The Rare Disease That Lots Of Us Get

And also Hyperparathyroidism needs a better name.

When I asked for a bone density scan just after my meno paused, my doctor said I didn’t need one yet. I convinced her with the argument that my mom has osteoporosis and had broken a hip and then coughed and cracked a vertebra; she ordered the test right up. My bones were fine but my blood calcium was high, so she then checked my parathyroid hormone, and lo and behold, I have a thing that can cause osteoporosis, so it’s a good thing I asked.

Fast forward a few years of iron and vitamin D supplements, and then a bunch of increasingly weird symptoms, and soon it became clear that surgery was my only option. There’s this thing called Hyperparathyroidism that happens for no apparent reason, where one of your parathyroids starts pulling calcium out of your bones and organs and dumping it into your bloodstream. And no one’s ever heard of it.

I tried to explain it t…