working out

ok, so i've been going to the gym & working out like a fiend. not becuz i really care, cuz my clothes fit for the most part, but mostly becuz my dr. told me that if i can commit to working out 5 days a week for at least 45 minutes of cardio i can get off my meds. awesome! but for the past 2 weeks, i've taken alexander to school & gone directly to the gym 4 days out of 5, and i've actually GAINED A POUND!!! really? what's up with that!?

now, i've been going to the gym and doing at least 35 minutes on the elliptical machine (cuz 45 minutes is too blasted long!) and then either walking on the track if kellie's with me, or doing some weights or something. and i'm trying to make better food choices cuz if i'm doing the physical part, i might as well get skinny, right? but i still feel fat and sluggish, and this morning i actually had to cut my workout short cuz i thought i was gonna pass out. thank goodness i'd packed some apples for isabelle & i for afterward, cuz otherwise i would have gone straight to the drive-thru at mcdonalds :) i would have gotten a smoothie, but they're SO good with a small fry. and the calories cancel each other out, right? :)

so i'm starting to think there's something else going on. i need to see my dr. anyway to talk about this mysterious non-carpel tunnel pain in my hand, so i'll mention this to her as well. i know my dad's pre-diabetic & my brother's hypo-glycemic & i'm a hypochondriac, so... :) either i'll be fat & medicated or skinny and neurotic, so we'll see what happens...

prosthetic vocal chords

i had no idea that i know someone who's had a complete thyroidectomy and has a prosthetic vocal chord. wow! she had the procedure done some years ago (in a military hospital, as she was active duty AF), and could barely speak for over 2 years before she was implanted with a prosthetic vocal chord. I would never have known, cuz her voice sounds fine to me. i should have asked her if she can sing with her prosthetic *smile*

but it kinda made me feel better, cuz if there's only a 1% chance of nicking one of 2 nerves that controls vocal production, then knowing someone to whom it's happened makes the chances of it happening to me that much slimmer, right? *smile*

i still need to make an appointment with the voice specialists to get scoped so they can see the condition of my chords prior to the surgery. i also tried to get my surgeon to do the procedure at Magee, cuz they've got excellent food, but no such luck. hopefully i won't hafta be there over night. if they only need to remove 1/2, as they plan, then i'll be able to come home that evening. i'll only need to stay overnight if they end up needing to remove my entire thyroid. and based on my recent ultrasound, there are no nodes in the right half at all, and the radiologist said the other side looks beautiful. my friend who had a complete removal said that she had nodes on both sides and they were exhibited very rapid growth. in the 6 months or so that i've been traveling down this path, mine haven't grown at all. every ultrasound i've had shows them pretty much the same size as they were when they were found.

...the next step...

well, it's been 3 weeks since i went off my meds, and i'm not so sure it was such a good idea *smile*. bleh. so i called and made an appointment with a psychiatrist, cuz my therapeutic team and i agree that my mental health should be cared for by a mental health professional who is more capable of deciding which drugs, if any, will be the most beneficial for me. i'm kinda nervous about it, though, cuz going to a psychiatrist means that you're crazy, right? i mean, everybody's medicated and everybody's in therapy, but the only person i know who goes to a psychiatrist is my brother and the crazy people on tv. when i spoke to her this evening, she actually asked me if i was 1) in the witness protection program & 2) had ever been hospitalized for a mental illness. there have been times when both of those options have seemed like a good idea *smile*

prozac, for all it's suckiness, is awesome, cuz it doesn't drop you into the abyss immediately -- it kinda lowers you slowly into the abyss so that you don't realize where you are until all the light has been sucked out of the world and you are in utter darkness trying to feel your way to the surface. i definitely need to be medicated, cuz i'm starting to think like my brother *smile*. we'll figure it out.

i also have an appointment next week with the thyroid surgeon, cuz they ultimately didn't like the biopsy they did of my thyroid. but if you're gonna have cancer, thyroid's the one to get. it has a 100% cure rate, it doesn't spread anywhere and it won't kill you. of course, now that i've said all that, i'll be the first to die of thyroid cancer. it'll take over my body completely and i'll have to have a complete body-ectomy. *smile* i still think i'll end up with one of those throat things like the asian guy on south park *smile* but in the big scheme of things, as long as i have some anesthesia, i don't really care what they take out. nothing could be as bad as the biopsy! (famous last words...)

OUCH!!! what pain!

so, today was a really great day, and a really crappy day. it was awesome, cuz i met up with my local street team, steel town etsy, and they are fantabulous! i'm so lucky to be affiliated with such talented crafters and such wonderful people. but after i got all hopped up on caffeine at starbucks, i had to go have my ultrasound guided fine needle biopsy of my thyroid nodule.

now, first off, "fine needle" is relative. i was imagining something akin to a acupuncture needle. boy was i wrong! it was a regular needle. not as big as something they'd use for an iv, but definitely not what i'd call "fine". but it wasn't the needle stick that sucked the most -- it was the fact that once it was in, they had to wiggle it around to collect cells to biopsy! OUCH!!! but i survived it, and the doctor took it to look at it and came back to inform me that they were fine, but he needed MORE CELLS TO SEND TO THE LAB TO BE PROPERLY LOOKED AT -- meaning they had to stab me in the throat again! &%*&$$&^#$@@!!! of course, i had my husband come with me to "hold my hand," not realizing that i'd literally need someone to hold my hand! he and the doctor both like to crack jokes to lighten the tension, but i challenge any of you to try to laugh with a needle in your throat! i could barely breathe or swallow, cuz i discovered early in the procedure that movement of the throat area causes the needle to shift more than necessary. did i mention, they don't use anesthesia for this procedure? :) apparently they used to, but they discovered that it hurt more when the drugs wore off than if they just stab you in the throat repeatedly without. i wish they'd given me the option to find that out on my own! :)

but granted, i'm grateful to know that the cells they found were fine and i don't have to have surgery or anything. they'll just keep an eye on them with a repeat ultrasound in 6 months and go from there. but it's been 9 hours, and my throat still hurts! i've gotta take some ibuprofen before i go to bed. i knew going in that there was a 95% chance that they were benign, so i wish i'd had the option to just leave them un-biopsied if i knew how painful it would be! at least they give you an epidural for childbirth! :)

new month, new joys, new stress :)

well, it's february. the taxes are done, and i faxed mine to my student loan holder to apply for the income based repayment plan this afternoon. that's a huge monkey off my back! :) i love obama!

the taxes were a huge pain in the butt. we filed married filing separately, which meant we weren't able to claim things like student loan interest and the earned income credit. really weird things. and chris's refund is MUCH smaller than last year. but what we'll be saving in student loan payments more than makes up for it, so we're good. and i don't owe as much as i thought i would. only 1 of my 3 jobs withholds any taxes, so i thought i was gonna be totally screwed. but i claimed every deduction i could as a self-employed individual and suprised myself. i'm even getting a refund from PA! :) now i hafta figure out what i need to do to be legit with my jewelry. in for a penny, in for a pound :)

but today was also the first day that i'm in a new retail location with my jewelry -- Crafted Treasures in Monroeville. i'm very excited about it. i've been working feverishly for the past couple of weeks making more inventory and displays and figuring out what i wanted to do. i'm not completely ready, but there's an open house on saturday, feb. 6, so i wanted to have stuff there so i can take advantage of the crowd. i got a primo spot, right up front between the front doors, so it's the first thing you see when you come in and the last thing you see when you leave. i'm very nervous, but very excited as well. we'll see how it goes! :) and i realized as i was setting up that i made some pieces saturday night during miss america that i didn't take pictures of! crap! :) but how exciting to have a black miss america? as soon as it started, i said to myself "we've got a black president. how about a black miss america?" and there she is! :)

and in addition to having pink eye (again!), i went and got my thyroid ultrasounded and i have not 1, but 2 nodules that are ginormous. okay, maybe ginormous is a (slight) exaggeration, but they're big enough that they want to stick a needle in my throat to test them. although "ultrasound guided fine-needle aspiration" does sound better than "jab me in the throat with a huge needle". :) but between the student loan people, pilates, the dentist and my pcp today, i didn't have time to call and make the appointment. it's on the top of my list for tomorrow. if i have to have my throat amputated and get one of those voiceboxes like the guy on south park, i'd rather do it and get it over with :)

so much to do ... why am i playing online? :)

i'm so glad that my family is used to getting their Christmas gifts late cuz i haven't even started them yet, so there's no way they'll get there in time *smile*. i have so much to do, and i just don't feel like doing it. right now i'm uber-stressed with everything else going on. one good thing is that my stress has alerted me to another problem -- i have a 9mm nodule on my thyroid. yay! what fun! now i have to go and have it ultrasounded and get blood work done to find out what's up. the good news is that your thyroid has a little bit to do with a lot of things, so it may be the underlying cause of a lot of my issues. but it'll be a while before we figure out what's up. always something to keep me on my toes *smile*

and i wish the men in my life wore jewelry. it would make my life a lot simpler *smile*. i can't even make they key keepers, cuz they don't carry their keys like that. i guess i could make key rings, but why? *smile* i had a really great custom ordered handmade gift for everyone, but i underestimated the popularity of my favorite fibre artist and they won't be ready until after the new year! i was really bummed, cuz that meant that i actually had to do something. *smile* they're still gonna get their special custom order gift, just REALLY late, so i won't mention what it is, but i know they'll love it. *smile* but since i've been trying to go to bed at a decent time and do what i can to reduce my stress level, there's just not enough time for creating. how old do the kids need to be before they can cook their own meals? since isabelle came into my room this morning naked as a jaybird, i know they're old enough to dress themselves *smile*. and she's good at doing buttons, too *smile*.

but i've got to get off the computer so i can get dinner started so we can go get a tree tonight. yay! finally my house will start to smell like Christmas *smile*