A lesson in patience

The theme of this summer is patience.

Oodles of patience.

Copious amounts of patience.
(Ok, I'll admit, redundant...but I just love the word copious)


Regardless, you get the idea.

I've always considered myself a reasonably patient person. I'm an elementary school teacher, I don't get upset in traffic and my father even occasionally asks to borrow a bit of my patience (this is a win:win situation, let me assure you).

All that being said, I am fairly certain that my "patient pants" are at the absolute bottom of my laundry basket and they need a major turn in the spin cycle.

When I think back to where I was in November-skeletal, unable to walk up a flight of stairs and totally lost as to what had gone wrong in my body-I have made tremendous progress. In fact, if you run into me today, I don't think you'd have any idea of the chaos that lies inside. I look normal, I sound normal and I can do relatively normal things. I have a couple of funny looking scars and a bedazzled frontal tail, but if you didn't know to look for those things, you may never even notice (unless of course, I start beeping and get escorted out of Target...details).

So yes, I am fully aware and incredibly grateful for the progress I have made and for the help I have had getting there.

It feels a bit like I decided to climb a giant mountain. I did a tremendous amount of research on what to bring, where to go and what to do in emergency situations. I set off at a sprint with my backpack full of everything I may need from the best climbing places in the world! I keep climbing and climbing and climbing and then OOF. I plant my feet firmly halfway up the mountain and take on the characteristics of a potted plant. (Ya know, needs to be watered and fed occasionally, but looks exactly the same and never moves a muscle).

And for the record, I would be an orchid. Or perhaps a gardenia.

So I'm waiting.

But what if this is it, my new and permanent normal?

I don't believe that it is. I can't believe that it is.

Besides, my good pal Dory always says to keep on swimming.

So I will.

I mean really, "I climbed half of the mountain and earned this bumper sticker!" is just much too long.

A classic case of organ rivalry...

Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't already wake up each morning and personally greet each and every one of your body parts, I suggest that you start doing so. As it turns out, body organs can get a little, well,  jealous if they aren't getting equal attention.

My thyroid was a little annoyed that my GI system had been getting so much attention and it staged a temper tantrum. A very large temper tantrum, I might add. I have Graves Disease (auto-immune disease that causes a hyperactive thyroid) but it had been in remission for a little over a year. Needless to say, it is no longer in remission and is back and means business.

In case you are unfamiliar with the workings of the thyroid, it controls how quickly the body uses energy (food) and makes proteins and it also determines how sensitive the body is to other hormones. The thyroid creates additional hormones that regulate your metabolism and affect the rate of function of many other systems in the body (how fast your heart beats, how many tears your eyes produce, etc).

As my dear pal Captain Obvious might add, when you already have significant "struggles" with metabolizing food, absorbing vitamins and getting your blood to flow...a thyroid issue isn't exactly ideal.

To say that my thyroid levels have reached hot-mess status is putting it mildly and my endocrinologist was a little aghast that I had not picked up on this sooner...until he realized that each and every symptom of Graves is a ramped up, yet plausible, symptom of something else going on in my body. Oops.

So for now, I wait (semi-patiently) and hope the medicine does its job in a timely fashion. In the mean-time, I get to spend some quality time with the Scorpion (my all-star dust buster....duh) as I suck up all of the hair that has fallen out of my head. Luckily for me, it is summer time and the ponytail is totally IN on the red carpet...phew.

I wonder if body organs can write a slip to meet with the counselor?

It might be time for conflict mediation...

Making a choice

Blog friends, I need to get something off of my chest.

Deep breath in, deep breath out.


I'm actually not a super hero.
(But if I was, I would have a fantastically long silver sequined cape. Just so we are clear.)


Throughout this entire health journey, I have been blown away by the outpouring of support from my family, friends, and people who read this blog who I have never even met. Absolutely, positively blown away. I have kept every single card I have received and as cheesy as it may sound, I read through them at least once a week. All of them. And what gets me every time, what really fills me up to the brim with awestruck and blessed emotion, is your faith in me.

Please don't misunderstand, those cards and blog comments are what has kept me going on the rough days and I don't even have words to express my most sincere gratitude. But if someone were to read them out of context, they would think they belonged to a super hero. Someone who has literally leapt over skyscrapers, ended the unemployment crisis and casually found a cure for cancer...none of which I have done, and while I'm extraordinarily grateful for your words, I feel rather undeserving.

Here's the thing: I'm a positive person. I find the sunny side, it's just what I do. But regardless of my personality and regardless of the degree of hot-mess in which my health situation resides and regardless of the state of the current weather, I know that I have a choice. Every. Single. Day.

I could dwell on the negative. The obstacles and hardships that I didn't see coming, and even the ones that I did. I could easily spend my day filling up to the brim with all of the terrible things going on in the world or how I want a piece of pizza or how I think I'm coming down with a cold and the store was out of kleenex with lotion. It's painfully easy to find the negative, but honestly, that's just miserable.

Or I can find the positive. I can acknowledge the negative and move on. I can be grateful for what I have, instead of what I am missing.

I'm not saying this is easy, if it was easy, I would be wearing that fantastic silver sequined cape. All I'm saying is that it is a choice that I try to make.

I recently started a volunteer position at a therapeutic riding facility. I have been wanting to try a volunteer job for awhile and I finally got the "go ahead" from the medical powers that be, as long as it was only once a week. I just felt like there was no way for me to get a reading on how I was doing, without actually trying to do anything (crazy logic, I know).

So today I spent three hours surrounded by horses and helping people build their strength and self esteem. I loved every minute of it and felt fulfilled in a way that has been lacking, more than I even realized. I was complimented on my backpack (duh, I told you feeding-tube-wear was making a comeback!) and I came home covered in sweat and dirt, with black fingernails and a giant smile on my face.

After I semi-reluctantly showered away my horsey-stench and sat down to a gourmet lunch of yogurt, pureed carrots and bread, I will admit that I had a moment of negativity. I spent three blissful hours feeling useful and happy, only to come home feeling like I got run over by a giant semi. I hurt, and I was mad, and my lower lip may have been protruding.

But I got over it. Yes, I have been popping tylenol to deal with my raging fever and aching back and head. Yes, I may or may not have fallen asleep not one, not two, but three times during the formation of this blog...and yes, I had a fantastic day.

I'm not a super hero, not in the slightest, I'm just doing my best to make a choice.

Although that cape would really be fantastic...