Panhypopituitarism and hyperparathyroidism create fatigue and confusion. The first through inadequate hormone responses (a pill in the morning cannot replace a bodies just in time delivery system), the second by causing too much calcium being leached from bones to circulate in the blood and particularly then through the brain (hypercalcemia).
I am now at a point where doing the normal things of life mean I have to stop and gather myself together. In reality I am more stop than I am go. We spent all day in the car on the other day to see and endocrinologist for 20 minutes. I say we because I no longer have the stamina to drive for long periods without regular stops.
The only cure for hyperparathyroidism is to have the offending gland/s surgically removed. You will see from my previous post that the parathyroid glands sit on the thyroid gland in the neck. Para means to the side of, hence the name of the glands. There are four of them and it only takes one to go wrong to cause a problem. I have been waiting for over a year for this surgery to happen and I at last have a date mid March 2024.
My first (chronic) condition has also had a detrimental effect upon me, whilst modern science can replicate hormones it cannot replicate hormone delivery. In a typical body cortisol is produced following a circadian rhythm (big dose early morning to get you up, medium dose early afternoon to keep you going until bedtime). Cortisol is also produced in response to stress, both mental and physical. It is the hormone of fight or flight. For me, I take a large does with breakfast and a smaller doses with lunch and in the afternoon. I have to double that those doses when ill and I have to take extra in the event of stress (car accidents, bad news etc). Without this there is the real prospect of an Addisonian Crisis, a condition where cortisol drops so low coma and death are the next stages. I should mention that cortisol is also the hormone of immune responses. When the body is under attack from bacteria or viruses more cortisol is produced to boost the immune system to fight the threat. To mimic this I have to double the dose when ill. Cortisol is one of the many hormones I have to take in this abnormal way, and they all have their own effects when high or low.
What I am trying to get to here is that my normal before my second condition was, without doubt, sub-normal to start with. Hyperparathyroidism and its associated hypercalcemia have added another sub to my sub-normal. By way of examples, I have always been able to fall asleep pretty much anywhere but now I have trouble staying awake anywhere. Brain fog has become an over used term but I have gone from brain thick-mist to brain in-a bucket-of-murky-water. Some days it feels like every joint in my body has been replaced, over night, with those of a nonagenarian. I have little desire to do anything and my emotional response is flatline if I do. Life has become a necessary process to get through; but to what end? If I were outside looking in, in the past I would have said that I need to get up and get on with it, but now realise that this is not really a feasible position to take. Yes, we all need a chivvy along at some point in our lives but without actually living with unseen conditions you cannot for a minute pretend to understand them or their effects. I have become the victim of hidden disabilities.
From what I understand, following surgery my journey from sub-sub normal to plain old sub-normal should be fairly swift but I cannot rely on this as fact so refuse to pin any hopes on it being true.
I am electrical engineer by training and profession and though my ability to do the 9-5 was never great, it is now non-existent. I am probably a liability to myself and to others because my number one objective is to get the job finished and stop as soon as possible. I can make no apologies for this, it is just what I have gradually become.
If either condition is of further interest please see either http://www.pituitary.org.uk or http://www.parathyroiduk.org.
As an aside, the NHS is one of many UK institutions that started to crumble some years ago and is now starting to rot from the inside out. Its infrastructure is failing and its remit has become so vast that it has all the hallmarks of a runaway train. It needs its own defibrillator to restart its heart and pull it back from the brink (a few mixed metaphors there!). I am not complaining here, the NHS has been a big part of my life for some decades, I just hate to see where it is going.
Once in the system it still functions fairly well, slow, but well. To get in however requires running the gauntlet of GPs. These have become mythical creatures that hide behind walls and are defended by rings of receptionists. When the defences are lowered you may glimpse a nurse practitioner or another pseudo doctor, but never a real one. I am already aware of two missed diagnosis that have become serious, life threatening problems. Both leading to emergency admission to hospital. My fear is that we are at the tip of a big iceberg.
Blood letting and a course of leaches may yet return as people seek self help solutions!
BoDriftwood 
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