Friday Family Photo

This photo is from November 1992 and we had gathered to celebrate birthdays. This was probably the first family event to which our future son-in-law was invited, as they had only been dating about two months. We really liked him and were hoping for the best. Down in the lower left I see a photograph album, so I'd probably shown our Lakeside album (saving the adorable baby photos for later in the relationship), because his parents who lived in Cleveland had also vacationed there, stopping around the time we began going there. We seem to be dressed for church, and the future SIL was also a Lutheran. We were afraid to let her know how much we liked and approved of this guy!

Our daughter had her first short hair cut in years--and it would grow out before the wedding to about shoulder length. I had one of those curly wash and wear and scrunch perms, but I had straightened it for that day--must have had some extra time. I'm holding reading glasses in my left hand--I didn't yet wear them all the time. I remember practicing walking with trifocals the next summer, but still took them off for the wedding photos (September 1993).

The furniture was all replaced before the wedding--I think we gave it to someone, but I don't remember who. There was a pull-out queen size mattress inside that couch--truly the most uncomfortable bed in the world, and I apologize to any relative reading this who may have spent a night or two on it. The blue chair on the right was purchased in 1963 and the couch around 1979, so they had done their time. The painting in the upper right is an old truck on a farm between Mt. Morris and Oregon, Illinois. My husband had stopped to photograph a barn, and when he got closer he realized there was a truck that had so blended with the weeds and trees, we hadn't seen it from the road. I think it is hanging at our son's house--at least I haven't seen it for awhile.

What you don't see here, and we had no way of knowing what was ahead, is our daughter's health was potentially fragile. We couldn't see that her thyroid was slowing down because she had Hashimoto's Disease, a form of hypothyroidism that usually appears in 50-somethings, not in women so young. Also, in her neck a goiter was growing downward which would eventually become so large it would impair her breathing and swallowing. The inflammation of the thyroid from Hashimoto's (an auto-immune disease) also causes constriction. Within a few years her weight would balloon, her thick curly hair would become brittle and thin, her personality would start changing and she would always be exhausted, sleeping for 18 hours if no one disturbed her. The weight gain hid the growing bulge in her neck. And, she was in the early stages of thyroid cancer. All lab tests put her within the "normal" range for thyroid function. Fortunately, both her employer (a doctor) and her hair dresser noticed, and she consulted an endocrinologist. But even then, the cancer wasn't found until the surgery to remove the goiter. So you might say it was a blessing in disguise. At the time, there wasn't conclusive evidence that the cancer and the Hashimoto's were related, but newer research seems to be pointing that way. (Repplinger, Daniel et. al. "Is Hashimoto's Thyroiditis a Risk Factor for Papillary Thyroid Cancer?" Journal of Surgical Research, Volume 150, Issue 1, Pages 49-52 (November 2008)).