who knew?

Like I said I am home sick/recovering today. Which gave me time to research my Thyroid problem, and medication. This has been an ongoing issue in my life for years now, perhaps before we even knew it was one. I started having what looked like seizures in my Junior year of High School but it was not till about four years later that any doctor thought that my tremmors may infact be linked to a thyroid problem. So way back in oh 2000 ish (I think) My doctor let me know I had graves desease which meant that my thyroid was over producing hormones that in turn effect the rest of my body. Bummer. So I opted to take Radio Active Iodine.

Yep I chose to swallow radioactive pills to effectively kill my thyroid. The problem aside from being radio active for a few weeks was that the RAI treatment did not work. My thyroid levels were still off the charts. So I took the pills a second time with similar results. My doctor at the time suggested a third round, but I opted out considering it did not seem to be working and they mentioned that they had accidentally managed to kill my pituitary gland instead. Oops.

Then I was put on some thyroid drug to help my levels but instead of helping, everything in my body went kinda haywire for a few months after which I stopped the drugs, and decided that due to a lack of improvement and insurance I would just ignore the problem.

My mistake, because years later when I walked into my new doctors office for my initial check up she took one look at me and said, "you have a thyroid problem don't you?" I filled her in and she let me know that she was fairly certain that my Thyroid had finally kicked the bucket sometime in the last two years. Which was probably the reason I had gained weight, and was having trouble concentrating, as well as sleeping, and feeling depressed. So we ran some tests and low and behold she was right. (A first time I have had a doctor be right on purpose)

She got me taking some thyroid replacement medication Synthroid or Levoxal but, which at first really seemed to boost my energy, but quickly seemed to be doing nothing. Then she switched me to Armor which is a natural form. It is made from pig thyroid, she explained that it is not as widely used and can be harder to find, but that she thought it would do a better job for my body.

I have to admit that until today I was begining to lose faith in this Armour thyroid, I am on my third or fourth round of perscriptions each at a higher dose, because we have not been able to get my levels high enough. Each time we change the dose my body has to readjust, and this I was getting fed up. Which is why today as I was laying here, trying to recoup from my smack down last night, and still feeling crummy as well as just starting a higher dose of 120mg up from 90mg I began my research.

My research has restored my faith in my doctor, whom I love, and given me hope that this drug will infact do the trick once the right dosage is found. Here are some links to sites that helped, incase there are those of you out there with similar problems.

peertrainer

Armour Thyroid and Thyrolar

Stop The Thyroid Maddness

My hope and purpose in writing this somewhat long post is that those of you who like me are feeling frustrated with your current thyroid issues will be encouraged to know that you are not alone, and that there are answers.

Smack Down

Some of you know that I am a Youth Director, which means much of my time is spent with students in Jr. and Sr. High. It is a great job! I love my students, I love that they come over to my home, that we go places, that I get to go to their schools, and to their homes, I love that they come and chill in my office. The only time I have found it is hard to love my students is when they hit me in the face with a ball.

You see part of my job is playing wild crazy games in a gym...which usually involves any number of balls flying past. The problem is when they fail to pass and instead smack me in the face. The first time this happened was in the middle of a Dodgeball game, I failed to dodge, so presumably it is my fault. It hurt...and I had a mild black eye, but I laughed it off. The next time I don't even recall what was going down, but man it hurt. Then there was last night. Our Game Night was not even officially started yet (though there had been students in my office for hours) I was crossing the gym, after taking a picture, when all of the sudden I was met by the sharp sting of the third ball hitting my in the face thrown with such force that my neck and jaw both popped out of allignment leaving a swollen cheek.

It seems I have a magnetic face.

An instant headache insued and lasted into the morning. I am not sure that the morning headache was solely from the impact of the ball as I have been fighting off a cold or flu all week. Regardless as I met with my good friends and fellow youth workers for our morning prayers for our students and community, I began to see stars and my head was spinning. So I made an appointment to see my Chiropractor. She confirmed that my neck, jaw and infact bones in my head were misaligned and did her best to alliviate the pain and dizzyness. Upon her strong suggestion to go home, and rest I did just that.

Which brings me to THE POINT of this post...while getting Smacked upside the head repeatedly is not at all enjoiable, sometimes we just need to rest. As I have been laying here ALL day I realized that I have never spent the day in my place without having been sick. I have lived here two years and I have never spent the day in my apartment without being sick. Even today will not count. Because I am sore, and still feeling sick. It's kind of rediculous.

So even though I am feeling pretty crummy I am trying to enjoy this time of rest in my little bungalow. I watched some TV and I caught up on The Office. I even finally did some research on my Thyroid medication that I have been meaning to do. Which I know doesn't sound restful but it did bring me some comfort. Thankfully my Doctor is one of the good ones! More on that later I think. I also got to hear the thunder and the rain. So though it was painfull getting to this place of rest it is still nice to be home.

Old News

What do you get when you combine a Youth Worker, A Student, Hours of Project Runway watched, and Halloween on a budget? You get your own version of a Project Runway Challenge... The Challenge spend little to no money, create a fantastic, memorable black and white costume in less than 24 hours.
First came the 3 min sketch...
Which led to a trip to Costco to grab some packaging tape...and a drive by newspaper stop to load up on free newspapers!!! Then came three hours of ripping, taping and cutting...

After about three hours we had the skirt portion of our newspaper dress...

A few more hours a day later and I had the dress for the Black and White party finished, just in time to debut it at the Halloween Young Life Club.

I went as Old News!

reminds me of College and makes me smile

I love

My friend Heather posted awhile ago things that she loved about her house, because she had a friend do the same. I have a tendency to like Heather get caught up in the smallness of my home, and forget the things I love about it, so here are a few, though not 12 like Heather (she is an over achiever) things that I love about my little place.

1. I love my bed! It was my very first and thus far my only major furniture purchase, and I love it. It is even more comfy then it looks!



I especially enjoy reading in bed!



The shelving in my bedroom is also quite lovely, though I have not made the best use of the other half, (not pictured) I do really love this side with my shoes, journals, books and memories!

This beautiful soap dish was made for me by one of my students! I love it. I love the random collection of soaps that it holds as well. Some homemade by members of my church!

This is also in my bathroom. Really I love my bathroom, it is supper cute, just hard to take a picture of because of its size. But this will do, I love that I have a place to hang my latest Vouge, and I love that my toilet paper holder is just perfect so as never to keep the role from spinning. I also love that I splurge on super soft Charmin. Its the little things!

I found this fan in my office when I took over, it was burried back in a cupboard. I love it!
It is fun to me that I can see Rome from my bed :)

So there are a few things I love about my home.

Free is so sweet!

Like I just mentioned I went and switched from Verizon to AT&T today! This is not only great because it means that I will pay less monthly, Sweet! It is also great because I can actually use my phone in my apartment! Super Sweet. If you don't live around here, you may be thinking what? Yep Verizon got next to no signal at my little place deep in the Redwoods. So now I can enjoy chatting on my phone while lying on my bed, or cooking in my kitchen or whatever else one normally can do while talking on the phone. Where as the past two years I have had to lean my head against my sliding glass door and hope and pray that the other person was hearing me. To top it all off, I got a $230 ish phone for oh wait...NOTHING! FREE! That's right and it has 9 hours of talk time, and some sweet extra features like a pedometer and the radio, plus a sweet camera with little extras like panoramic shoot, and other stuff. And the best part it is not a Razor.

Good Weekend

This weekend is good already. I just got home from taking a group of Sr. High Students to the Hay Maze at Arata Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay. I believe there was about 23 of us who drove out so that we could arrive at 8pm and spend the next hour and fifteen minutes wandering the 2-2.5 acre hay maze. Yep it took me and my four students the whole time to make it through and I am not sure we could do it again. It was super fun to be running around in the dark under the stars completely lost. I highly recomend it. I don't know that it would be nearly as fun during the daylight hours, unless you have kids. Then day time would be a better option.

Tomorrow should be good too! I get to switch from Verizon to AT&T...which I have been waiting for. Which means less expensive coverage and more of it! And a phone that is not my Razor!

Tomorrow is also my little brothers soccer game, always fun to watch Jordan play and my dad coach. I have missed most of them this season, because I have been out of town almost every other weekend. I am going tomorrow Go Tigers!!!

And then in the evening I will be going to see a student in a community play, a melodrama of some event in our community's past.

Then on Sunday night Real Authentic Worship starts back up! Yea! RAW is a great hour of worship that I have missed for the last four months. I am excited to have it back again! If you live in the area you should come join us! Its at 7pm in the Little Mt. Hermon Chapel on Conference Drive it is such a simple time of connecting with God.

Yep its a good weekend.

Obama Is Not The Only One Preaching Change

This weekend I am at the National Youth Workers Convention in Sacramento this weekend. I have been looking forward to this weekend since last year. Even when I wrongly assumed it was at the Arco Arena and which I thought was possibly the worst spot ever...even then I was eagerly waiting for this chance to get away with people who have for various reasons have chosen to follow the call that God has placed on their heart. I am here surrounded by about 2,500 Youth Pastors who have gathered to learn, challenge, be challenged, grow, rest and worship. It is one of my favorite weekends of the year. And thankfully it is not at the Arco Arena, but rather the Convention Center.

I came ready to learn and be challenged and I have been. I cannot even begin to cover here all of the things I am learning and thinking about. But, friends rest assured that Obama is not the only one preaching Change. Change is in the air around here, and seeing as the wind is blowing a lot things are getting russled about. It is refreshing, and yet uncomfortable at times.

More to come about this I am sure either on the blog or in practice or both. Hopefully both.

Only because we are friends

I got Tagged by Jenni, so I'm doing my bit:

Here are the rules:
1. Post the rules on your blog
2. List 6 random things about yourself
3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post

1) While I would probably not get along with them in person I kinda have a thing for Anthony Bourdain (I know he is married) and Greg House (I know he is not real).

2) I love sushi even though half the time I eat it I throw up later.

3) I love cooking

4) I have next to no memories of my childhood

5) I used to hate reading and now I love it

6) I am not a pet person, but when I see dogs on TV I want one

I'm tagging....

Heather
Brittany
Darbi
Meggie
Krista
Heidi

To Twit or not to Twiter?

I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon back when Obama was new news. (when was that? seems like years ago) I know that this was the time, because I joined Twitter to join a group on Google Maps that was tracking Obama's progress in that election that happened ages ago. When I joined Twitter I found it confusing at best and lame at worst. Initially I was intruged, but because non of my friends were Twittering it was kinda pointless at that point in my life.

I forgot about it.

Then some of my friends got bit by the Twitter bug. They were getting Twitter updates on their phones and computers all the time, it kinda made them seem really popular. Every couple minutes their phone whould alert them of a new txt telling them of thier friends latest news.

Being the people person and friend junkie that I am, I decided to give Twitter a second chance. I reopened my account, and found a few but not many of my friends. I signed up to follow them, and they follow me. Yes I know that it seems stalkerish, but you are signing up for it, so it is not as creepy as if people were just following you uninvited. Anyhow, at first it was exciting, my phone would be going off every few moments telling me the latest news in my friends lives, and even the responces of their other followers would be sent to me. I could text Twitter and tell them where I was or what I was doing or thinking and they would publish all that info pretty much instantlly on my Facebook, Myspace and who knows where.

Did I mention before I am a People Person? Oh yep right before this. Yeah, which is why I am thinking Twitter is not actually the best thing ever. You see, now I know all about my friends at every moment of my day, but I no longer hear from them. Sure I get a little Twittering here and there, but for a girl like me who thrives on interpersonal communication it is pretty much sucking the life out of my social life.

Even when I do see or chat with my Twitter friends there is really nothing left to talk about, because they have been letting me and the entire world know their day to day stuff, without ever talking to them. So my friends, I am de-twittering once again.

Which in all honsety has been put off a little too long. I turned off all phone updates weeks ago, and really stopped reading along about then too. If you want to chat or grab a cup of coffee let me know. I am sure you will find another way of reaching me.

saturday surprise

I just came home to find a flower. Just a singular beautiful flower.
Perfect fit for the blue vase that I have been holding out t for just the right use.

When it Rains

It rained last night.

As I sat in my little place candles lit and listened to the sound of water falling from great heights I was reminded how much I love the sound of rain. How it somehow can minister to my very being. The world always looks different after the first rains have fallen. Greens are greener and things that have gone unnoticed seem to stick out. I am a sunshine sort of gal, but a good down pour now and then is good for the soul.