The Big Black Dog

Caffeine: My Loyal Friend

In  the last year, I have gained 25lbs.

There. I said it. Twenty-five pounds. It makes me want to puke just thinking about it.

During one of my therapy sessions, my shrink asked if I've had my thyroid checked lately and I wanted to scream. EVERY new doctor I've ever had wants to test my thyroid. And every time they have, everything has come back perfectly fine and not even close to being an issue. Instead of screaming at her and telling her it wasn't my fucking thyroid, I politely told her that my doctor had checked it last time I had a check up and everything was fine.

Except she didn't check it. Oops.

I have been increasingly tired over the last few months. My hair has been coming out, almost like postpartum hair loss. Yikes. I have my period every 3 weeks still. I sleep like crap. I could go on with everything that could be thyroid related, but let's just say, I've had a lot of symptoms. But each one I could justify happening because of whatever other reason. I'm a mom, of course I'm tired all the time. Right?

So when it came time for my annual checkup, I told the doctor everything. First thing, she said she wants to check my thyroid... and looked and found that we did not last year after all. Sure enough, I get a call later and she wants to start me on a low dose of meds.

I've heard that some people notice the meds working as soon as a few days into it, however, my info said 1-2 weeks. Today was the first day I think I actually notice a little bit of a difference and it's been a week.

I woke up this morning and instead of having my 800 cups of coffee, I had a glass of iced tea and that was it. I accomplished SO MUCH today. I feel like it's been forever since I've gotten that much done! I still hit a wall a couple of times, but definitely wasn't dragging all day like I have been. Granted, I didn't workout today, so that may have had some impact. But I did have a diet coke later in the day because I was dragging. Of course, that's not abnormal at all. I live on caffeine.


Maybe this will be a good thing. I hope this is a good thing.

Waiting Game

Application has been submitted. Personal narrative has been written and submitted. Letters of recommendation are in progress. Now I wait to hear if they think I'll be a good match for the program.

I don't like waiting. I'm nervous. I've already been losing sleep over this.

Brain Overload

It looks like going back to school is going to happen. There are several details that need to be worked out, but everything is lining up in one way or another.

My head has been spinning all day.

Strange Things Are Happening To Me

Until a week ago, I thought the idea of ever going back to school was preposterous. The husband has mentioned on occasion that he thinks I should go back to school if I want to. Since he is a professor, he found that I can take 6hrs per semester if I'm enrolled in a degree program. (So no taking classes in this dept and that just to see what I like.)

Still thinking he was crazy, I talked to a spinning teacher at the gym about the Kinesiology Dept. She assured me that it isn't all gung-ho CrossFit people, so I checked out the website. After looking around, I know Kinesiology wasn't the right fit for me, despite my love for working out.

What I did find by clicking around was a Master's in Public Health. The program has four areas of focus including Public Health Physical Activity. The other areas include food safety and biosecurity, infectious diseases/zoonoses and public health human nutrition.

On a whim, I called the department and on Monday I have an appointment with the department head to discuss the program. The more I read about the program, the more excited I become. There are classes that don't sound as thrilling as others, and classes that sound dreadful (biostatistics). But all in all, it sounds intriguing.

I'm actually EXCITED about speaking with the department head on Monday! I'm forming a list of questions to ask. It would awesome if this is a great fit for me!

I worry I'm getting too excited about it.

Obviously, I have to take into great consideration the impact it could have on my family--both positive and negative. I could write out all of the pros and cons, but I think I'd be getting ahead of myself. Right now, I'm going to simply get more information and go from there. One step at a time.

Here I Go Again

I've never posted numbers of my weight here and I'm not going to start now. But let's just say that I'm up too much. I HATE the way I look in pics. I feel like such a failure.

One way that was really beneficial for me before was to post progress pics. So here we go again. BLAH.  :(

Range of Motion Progress

After a friend asked me how high I could reach now with my hurt arm, I decided to take some pics so that I can see how much progress I am making. Today is a normal day, not doing great with it, not doing bad. Some days I can reach higher (going forward), but all the other pics are accurate of what I can do consistently.

No smiles.. These are very uncomfortble for me to do still. You can see that I've gained weight. And you can see my oh so lovely arms. Should've worn a long sleeve shirt. Oh well. Just shows why I want plastic surgery! And another reason not to smile!

Straight forward, arms up:

Arms up, out to the side:

External rotation:

And reaching behind my back:

This is 6wks post surgery. I go back at 12wks to check progress again.