2009 Called, It Wants Its Jeans Back

So over the spring and summer, Jeff and I decided to work harder to eat better foods and exercise more. Jeff is doing really well, and I'm getting there slowly and surely (read: I'm considering mailing my thyroid death threats).

Anyway, I wore the same pairs of capris and shorts all summer long. Yesterday it was finally cool enough for me to drag my jeans out of the closet (less than 60 degrees means I put on jeans, 58 is when I consider sneakers instead of sandals). So I wore my favorite pair of jeans to Doug's preschool and then to a few errands afterwards. The thing with most of my jeans is that they have a bit of stretch in the denim. This usually makes them quite comfortable. However, they were already a bit big due to my weight loss. So as the day wore on, they stretched more and more. After dinner I was getting ready to head out the door for the evening and I wanted to look like a nice pulled together person, I didn't want to go for the 'frazzled mom' look that I so often employ. So I took a shower and threw on the same jeans I'd been wearing all day. The crotch had now almost stretched down to my knees. Not a great look. Running late and frantic I began to tear through my closet for the jeans I bought after Doug was born (pregnancy was evidently a great weight loss tool, who knew?). I managed to find one pair that fit really well except that it was longish and needed to be worn with boots. I found some thick soled mary janes and a nice top and was finally on my way out the door.

That evening when I got back I resolved to rescue my smaller jeans from storage in the basement. I found my fugly maternity jeans first. I have no idea who thought pregnant women wanted whiskered jeans, but I could never find a pair that wasn't. I finally located my smaller jeans, and lo and behold, they are whiskered too! Ugh. My jeans are evidently trapped in the 2009-2010 fashion season. At least I promise (for now) not to wear my crocs with them.

The Sanctity of Tuesday

You know the opening scene in 'The Emperor's New Groove', where the old man gets in the way of the song and dance number and Emperor Kuzco throws a hissy because his 'groove' was thrown off?

That was me last week. Except I wasn't yelling at a little old man, but at the government.* You see, doing nothing on Tuesdays is totally a thing around here. Going to vote is definitely a thing. A thing that totally threw me off my groove. Voting is something that involves me not wearing my PJs and dragging Doug with me and standing in a looooong line. All things I hate doing (except the being with Doug part). I did try to vote early, but believe it or not, the line was worse. At any rate, I was able to drop Doug off at my parents' house and then go vote. Missions exasperatedly accomplished.

I take Tuesdays off, they are my crash days. I take this very seriously. Well, as seriously as you can take something when you sit around in your PJs for most of the day. Let me explain the origin of the 'Crash Day'. Having a few chronic illnesses makes me a tired person. Most people who know me well, will hear my say "I'm tired" about 673 times a day. Doug even knows this. He'll look at me and say, "Mommy's tired."** At any rate, when the fatigue starts to build up, the pain will too. Such that when I know I've over done it, my muscles will begin to twitch as sort of an early warning system (which is occasionally too late to do anything about it). I have found through experience that if I ignore these sign and keep on going about my business during the week, I crash unexpectedly. By setting aside one day a week in which I don't need to leave the house, let alone get dressed, I save a lot of energy and restore myself. Its kind of like when firefighters are fighting a forest fire and they set their own fires to prevent the blaze from spreading. By intentionally taking it easy once a week, I prevent most other fatigue crashes. It's brilliant.

Monday was  my day to crash for a while. We're usually busy on weekends, running errands, fun outings and going to church. Mondays I was tired, so it was a natural day for me to take it easy. Then Doug's story time at the library moved from Wednesday to Monday. I realized I could hold off my crash day for one more day and the Tuesday Crash day was born.

Crash day is a wonderful thing. I do look forward to it every week. On Tuesday morning, I permit myself the luxury of letting Doug watch a DVD, by himself. Doug will wake up, and then I'll change him and dress him and fix him something easy and non-messy for breakfast. He'll usually have dry cereal (for whatever reason, he's not big on milk in his cereal), toast or a cereal bar and some milk. I will then turn on a DVD of his choice, usually Olivia or Thomas, and then go back to my room, leave the door partially open, and then lay down for about an hour. Occasionally Doug decides to be the world's most persistent snooze alarm, and come in about every twenty minutes or so. Sometimes he comes in because he wants something, or he needs a snuggle or he just wants to check in. Either way, I'm totally fine with that. Then I'll get up, Doug and I will hang out, I'll make him some lunch, and then it's nap-time for him and more relax time for me. He'll usually nap until the second shift, Jeff, gets home. I usually have something quick ready for dinner on Tuesdays, or Jeff will make something. It's really amazing what a difference taking it easy once a week can make!




*In my defense, albeit for different reasons, I probably wasn't the only one yelling at the government last week.  

**Over the summer when I had a bad flare up, he looked at me and said that, and then told me to go lay down. How can I argue with that? 

Reset

The summer has just flown by! I have to say, I'm glad it's done and almost fall. Summer is always a bit tough, I seem to be more prone to fibro flare ups, and indeed I had a nasty one in July. Just as I got over that, my thyroid decided to join in the fun too! I was worried about our trip, but my doctor was able to diagnose my low thyroid just in time! We went out to Kansas City for the last week of the summer. It was nice to visit with my in-laws and Doug always loves seeing them. I feel that we were really able to get potty training well under way while we were there, with four adults watching Doug, he was taken to the bathroom quite a bit. But we got to relax and more importantly get out of the rut that my illness had set us into. It was very cleansing. I think I'm back on track and I'm totally ready to enjoy my favorite season of the year: Fall!

Until next time, here are some pictures of our Kansas City fun!


This first set of pictures are from Lego Land. Doug asked to go back there just about every day.

In this picture he's helping his Pop-pop make a house out of tissue box sized rubber Legos.


There were small wading pool sized tubs of Legos and Duplos everywhere! They had some farm animals that Doug absolutely loved. However, they didn't have them for sale in the store!


They also had some cute Duplo cupcakes. They only came in pink however, Doug loved them regardless.



After going to Lego Land, my brother-in-law recommend this place for lunch, I think it was called 'Fritz's'. You meal was delivered via train and a basket. Both Doug and Uncle Matt were very excited about this!

Here's a shot of Doug looking at the trolley that went by our table.


Here comes our food on the train!



Doug's great grandmother, Nan, came over from St. Louis to visit with us for a few days. On one nice day, we went fishing. After about 15 minutes, Doug caught a fish. And then he was done.


Unfortunately, this cool park was right by the water, and after he caught his fish, Doug wanted to go slide and play.



The last two days we were there, the remnants of hurricane Isaac caught up to us. There was lots and lots of rain to play in!



The second rainy day we headed up to the mall to wear Doug out before we got him in the car the next day. The mall has this fairly unique two level carrousel.


We all had a good deal of bbq and fun in Kansas City!

Off and Running

I think the title should be more like 'Off and Walking' or 'Off and Strolling' but I thought the one I chose looked better. Anyway, we're a week into the New Year and life is going well. I love the holidays, but I'm glad they're over. I like it when our schedule relaxes and things can go back to normal. We do have a bit of a birthday blitz in the next two months, but that's not as crazy or as all consuming as the holidays can be.

I've started feeling better. I do tend to do better with my fibro in the winter. It's something about the heat that tends to increase my level of fatigue. Conversely, my hypothyroidism tends to get worse in the cold months, my thyroid's activity tends to decrease and I experience more aches in my joints. I'd rather be dealing with thyroid issues then fibro ones as the thyroid is relatively easy to fix. I've also been off of Lyrica for about a month and a half now. We added Lyrica to my regimen about a year ago to help deal with my skin sensitivity*, but it didn't work, so it just got increased and increased until I was taking a mind boggling amount of it. It was also causing unpleasant side effects, so I went off of it, which took forever because its a drug you have to back off slowly. So I noticed that when I was in Kansas City for Thanksgiving, that I didn't need to take naps that week. That was the first full week I was off the drug. Then one of my girlfriends mentioned that she'd been on a mood stabilizer that was causing her lots of fatigue. Then it just clicked into place. So now that I've been off of Lyrica I've had more energy. I was taking naps almost daily in the fall, and I rarely got anything done.

We've had a very definite upswing on the quality of our lives. The house is cleaner and more organized. We've eaten more healthy homemade dinners. Doug's gotten more quality play time. We've been attending church more. Yesterday we hit story time for the first time in months! So, here's to you, 2012! Lookin' good!


*The skin sensitivity has a fancy smancy name: tactile allodynia

Fighting Back

One day last week I was lying in bed and wondering why I was there. The answer was obvious, that I was exhausted and couldn't do anything more. And then I began to wonder why I was letting that stop me from doing the things I wanted to do, from living my life. I realized that yes, I was tired, but I can decide to succumb to it, or push through it. I will grant you, that this attitude is easier on good days than bad, but even on bad days I need to do something.

Last week, thanks to an old acquaintance, I met a new doctor to treat my fibro. He's not a rheumatologist, but a chronic pain doctor. He also has actual fibro patients, I'm not one or two of fibro patients he treats, but about one of thirty he sees weekly. That's a lot of fibro experience. He wasn't happy with or complacent about my treatment either. My first doctor told me that he aims for a 60% recovery for his patients. I've always wondered why he didn't want more for them. This new doctor is willing to try new things, one at a time to see how I react to them. He's also willing to see me more frequently, once a month instead of once every three months. I'm sure that appointments will become farther in-between as the fibro becomes more stable. But he gives me hope, which is more than any other doctor has done so far.

Last week I started yoga again. It wasn't something I was planning on doing, but I got a groupon offer for classes at this studio and they offered some gentle yoga classes. Sometime I think things like that land in your lap for a reason, so I jumped on the offer. The class was definitely more challenging than my lost yoga class, which was mostly done in a chair*. It was hard but not impossible. I left the class sore, but feeling well. I also didn't realize how weak some of my muscles were, which was a good wake up call.

I've been lamenting the shape of the house for weeks, smears on the kitchen floor, crunched cheerios in the carpet, dust everywhere. I began to wonder 'Why can't I have a clean house? Who says it's impossible?". So last night I decide I'd take the house one room at a time and clean it. Thoroughly. So far the upstairs bathroom is done as well as the kitchen. I bought a large wicker bin for the living room to stow some of Doug's larger toys in.** I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished so far and look forward to finishing the job!

Have a great week!


*The last yoga class I did was a therapeutics class, full of mostly older women with various types of arthritis, so many things were done on a folding chair to accommodate that. To be perfectly honest, it didn't really feel like yoga to me. Also, folding chairs are not friendly to fibro type people. Ouch.

**The main toy room is in the basement, but Doug manages to have toys in the living room as well as his room, which got a toy basket long ago. I swear he's taking over the house!

Back in the Saddle

So. Wow. Several weeks have passed since I've updated my poor little blog. Well, starting about May, my thyroid condition started to get worse, leaving me fatigued. I swear there are sometimes that I think my middle name is fatigue. Anyway, then a TON of family on Jeff's side came into town. His parents stayed for two weeks, it was a blast. Then right after they left his aunt and uncle from Texas visited while they were in town for a wedding. It was nice to see them again, they hadn't met Doug. Then we had a break for about a week, and then Jeff's aunt and cousins from Alabama came to stay with us for a week. While they were here another one of Jeff's uncles from Kansas City was in town with his family. They were all here during Jeff's birthday, which was really special, as he never has family here then. There were a LOT of people, but we all had a good time.

At around this time I started seeing a new rheumatologist for my fibro. It turns out that he's leaving that practice, which is really annoying, as I had done quite a bit of research to find him and I liked him. At least he was up front and honest about treatment. He started me on a new anti-depressant to see if it helped my skin sensitivity. It did not. Even if it did, I wouldn't take it. I'm just now getting over the side effects from it-more fatigue. I couldn't make it through the day without a nap, unless I slept in. There were days in which I really couldn't get out of bed for quite a while. Sundays were the worst. We missed a LOT of church. Today is the second day in a row I got up at 9 and did not take a nap. Praise God! I'm starting to feel more like myself again.

A week and a half ago, I was starting to get things back together. We were on our way to church, when we got into an accident. An SUV pulled out in front of us from a gas station, another SUV was on it's tail, he didn't see us on the main road. Jeff swerved to avoid hitting him head on and the other driver ended up hitting us, on my passenger side door. In the car port is my THIRD rental car in two years. Ridiculous. Anyway, it was pretty low speed, but I felt tired and sore for a few days, but it's alright, because Doug was fine. I don't think I saw the other driver hit us because I looked back to check on Doug. He didn't even realize there was an accident until he heard his daddy swearing a blue streak! I don't blame Jeff there. We're hoping we're done with car accidents in our life time.

Doug is being Doug. He's still signing tons. I'm pretty sure he says 'dada'. The trouble is, when he babbles, he mostly babbles 'da da da da da'. But I can tell there are times he says it with meaning. He will also say "bubu!" complete with blowing for 'bubbles' at times. I've noticed that he can say the first sound in some people's names, with intent. For example, if he's looking for my brother John, he'll say "Jah? JAH!". Doug will say "guh?" for 'grandma'. So we're just waiting for him to add more words and sounds to his repertoire.

So that's all for now, I'm hoping I'll be able to post more regularly.

Thyroid Awareness Month

Did you know that more people have hypothyroidism than diabetes? Yep, it's true (if you're wondering why it's relevant, they're both endocrine disorders).

I imagine that a fair amount of people have little to no idea what hypothyroidism is. January is Thyroid Awareness Month, so I will share some info and first hand experience with you!

The thyroid is a butterfly shaped gland in your neck. You can actually feel it (and your doctor should totally check it!) it's your Adam's Apple. Your thyroid is responsible for producing hormones that regulate your metabolism and growth rate and about a zillion other things in your body. That is the quick and dirty description of it. It's a little gland, but it's incredibly important to many, many of your bodily functions.

When your thyroid is functioning well, life is good. When it goes bad, it goes bad. There are two autoimmune diseases (and the most common problems with your thyroid, aside from cancer) that effect the thyroid. One is Graves disease, which causes hyperthyroidism. Basically, your thyroid starts producing too much thyroid hormone. The symptoms associated with Graves are heart palpitations, excessive sweating, excessive hunger, weight loss and muscle fatigue. Treatment focuses on ways to slow down or stop the production of excessive thyroid hormone. One method for treatment is radioactive iodine, basically to destroy parts of the thyroid. One unfortunate part of Graves disease is that it leads to hypothyroidism.

Hypothyroidism is the result of a decrease in the amount of thyroid hormone in your body. The name for autoimmune hypothyroidism (which is what I have) is Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. In my opinion, the hyper people have a better name for their disease. Anyway, there is a laundry list of symptoms for hypothyroidism: lack of energy, hair loss, abnormal weight gain, brittle nails, dry skin, extreme sensitivity to coldness, brain fog, muscle soreness, difficulty getting pregnant. The list goes on and on. Treatment is fairly easy, hormone replacement pills, to be taken everyday for the rest of your life.

Although treatment is fairly straight forward, getting diagnosed was tricky. The symptoms of hypothyroidism are vague and can be caused by many other diseases. Fortunately, all you need to get diagnosed is a doctor who is paying attention and a simple blood test. I saw maybe close to half a dozen doctors over a span over seven months before I was finally diagnosed. It was a long and scary battle. I started feeling better a few weeks into the treatment. For the better part of 18 months, I was getting tested monthly, and my dose changed several times. Since my pregnancy ended, my thyroid has been stable.

I am obviously not a doctor, but if you have concerns about your thyroid, you should definitely check with your doctor. I am happy to discuss my experiences further if you have any questions!

Sick 101

I've decided to give everyone a crash course in sickness. I thought I'd explain to everyone what's basically going on and what approximately to expect from me for the next little while.

If you've seen me recently, you've probably noticed that I do not look sick. If I looked like I felt, I'm sure some one would have ushered me to the ER by now :) I generally try to keep some semblance of 'togetherness' about my person. You know, hair washed, matching shoes, etc. So, you're probably wondering what's wrong. Its nothing exciting, just chronic fatigue (not chronic fatigue syndrome, I'm just flippin' tired ALL the time) and wide spread muscle pain. I have several suspects in mind, but all I ask is that I not end up on that show 'Mystery Diagnosis' or 'I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant'. It's the small things in life that matter.

Now, for those of you who've never experienced fatigue, let me paint you a picture. When you're sick and need to do something you think about each and every little step that is involved. A non-sick person who has to go to the store with an infant makes sure she has everything for the infant, straps the baby in and heads to the car. I see an endless amount of things that need to be done first. A shower, getting dressed, changing and dressing Doug, getting all his stuff and then strapping him into the infant carrier of doooooom.* By the time I've gotten Doug in his carrier in the car along with my purse and diaper bag, I'm ready to be done. But I haven't even left yet!

It's not all so bad. I have good days and I have bad days. Unfortunately, on good days I tend to do too much which ensures that my butt isn't leaving the couch for much the next day. So, my current plan is to budget my time and energy. Things I've already committed to I will try to uphold. However, I probably won't and shouldn't make new commitments now. I hate breaking commits more than anything, so I'll avoid new ones for a while. So if you ask me to do something I'll be honest with you and tell you if I can or not. It's not that I'm flakey or that I don't want to, its just that I may be stretching it too far.

So that's what's going on.

Here's a good link to check out: The Spoon Theory



* The infant carrier is all fantastic for saving Doug's life and what not, but it's heavy. Doug plus the infant carries weighs approximately 28 lbs. When you can carry your 15lb son only four houses down to the mail box and back, 28lbs is a big fat hairy deal. I think normal moms would build up some serious biceps, but no, I just have an arm like a noodle afterward.

Face Palm

So I thought I had an appointment on Thursday. It's in my calendar as Thursday and on our dry erase board calendar as Thursday. I wrote that appointment down two months ago when I left the doctor's office. Evidently, the appointment was today. I don't know what happened. I even remember thinking that the 29th was almost the end of July when I made that appointment with the receptionist. I've never missed an appointment before, ever. It really annoys me too because this one counted and now I have to do the back and forth with this office to get the information for my blood work. Perhaps I should have told them I that I feel like I've spent the night falling down the stairs. But this isn't the first time this office has driven me nuts. The doctor is wonderful. The staff sucks. They're always days getting back to me about a question. I have an appointment set with a rheumatologist for August and I have to get this office to send all my records to them, which I'm sure will be an adventure. That is unless I want to get tested for Lyme Disease again. Which I don't.

What sucks most of all about this is that I was having a nice day. My mom came and took Doug so I could lie down and nap. And now I'm all frazzled and thinking I've lost my mind. Oh well. I shall take it all out on some peas. I'm going to make Doug some pea puree for dinner and and food processing the heck out of them might be just the thing.

***Edit***

The doctor's office called me back, which is kind of shocking. Evidently my thyroid is quite fine, which is what I didn't want to hear (Remember I said chronic illness is funny? This is one of those times). Oh well. Jeff has taken pity on me and decided to come home from work early. There's always a silver lining :)

Medical Mayhem

Let me just start by saying that I hope you are blessed with good health. Once you start walking down this unpaved but well traveled road of chronic illness, you never seem to stop.

So I've been ill. We're not sure what's going on yet. I've been fatigued, sore and have weird skin sensitivity. I've been going to my primary care doctor to see if she can help me. My thyroid seems to be fine, so I have to deal with my primary. Who is very little help. She's come up with bizarre and unlikely things, like blood clots in my legs. I can assure you that is very unlikely. The pain in my calves is from muscle tension, I can feel it. She's also come up with a slightly elevated uric acid level. Which can be totally normal, particularly in hypothyroid patients. She also doesn't want to deal with my thyroid at all. It gets placed in a box when I see her and she won't discuss it and the implications it has on my over all health. Your endocrine system is kind of a big deal, but evidently it's another person's problem when I see her. Needless to say, doctor shopping is probably in my future.

I've been struggling with whether or not I'm actually sick, which is kind of amusing. I don't think well people lay in bed and do this at night. When I realized that I was being kept awake from the pain in my muscles, I decided that I was. Chronic illness is a weird place! Some times funny too. Today for instance I saw my OBGYN for my annual appointment. I love this woman, she's a fantastic doctor, she delivered Doug. Anyway, she asked me what I did for exercise. I replied that I run errands and go to the store. I believe she said "That's not exercise!". Which made me laugh, because of course it's not, not to a well person. Non-sick people take showers without getting worn out. It was just funny, but made me realize that I am indeed not well.

As, I said, I adore this doctor. I went into the appointment hopeful that she could point me in a direction. Jeff has been insisting that I see a specialist, but the problem is, what kind of a specialist? She not only told me to see a rheumatologist, but gave me the name of a doctor right off the top of her head. I love when doctors can name some one immediately, it means they've delt with them and didn't just look them up in your provider directory.

So that's where I am right now. I see my endocrinologist on Thursday to see if my thyroid is behaving. I want to bounce some of this nonsense from my primary off of her and see what she thinks. We'll see what happens.

Not Quite So Peachy

Ugh. I apologize for the decrease in postings, but I kinda feel like a truck hit me, and then backed over me for good measure.

It started around Mother's Day. I began to feel a little tired and sore, and its just been spiraling down from there. I'm not sure if it's related to my body adjusting back to it's non-pregnant state, or if it's related to the Whooping Cough vaccine I received the week before Mother's Day. Since I have auto-immune thyroid disease, anything that activates my immune system usually makes me sick. I've decided that this year Jeff and Doug will get the flu shot, and I'll try to avoid sick people and do copious amounts of hand washing.

I'm not sick to the point where I was 2 years ago, and I hope to not let it get that bad. I'm due to have my thyroid checked next week. So potentially, I could start to feel better in a week or two. Right now I'm just kind of relaxing, trying to save what energy I have for Doug and cursing the fact that I have to go upstairs to the bathroom. My legs are screaming in pain.

Also, I'm trying to avoid WebMd. There's nothing like diagnosing yourself with new diseases! Last week I diagnosed myself with Celiac disease. I'm not a total nut case, fyi, it's totally plausible that I have it. Once your body figures out how to develop antibodies towards one tissue or organ, its more likely to do it to something else. I went to the doctor to get tested for it last week, and they have yet to give me the results, which makes me nervous. Each time I called them about it, they deflected me. Yesterday they told me the results were in the mail. I have this feelings they're avoiding me because they don't want to deal with questions I might ask if its positive. Which is fine, I get that, I won't be annoying. I'd just like to be able to get in the list to see a specialist sooner rather than later if I need to. More likely than not my tummy issues are stemming from my lack of gallbladder. Let's see, I think Saturday night I diagnosed myself with Fatty Liver Disease. I think I talked myself out of that one by reasoning that the surgeon who removed my gallbladder should have said something if that was the case. Last night I was concerned with Multiple Sclerosis. I find that and Lupus to be absolutely terrifying. I was tested for Lupus last year (not my idea) and was so happy when it came back negative. But back to MS. I realized that I didn't have enough symptoms for it and that the symptoms I did have in common with it are likely do to my thyroid.

Commonalities between chronic illnesses makes them very hard to diagnose. Also, it can make you crazy thinking you have something else, or put you in denial. For instance, I was having gallbladder attacks a good 6 months or so before I had the gallbladder removed. I'd have an attack and think that I'd irritated some muscles in my abs, which is plausible given the hypothyroidism. I'd had about 3 or four attacks that were pretty mild before I had the one a year ago in January that sent me to the ER. I felt like a moron when they realized it was my gallbladder. So now when a new symptom creeps up, I get totally paranoid.

This was a very long rambly post. Most of you probably think I'm crazy now. But it's really the fatigue/muscle aches combined with raising an infant. Yeah, let's go with that...

Update

So, its been a while since I've posted. Last week was kind of a rough week. It seems that my female hormones and my thyroid decided that last week was the week that they were going to try to readjust themselves after the pregnancy. Basically, I was sore and exhausted all week. I'm just starting to feel better and hope to be completely better by this weekend.

Then there's the laptop situation. A few days before Mother's Day Jeff sent my laptop back to Dell for service. The screen was all jacked up and Jeff couldn't fix it himself; it was still under warranty, so back it went. Dell sent us a FedEx box and Jeff dropped it off at Office Max or whatever its called. So, last week I asked Jeff to check on the status of it. He assured me it was fine and that it would be back Friday. Friday came and went and he promised that it would be here Monday, yesterday. All day I waited, scared to take a shower for fear that I would miss the delivery man. At 6 it became apparent that it wasn't coming. Jeff finally checked with Dell. They didn't have it. He checked with FedEx. It had JUST left Beltsville for Dell yesterday. He dropped it off two weeks ago. Evidently what happened is that Office Max is NOT a FedEx place, they deal with UPS. Jeff didn't know this and the clerk who accepted the box didn't realize it was for FedEx until it was too late. They had no contact info for Jeff and instead of being pro-active they waited for either us to call them or FedEx to make a delivery, which is finally what happened. For some reason they couldn't run it half a mile down the road to the FedEx Kinko's. So it will probably be another week until I get my laptop back and I'll have to use Jeff's which is incredibly annoying and slow.

On the hair front. On Friday I finally went and made up with my hair stylist. I confessed that I had been to the Hair Cuttery. She told me to say three Hail Marys and...wait, wrong confession. Anyway, she agreed that the Hair Cuttery did some BAD things to my hair. I was the last customer that day and she ended up staying late to fix the damage. The end result is that my hair looks and feels MUCH better and that I will never ever go back to the Hair Cuttery again!

Doug. Doug got his first shots on Friday. He was fine until mid afternoon and then he became A Seriously Unhappy Baby. We had to find some infant pain relief meds as Tylenol had been recalled. Luckily we only had to go to two stores and we bought the generic. At about 3am he seemed he was finally feeling a bit better, and by that morning he was back to his usual cheerful self.

More things happened last week, most of them unexciting. But that's all for now.

Super Woman!

Today was the day of many doctor visits. Yay!

This morning we had an impromptu visit to the pediatrician. There's probably a note now in my son's file that I am insane. Last night around midnight he was really fussy and still on this three hour feeding kick. He started really crying for no reason that we could figure out. As last resort, I stuck my finger in his mouth and felt around on his gum. Voila! There was something there! Further inspection revealed the something to be a small, hard whitish bump on his gum where a canine tooth would be. Frantic, I called my Mom and consulted the internet. The internet told me that indeed it could be a really early tooth and my son could be a freak of nature. So we called the doctor's office this morning and they told us to bring him in. The nurse practitioner (I really love NPs, they're my favorite kind of medical professional) took a look and declared it a harmless and painless cyst on his gum that would go away on it's own. She was very kind about it and didn't make me feel like a complete moron. Crisis averted!

Later this morning was my scheduled endocrinologist visit for 6 weeks postpartum. I can usually tell when my TSH (what is measured to determine how your thyroid is working) is high (towards hypothyroidism). I feel like crap when it goes up even a little, I've become quite sensitive to it. I was pretty sure that my thyroid wasn't under-active. I felt really really good. I evidently felt really really good because my thyroid is actually measuring in the hyper zone. I was a little sad that my doctor wanted to cut back my medicine. Hyperthyroidism carries its risks too, however. I think the risks associated with that can actually be more life threatening. Rest assured, my TSH wasn't that low, my doctor wasn't panicked about it. She'd had the results for a few days, so I don't think it was super urgent.

I can usually tell when my thyroid is giving out a lot of juice too. The other day I was standing and rocking Doug and he spit out his pacifier, and I grabbed it in mid air. I've always noticed that I have super human life reflexes when my TSH is low. I also wanted to do a million things when I got home from the hospital. I probably would have repainted the house if I wasn't recovering from surgery. It's a shame I can't take this and save it for later when I can use it. Ah well.

I'm looking forward to Friday night. We've decided to pawn off, er let Doug visit, with my parents for the night. I love him dearly, but it would be nice to just have a peaceful night. A whole night without a little person screaming! I won't know what to do with myself! I'm sure I'll miss him though, probably just enough to pick him up by noon the next day. Maybe Sunday ;)