This is Not my Nose

​One of the best-known figures in the children's book world, Michael Rosen is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. As an author and by selecting other writers' works for anthologies he has been involved with over 140 books.

He has written a moving prose poetry book about his experiences of hypothyroidism and recovery. 

In This is Not My Nose, Michael tells the the story of his long undiagnosed illness - a malfunctioning thyroid gland - which turned him into somebody he could hardly recognize: large, lethargic, ill at ease in the world.  After 15 years it took just a simple course of drugs for him to be restored to "the real Mike Rosen" once again.

Painful, funny, scrupulously honest, these are poems that touch the heart but deal with the profoundest matters.

This book is a companion volume to Carrying the Elephant, which is about his upbringing and the tragic and sudden loss of his 18 year old son to meningitis.

More recently Michael was hospitalised and spent 47 days in intensive care with Covid19 which he is also now writing a book about  and has been widely interviewed about. Read about his Covid19 experiences in this  Guardian Interview. 

More #ThyroidStories

​You can read more thyroid patient stories and perhaps submit your own to our patient registry, if you'd like to, on our other Patient Stories pages.