once more, with feeling?

Doctor's office called today with results from my latest blood test.  My TSH is stubbornly clinging to 0.2 so my dose has been reduced again to 100 mcg/day, down from 137.  That's a big drop.

I'm still taking my 5 mcg/day of Cytomel, though, and I'm wondering if that's what's keeping my TSH so low.   I did some research on this today and found a stat somewhere saying the T4/T3 ratio should be 80:20 or optimally 90:10.  My ratio has increased from 137:5 to 112:5, which is quite low, and I honestly don't know if that's enough to keep the TSH suppressed.  I should probably write an email to the doctor and ask her if she wants me to go off the T3.  I wasn't happy before when I went off it, but who knows what will happen now?

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty thrown by all this.  I used to be on top of all the developments related to thyroid cancer and recovery treatments but obviously I'm not.  This past blood test, for the first time ever (in more than 15 years!) I was directed to stop taking any biotin-containing supplements for a week before the draw.  I still have no idea why -- I asked the nurse about it and all she could tell me was that she was relatively new to working in the Endocrine Clinic but that she had always written the orders that way.  I'm did a quick search and this article came up which explains the situation.  Now I'm wondering how screwed up my tests results may have been all these years, because I've been taking the same B vitamin complex supplement for ages.

I did take some time and read up on A-fib and low TSH, and apparently it's a big enough thing that even WebMD has an article about it.  OK, OK, if I really am cancer-free it's manifestly better that my TSH be closer to 1 than 0.  I get it.   Most of the articles I'm seeing were published in the last couple of years, when I really haven't been paying attention to this stuff very much.  Also, I have been convinced for years that I needed a higher dose of levothyroxine to suppress my TSH and keep any cancer cells dormant. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I've been eating a little wheat here and there -- crackers with some cheese at lunch, a few cookies.  Nothing like pizza for dinner or a plate of pasta, that just seems like it will be too much, but the amounts I have eaten have not bothered my digestion or made my joints swell.  Were all my wheat problems a side-effect of too much thyroid hormone? I have no idea, but it would be pretty awesome if I could eat more like a normal person again without being sick for days afterward.

Merry Christmas!

A very quiet day here in soggy Arizona, but nice.

I'm finally setting up the new laptop I bought for myself over a month ago!  Yesterday as I was trying to order photo cards my old laptop shut down on me three different times, signaling it had really, really had enough of this life. 

I'm looking forward to not having to worry about whether or not the plug is in just so to make the connection so it could actually charge the battery.  This kind of thing is to be expected when a laptop has been dropped repeatedly on that same corner -- I'd say it's bad luck, but it's physics: that's where the battery is, so it would always land there.  I hope to do much better with this machine, especially since I won't be travelling with young kids who need more supervision, thereby causing me to rush and forget, say, to zip up my laptop case completely. 

This year's duck confit cassoulet was a major success, so much so that there is none left!  But, I have more duck, saucissons de Toulouse, and roast pork to put together another one, probably for dinner tomorrow?  I don't see anyone complaining.  Confit-ing the duck took forever yesterday in a very slow oven, but it paid off in deliciousness and extra duck fat for next time.  We're going to have potatoes fried in duck fat with our rib roast Christmas dinner this evening.

Said roast is resting in its salt at the moment.  I'm not entirely sold on how I'm going to cook it, and since I only do it once a year, I always have to look it up!  Fortunately it's pretty hard to ruin as long as I don't overcook it!

New keyboard feels pretty good.  I just have to get everything ported over to this new machine and that's going to take a while.  Fortunately Carbonite will just keep chugging along in the background until it's done. 

I haven't done a bit of my school work, but I've got quite a lot of vacation still left.  One of these days I'll be disciplined and tackle it, but with all the shopping and wrapping and cooking, it didn't make sense to try to do it before today.   I'm debating how strict I need to be with myself, because I got books for Christmas and if I start reading...

wellll....

That's didn't take too long.

First, my team lead assures me  I will be offered a contract for next year, so that's helpful.  It still wouldn't surprise me if I didn't get one.  I seem to have a 3-and-out streak going on, and this is my third year at my current school.

Second, she wisely decided not to wait passively by for admin to get back to us, but she put together another proposal for them.  Specifically, three of us each teach one class for one trimester, and the math teacher (who literally can't do more than she is now) will just have to monitor study hall (like now).   Today we got a terse email saying "We will be moving forward with electives and your proposal," so I guess that's it.  We were all hoping they wouldn't say OK but of course they did because it's the cheapest option.

But now I'm on tap to teach Robotics to junior high kids for 2 45-minute sessions a week, supposedly in lieu of after-school Robotics. There are problems with this scenario.  First of all, I don't want to give up the after-school Robotics.  I love working with those kids.  But if I'm teaching this new class, I'm really not going to be able to give up 2 days a week after school.  It was hard enough this year, and I can't imagine doing it next year with having to teach another class.

Second, there is currently one will-be-junior-high student who may return to Robotics next year: our current "older kids" team is all 8th graders, except for one now-6th-grader. I'm not sure she'll want to take Robotics, though.  She's extremely over-scheduled as it is.   I'm not sure if there will be any interest, and if there's not, I don't want them loading up a class with students who don't want to be there.  That would be the absolute worst.

Third, a Robotics class and a Robotics competition team are not the same things.  I think I need to define that the class is the class and not expected or required to go to the tournament.  I doubt 2, 45-minute sessions, with the trimester ending at the beginning of November, would be enough time to get a robot and missions coded for competition.

Fourth, and this is bothering me... I haven't said a word about this to lead coach, mostly because I'm hoping that nothing comes of it.  We still don't really know how things are going to shake out next year, so I'm just going to bide my time and see what happens.

At least our math teacher is finishing out this year, which is a relief.  I hope she'll decide to stay in spite of how badly admin is treating us.

In completely unrelated but similarly sucky news, I have pink eye.  I also have a zillion papers to grade but my eyes hurt so that's my excuse for playing Words with Friends instead.

ack

You know that feeling, like you're coming down with something, but it's not a physical thing, it's just because you're miserable?

Yeah, that's what I'm feeling right now.

The meeting over electives with administration was today.  We all said our piece... it was basically one piece that needed to be said.  It was not well-received.  While we weren't outright told to "suck it up, buttercup," that's essentially what happened.

We left with, "No resolution today.  We'll meet again in January after the break."  So I have this horrid uncertainty hanging over my holidays now.  Thanks, admin!

Pretty sure we're losing our math teacher.  I don't know what I'm going to do, but after poking the bear today I'd be really surprised if I get offered a contract for next year.  I wanted to stay at my school until I retire, but now I don't know if I'll be given that opportunity.  It was nice while it lasted.

surprise!

Last Saturday was the FLL robotics tournament, and we went in with expectations.  The big-kid team would do great at the robot game, and therefore had a good chance of advancing to the state-level competition.  The little-kid team, who had never once practiced an actual competition round, had never practiced their presentation, and literally had never heard about FLL's Core Values?  They would learn a lot from the experience, hopefully having some fun along the way.  All in all, my co-coach and I went into the day thinking there was a decent chance we'd be done for the season.

That pleasant dream was not to be.  It was an excellent tournament: the big kids won the Robot Performance award for having the best scores at the robot games.  The little kids won the Core Values award for being the living embodiment of innovation, cooperation, and fun.  After their first competition round, they came off the stage so pumped up it was adorable; if you could bottle that feeling  and sell it, you'd be a zillionaire.  For the subsequent judge meetings, I just advised the team to remember the feeling they had coming off the stage, and take that into their meetings with the judges.  Apparently they listened to me, because the judges loved them so much that they are advancing to State!  

When they were announced as the 7th and final team to move on from the tournament, my co-coach and I turned to each other with identical expressions of What just happened?!?!?  We were sure the big kids' team would advance, especially after doing so well in the robot game.  But the big kids weren't having any fun and have a tendency to snipe at each other a bit, which is an affront to the Core Values.  But the biggest reason is probably that the judges knew the team didn't build the robot and write the code, or that they didn't do it alone:  too much parent work on display. There were a lot of other factors involved as well, but it still came as a surprise.  The big kids were definitely disappointed but they seemed to get over it pretty quickly.  The little kids, of course, are jumping out of their skins with excitement.  Fortunately, the state tournament isn't until the third weekend in January, so we have some time to prepare a little better.

I wish those were the only surprises from last Saturday, but they weren't.  I headed over to the tournament about 7:15am, and was surprised to have a text from one of my junior high team-mates by the time I arrived on campus just 15 minutes later: Read your email.  So I log into my work email and there's a message from our assistant principal, reviving the issue of junior high teachers teaching elective classes.  We went through this last spring and we all pitched a fit about it, and administration backed off.  But now it has reared its ugly head again, only this time admin is requiring all the junior high teachers to teach one elective class per trimester, in addition to study hall (or perhaps replacing it, that wasn't clear.)

Of course this has thrown three of the four of us into utter turmoil.  One of our team is a nun and she has taken a vow of obedience so she doesn't have a choice.  Our team lead, who has been at the school for 27 years now, is similarly "stuck," because a host of her grandchildren attend the school and she doesn't want to leave them, or the school.  Our math teacher is the hardest hit because while she has 3 of her 4 children on campus with her, her 2-year-old is still at home.  She has already sacrificed a lot to be with us, teaching three different math subjects plus religion.  She and I completely agree: we barely have enough time now to do our jobs properly, and you want to take some of our prep time away, while giving us more work to do?  

In what universe does that make sense?  Here is more work, and you'll have less time to do it in!  

We are all very upset by this in many different ways.  First, the way it was announced -- a 6:30am email on a Saturday morning! -- was simply horrible.  The level of disrespect is off the charts. Second, that it was conveyed as a requirement, no discussion allowed, is just unacceptable.  Third, of course, is that the demand itself is ridiculous, serving no legitimate purpose and having a very negative impact on the quality of the teaching we will be able to deliver.  

I've spent countless hours on this since first reading that email, and it has cast a pall over my days.  I responded Sunday afternoon, saying the current system respects our need for time to do our jobs properly and have work/life balance, and I requested a meeting to discuss the situation.  To date, I still haven't received a reply to the concerns I raised in the email, but admin did set a meeting for Monday after school.  Every time I think about it, my stomach drops. 

I don't want to leave my school (and my church, and my parish...)  This is not a bridge I can burn!  This is more than just a job to me.  It is my church, my community, my extended family, and that's what makes it hurt so much to be treated with such a lack of consideration and respect.  I know from recent, painful experience that I can teach more classes than I am now, but I also know that the quality of my teaching suffers tremendously, and I have no home life whatsoever.  

The last time I worked like a crazy person, DD was still living at home and helped nearly every night, putting dinner on the table.  She was just a high school student then, and wasn't working outside of school.  But all three of the men here now are working long hours and DS2 will be back in school soon, so they don't have the availability to cook that DD had.  Cooking for my family isn't just about nutrition: having dinner together is how we stay connected to one another. It's too important for me to sacrifice!  

I'm going to spend some time writing up my thoughts in preparation for Monday's meeting, but then I have to stop thinking about it.  Tomorrow's a grading day... once again, I'm completely swamped, mostly because so much energy has been burnt over this electives dictate.  (We're supposed to tell admin what class(es) we want to teach when we get back from Christmas break!  So I'm supposed to spend my break finding something else to teach next year?!)  But also... I lost my prep time on Thursday because of the special mass and procession for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  It was lovely, and I enjoyed it, but I really have a lot of grading to do! I graded my most recent Religion quiz through our brief staff meeting yesterday, even though we have been specifically told not to do that.  Since it was just a discussion of how our tuition is being restructured, I didn't think it would be too bad if I graded.  Also, if the principal saw me grading during the meeting, maybe she'd realize I already don't have enough time to do the work I have, so why is she 1) taking time away from me while 2) giving me work to do?!

I read back through the blog here to find what I wrote about the elective kerfuffle last spring, and the single common thread (during school time) was I am constantly overwhelmed with work.  I just am.  I can do a pretty good job of keeping up, but then extraordinary circumstances occur like losing all but one day of my prep hours for the week because of various special events, followed by losing the entire Saturday to the robotics tournament.  That meant Sunday I had to do both housework and grading and other prep for the week, so of course I was up ridiculously late finishing all the grading; I had to enter the grades themselves early in the week when I finally had a prep hour again. But then this week we burned so much time with many discussions going round and around about what we're going to do about this situation, because none of us is happy about it.   I'm estimating I have somewhere between 9 and 12 hours of grading (not joking).  It's probably closer to 12: revised analysis paragraphs, and new conclusion paragraphs, for both 7th and 8th (that's at least 4 hours by itself); an 8th grade engineering design challenge -- and I left the actual devices in the classroom, so I can't compare the sketches to what they actually built -- models for both 7th (rock cycle) and 8th (states of matter and changing states) grades; 8th's Dry Ice observations lab worksheets; and at least one set of notes (there may be more).  That's just what I have at home: back in the classroom, I need to grade my students' Religion notebooks for the chapter 8 work... I'm thinking I can do that while they're studying for the unit test (chapter 9 is a review chapter, thank God.) Fortunately I have graded all but 2 of the student's quizzes, but the grades aren't recorded yet!   Did I mention grades have to be in by Tuesday morning because progress reports are being printed Tuesday to go home Wednesday?! 

This is what I mean, and it's like this whenever something disrupts the schedule, which happens at least 2 or 3 times a month.  I'm praying a lot. We'll see what happens. 

a blur

The week after a holiday is always tough, and this one was exceptionally rough because we had so many odd things going on at school, namely our annual Christmas program, which involves rehearsals which eat up half a day, and then two performances (because the program is split for grades 1-4 and 5-8.)  We had exactly one day this week with a "normal" schedule, and that was Monday.  Every other day's schedule was hijacked by events we had no control over.

And we had Robotics every day after school because tomorrow is our FLL tournament!  I should be sleeping now, but I realize I haven't written in a while and that's no good.

Also adding to this week's feeling of barely-controlled-chaos: 7th grade was in the lab two days doing their mineral identification lab, and 8th grade was in the lab every day except Monday with their thermal energy transfer engineering design challenge.  Kids love building things!  I am so much more comfortable with letting them build than I used to be, but I'm still worn out by trucking back and forth to the science lab several times a day, not to mention prepping several dozen 15-ml ice cubes for the testing phase.

Last but not least? My grade's week to keep the teacher's lounge looking decent, and my co-teacher was out two days for family stuff and off-campus professional development.  (sigh) Fortunately my colleagues are not slobs but still.  The timing was impeccably bad.

All the weirdness this week ate into my prep hours at school, and, as I said, robotics every day after.  I'm behind on grading and have to revise my plans because of new events that popped up for next week, too.  By some blessed foresight I printed everything I needed for this week and will need for nex week before I took off for Thanksgiving, so at least I'm not behind on that front. 

I'll get caught up eventually. Just need to survive tomorrow and then: the 2-week slog to Christmas break!

Managing

Temperatures have dropped below 80 degrees finally, so I'm back to wearing layers and layers, and I put the big cuddly blanket back on the couch.  The boys all wander around the house in shorts and t-shirts, when I'm bundled against a cold they don't feel.  A side effect of my lowered thyroid meds? Possibly. For a while there, I felt like my thermostat was more like a normal person (ha!), but now I'm back to being too cold or too hot a lot of the time.  I don't get it.

The weekend was a blur of Thanksgiving preparations, helped along a bit by the fact our internet was down for most of it.  It's amazing what you can get done in the real world when you're not spending hours online.  In general I've been better about that since I have too much to do, but the temptation is always there. 

There's only so much you can do so many days ahead: dry out the bread for stuffing, make the cranberry sauce, that sort of thing.  The apples are ready for the pie, which was the probably the most time-consuming of the prep tasks.  Tuesday afternoon I'll be making the pie crust and popping it into the fridge to be ready for baking on Wednesday.  There's still some laundry and general cleaning to do, also, but that can wait until Wednesday, too, because our house guests' flight doesn't land until 9PM. 

One more day of school this week and my heart is just not in it... I want to be home cooking and baking or just under a blanket reading a good book or knitting.  In the face of all the many tasks I have ahead of me, I still found the time to start that scarf project.  So far it's working up nicely, but we'll see if I actually like the final product!  I do like the pattern itself, but I'm not sure about the weight of the yarn I'm using for it.  Since the pattern is so flexible, there is no "wrong" yarn to use, but I'm not sure I'll end up with a scarf that I would actually wear!  We'll see. 

missed one...

Yeah, last week wasn't a great one, so it's no wonder I missed my weekly post.

Apparently, I'm doing fine on the thyroid meds, so I should just stop worrying about it.  I'll have a blood test in another couple of weeks and we'll see what the doctor says about my levels.

Ironically, the weekend was long and lovely.  I had time to finish everything I needed to do, and I even got to work on the alterations to the dress I bought over a year ago, to make it fit for work (that is, long enough -- I sewed some wide lace at the hem).  Many compliments when I wore it, too.

Since Monday was Veterans' Day, we had a short week, but short weeks with Monday off are always the worst.  It just felt like crisis after crisis, albeit minor, and/or every time I  turned around something else was popping up to take away class time.

I survivied, we all survived.  DH has a brutal cold right now and DS1 was making noises that he was coming down with something, too.  So far I'm healthy, thank God.

Trying to be good about doing my tiny exercise set each day, and I do think it helps.  Still not doing very well at getting to bed at a decent hour, though.  I'll sleep when I'm dead still rattles around in the back of my brain some days, but that attitude convinced me that it was OK to read an entire (albeit not very long) book last week, Bernard Cromwell's Agincourt, which I adored. Way too much fun, and I did spread it out over three days, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Also not as bad as it could have been: the number of peppermint mochas consumed by me last week; was it 4, or 5? I just want them all the time now, they are so delicious.

In another fit of insanity, I bought some beautiful (very cheap) yarn and a new, simple but very cool knitting pattern to work it up in.

 Now to get caught up on my grades so I can actually start that project!

from the outpost just past exhaustion

This was a very long week: parent-teacher conferences.  For what I believe is the first time, I was ablae to meet with all my students' parent(s) in the space of a few days, plus one other.  I wasn't at school any later in the evening, but I did get up earlier so I could be at work before 7am.  This was a minor inconvenience to me but it also involved putting out DH since we're still sharing cars with the boys.  Just now it's the boys who get the cars during the week since I just stay at school all day.  At least I get to drive on the weekends!

At any rate, we actually had two half-days of school so you might think I'd be feeling pretty good by the end of the week, but no.  Today was our annual party day and that's a semi-fun but mostly boring day of supervising groups of children in various unstructured activities where they can get into trouble if left too long to their own devices.  The day went well and the weather was perfect, but it just seemed interminable.  At the end of the day we have a sort of "awards ceremony" to recognize the biggest fund-raisers, and if students donate a certain amount, they can put a whipped-cream "pie" in their teacher's face.  The third grade teachers had very generous students this year and were basically covered in whipped cream by the end of it, but I got off easy.  The one student in my class who met the donation requirement was a sweet girl who really didn't want to "pie" me, but I encouraged her to pick it iup and go for it.  She barely touched me with it!  I'm not complaining, though.  It's not exactly my favorite thing!

I guess I'm used to this new thyroid dose?  I feel... calmer, I guess? Less keyed up.  Maybe  I don't really know.  I am able to get things done even at the end of the day, so that' s good.

One important lesson from this past week:  last weekend I made up a to-do list and included estimates of how long I thought everything would take.  I estimated 3 hours for grading my students' materials and procedures, when in reality it took at least 7 hours if not more.  I knew I'd be getting up early every day and really didn't want to stay up late, but that's what happened, and I was a zombie the entire day on Monday. (Even so, I worked efficiently at school Monday and Tuesday, and finished everything I didn't get done over the weekend!)  I realized that I'm much better off giving the students class time for these assignments on Monday and making them turn them in before they leave.  This gives me an entire week to grade them, so I can spread the grading out and possibly still have something resembling a weekend.  This week's project plan papers were due on Tuesday, and I've already graded one class set -- and since it was one of the classes destined for more comments, the others shouldn't take nearly as long. I hope! 

It's a 3-day weekend and DD says she's coming to visit on Sunday, she's coming down with some friends.  We're all thinking it's about 60-40 she'll show up; there are a few things she needs here, so she has incentive.  I've invited her for a belated birthday lunch on Monday.  I do hope we get to go.

I feel like I'm making progress on the work-life balance with this week's decison.  We'll see how it goes.

the new normal, apparently

I write here for myself, although I know there are a few others who read here. Life goes by too fast and I want to record some of my internal state, at least occasionally, and I know if I don't write it down, whatever I'm thinking now will be lost forever. 

It's always a surprise how much I forget.  Just today, when I popped into the blog, I saw the past few entries and thought, Right, that new dose of thyroid meds!  Completely slipped my mind in the end-of-grading period business I've been swallowed by.  I guess I'm used to it?  I feel more sensitive to cold, but the temperature just dropped here considerably, from nearly or over 100 degrees to the high 70s, low 80s.  It's delightful, but I'm freezing, or I'm too hot!  It's difficult dressing for weather when the mornings are quite literally close to freezing but the afternoons are in 80s and toasty. Layers.  Lots of layers.  I layer on scarves and sweaters in the morning and then gradually peel them off as the day goes by.  This explains why I have so many scarves!

This weekend's necessity: shoe shopping.  My existing colder-weather shoes don't work with my orthotic and wearing them without the orthotic is a huge mistake, as I found out Thursday.  I was able to make my sandals work because they already had nice cushy insoles with at least some arch support, so I added a metatarsal support and I was good for the day.  No such luck with my little black booties, which were very cheap and cute but completely flat.  They've got absolutely no support but also no room for an insole.  I practically lived in them last winter.  I have a pair of Bjorn booties that are getting to the falling-apart stage but I've had them forever and they're awesome... but again, they won't work with my orthotics.  My riding boots do fit my orthotics but they're a little snug now, I wore them today and my feet felt better at the end of the day then they did in the morning, when they were still reminding me that not wearing proper footwear on Thursday was a bad decision. 

I'm resigned to doing something about this, though, because I can't do my job if my feet are killing me.  I feel lucky that just a change of shoes eliminates my symptoms (Morton's neuroma), although the pain comes back if I spend too much time walking barefoot or in bad shoes.  It's just a reminder not to screw around with this condition.  I will go to great lengths to avoid having foot surgery.  I spent the last two summers with my foot in a boot, and I never want to deal with that again.

Once again Friday evening finds me vaguely hopeful for the weekend, and I'm not feeling too swamped.  I posted my grades for the end of the grading period already, but of course have new work to grade anyway.  (The grading never stops!)  But it's November, and the holidays will be here before we know it, and overall everyone seems to be doing just fine, at least for the moment.  It's good to acknowledge it, and I am very thankful.

not just love

I have a saying, kind of a family motto: Food is love.  There is nothing better than sharing a meal with my family or others that I love, and it's made even better if I, or we, prepare that food especially for the occasion.  Even if the occasion is just Sunday morning breakfast.

Today I realized that it's not just love, it's therapy.  I got up earlier than I could have and made the big fall breakfast: eggs, bacon, Trader Joe's gluten free pumpkin pancakes... and that chip on my shoulder has shrunk considerably.

My frustration this week involved struggling to do what I need to do when there are other things that I'd much rather do. As an adult, I do what I have to do, but as a human, I get annoyed if I never get to have any fun! (This from the woman who just got back from a weekend trip to New Orleans...)  But even if I can't do everything I want to do, I can at least take the time to make a decent breakfast. 

Bonus: leftover pancakes make great take-to-school snacks. 

6 days in...

Nearly a week (the aforementioned 6 days) on the impossibly-tiny 112 mcg/day dose of levothyroxine, and the main thing I can say about myself is that apparently everything is pissing me off.

I feel as if I've spent most of this week with a chip on my shoulder, and I don't exactly know why.  I'm still struggling mightily with work-life balance, and I'm acutely aware that I rely on everything going smoothly 100% of the time so that I don't get swamped.

Of course, not-so-smooth events occur every week, so I'm swamped every week.  I'm really tired of it, and I want to change it, but I don't exactly know how to do that.  I'm figuring it out as I go along.
For example, I'm putting all my quizzes into Google Classroom, so I don't have to grade them ever again.  But it's a trade off of up-front time vs grading, and sometimes the grading seems less tedious than entering the quizzes, since every single question and answer has to be manually entered... unless there's some magic "upload" button I've been missing all this time.

I think the school year is going well.  We're coming up on the close of our first trimester (I know, I know - weird) so I really do have to catch up on entering grades.  I'm not really even that behind with the actual grading, just getting them into the gradebooks... it's another tedious and thankless task.  For example, there is a way to link assignments in Google Classroom to the gradebook so the grades can be imported automatically, but that costs another not-significant sum to enable, and it's not in our budget this year.  So I end up copying grades from one to the other, and due to odd variances of student names, they're not always in the same order, so something that should literally be a button push becomes 10 minutes of tedium. (It's probably not 10.  It may only be 2 or 3 minutes, but it's so tedious it feels like at least 10.)

Yesterday by the end of the day I was feeling irrationally happy that it was Friday, and I had two days off.  Today, at 9PM, I'm annoyed again.  I literally just thought to myself, I didn't get anything done today, when I, in fact: bought groceries for the week, shopped for DD's birthday, finally bought the notions I need to fix a dress I can't wear because it's too short, went to Mass, made a fantastic from-scratch shepherd's pie for dinner and washed all the dishes (of which there were many), and finally applied for the refunds for DD's aborted flights to New Orleans.  That's not nothing, in fact it was a rather busy and productive day, I just didn't get any schoolwork done, and so... I didn't get anything done today, and now I fear tomorrow will be a long, horrid slog, priming me for a miserable week ahead. 

I do hope not.  I like to believe I can choose, but I'm struggling this week to make my choice  -- not to be angry all the time -- stick.

Oh yeah: residual upper respiratory crud continues; body aches galore, headaches many days this week.  I want to blame all the wheat I ate last weekend but I don't know if that makes sense.  Most likely it's my lack of consistent exercise, but I'm also exhausted all the time these days, so the idea of getting up earlier to put in my workout strikes me as absurd.  My hands hurt. Also, I don't think I've shaved my legs for a month now and I don't think anyone would be able to tell.  Isn't lack of hair growth a hypothyroid thing?  I don't want to have furry legs but if I never had to shave them again, I wouldn't be sad about it!

meds update

On Friday, my endocrinologist called me when I was hanging out in DFW between flights, and we had a brief conversation about my dosage.

She wants to lower it again.

So now, after 15 years or so on 137 mcg/day, I'm down to 112.  Dropping to 125 mcg/day barely budged my TSH, from 0.1 to 0.2, and the doctor has targeted 0.5 for me.  I suppose I'm used to the lower dose, more or less, but I did tell her about feeling slow and stupid, and the hives.  She was skeptical that any of that had anything to do with the thyroid medication changing, and in that, she is typical of every endocrinologist ever, in direct contradiction to every thyroid patient's experience ever.

But I asked her again why she wanted to reduce my dose so much, and she is worred that I'll have a fatal arrhythmia or a stroke or a heart attack, and since both my parents had heart problems, I am trying to be more agreeable about it.

I wonder when she'll go for my 5 mcg/day of Cytomel?  I know my chart notes mention how attached to it I am, and I know in the past when I've given it up, my autoimmune symptoms worsened considerably.  At that point, though, I hadn't yet figured out that I have a problem with wheat, so who knows what would happen now?

I don't go for my blood test until the end of November.  I'll continue to track how I'm doing here, so I have some data over the course of this grand little experiment.  I have noticed I am having fewer palpitations, but that hasn't dropped to zero.  Also, my pulsatile tinnitus is back, but that may have something to do with the huge right-side lymph node under my jaw,  which is dealing with the remnants of the upper respiratory crud that descended upon last week.

Quick trip

Last week was kind of crazy because we had no school on Monday and then I took Friday off!  So I "only" worked three days, and I feel like I haven't worked in ages.

That's because on Friday I took off for a little jaunt to New Orleans to visit my brother and his family.  The original plans were blown up both on their side and on mine, since DD was supposed to come with me, but then she came down with the flu: no flying for her! 

I had a great time visiting my brother and his family and all their adorable cats.  They fed me all kinds of delicious food and drink and it was just nice to have time to hang out and be together.  The best thing is that now most of them will be coming to see us at Thanksgiving!  I am beyond excited about it.  When I texted DH the news he deadpanned, "Great!  I'll start cleaning now."  (The house is really not that bad! Really!)

Part of the reason I feel like I've been away a long time is because I read a novel loaned to me by my dear mother-in-law, The Lilac Girls,  about the "Ravensbruck Rabbits", girls and young women who were the subjects of gruesome medical experiments in the only Nazi concentration camp that was exclusively for women.  Most of the women were Polish Catholics, and from Lublin, which is a place I know my mother visited several times.  I think I still have cousins there.  It was meticulously researched and only slightly over-written in that "first novel, name-dropping" style, but I was thoroughly engrossed nonetheless. 

I arrived home after two entirely matter-of-fact flights in the early afternoon.  From there it was grocery shopping, mass, and then dinner prep, as usual.  And now I have to prepare myself to plunge back into the work world, and I just want to dive back into another book instead!

This is why I shouldn't read unless I have an actual school holiday.  I always want to read more, more, more. I am an insatiable reader, I just manage to keep it under control most of the time.  Still, it was a lovely weekend and I do feel refreshed.

ick

It turns out that the coming-down-with-a-cold feeling was accurate.  I woke up yesterday with a raw throat and nasty drainage.  I suppose I should be happy I'm not congested, but said drainage is making my stomache feel queasy today.

Who's ready to go back to school after the long weekend?  Not me, not feeling like this.

I did finish a lot of grading and can do more tonight, but tomorrow is going to be a rough day if I'm not any better.

The papers I dragged my feet on grading were, on the whole, about as wretched as I expected them to be.  Sometimes when the whole batch is lousy I just want to throw it out (as in, not put it in the gradebook).  It's not a crime -- not every little thing has to go into the gradebook.  But these ones, they're going in, and the students will just have to face the consequences.

This is the point where I lower the hammer: I've told them 4 or 5 weeks in a row exactly how to fix their papers, and the vast majority of them just don't do it.  I spent hours and hours (and hours and hours) making detailed comments so that they could do well, but from here it seems that was all wasted effort.

I will have to rethink the research paper process for next year, because I do not want to go through this again! It's contrary to the stated goal of the science project portfolio, which is to make the process and the outcome better for everyone.  So far, that's not happening... but then again, I graded the least-experienced class first, so maybe the other classes will be better?  Here's hoping.

learn something new every week!

It was a wretched day at school.  I was sabotaged by our (incompetent) ISP, who did not come out to repair our wifi equipment until around 2PM, by which time all my classes were over.  So instead of my students being able to share and peer edit their documents online, I had to fight the constantly-dropping connect to get their papers printed out so they would have something to do.  Then, of course, they didn't really do anything but socialize, since they couldn't actually edit their papers.

That'll teach me not to have a backup lesson plan in case of technology failure!  But today was especially bad since the students are now off on a 4-day weekend.  It's our miniature "fall break" and I never assign homework over breaks like this if I can help it.  We were at the end of a unit in both grades and there was no way I was starting another one.  I'm still turning it over in the back of my head, what we should have done, and I'm still thinking that the hardcopy work-around was the best option, even if it was far from great.

The hassles were compounded by the fact that just last weekend, DH moved us all over to a new cellphone provider, and I couldn't get a mobile hotspot to help me print the papers out more easily.  It took approximately 2 hours when it should have taken about 20 minutes, because the connection kept dropping.  And of course I couldn't supervise the students while I was fighting to get their papers printed!  It was just a very frustrating day, but still: lesson learned.

The other thing I learned? Hives can be caused by 1) viruses or 2) thyroid problems.  I feel like I've been fighting off a cold for three weeks now, which is implausible to say the least.  More likely this is another side-effect of my new dosage.  For a while I had been thinking I was getting bitten by random mosquitoes (we do have some around school), but there aren't any mosquitoes or fleas at home and I'll just be sitting here and all of a sudden I've got itchy red welts on my hands or feet, or occasionally my neck.  The pattern of localization tipped me off that something weird was going on, then a colleague mentioned to me this week that her daughter, a student in my home room, was dealing with hives as she was coming down with a cold.  This absolutely blew my mind, because I've also had that coming-down-with-a-cold feeling for a while and hives, not bug bites!  But in researching it just now, thyroid issues popped up as a common cause of chronic hives.  I'm at about week 4 I'd say, so 2 more weeks and they classify as chronic.  Let me add this to the list of complaints to mention to my doctor once I get my bloodwork done...

About that:  I had an appointment for Wednesday at lunch which I had to cancel because I read the order and it said the draw had to be between 7 and 8AM.  Ha!  Let's see if I can manage to get that done in the next month. 

Between the frustrations at work, the general fatigue and body aches, and the now-ever-present itchyness of hives, I'm about ready to just say forget it and put myself back on my old dose.  I don't because I know Dr. A has my long-term health in mind and she is concerned that my old dose was stressing my heart and weakening my bones.  That said, I'd rather live a shorter, less painful life than a longer one if I'm going to be feeling like this all the time.

That's probably just the (chronic) irritation talking.  If I could just get more than 6 hours of sleep, catch up on all my grading, and not be itchy for a day, I think I'd feel a lot better.  At least tomorrow is a non-contact day, but the trade-off is getting up early to drive to Xavier College Prep downtown for in-service.  I am very much regretting not taking the day off! (Didn't I say that last year? Hmmm.)

how many weeks now?

I can't keep it straight in my head, but that's not important.

I'm settling in to this new dose, I guess.  I do feel stupid from time to time, but most days and most times I appear to be functioning normally.

If it seems odd for me to describe myself that way, I can't help it.  There are times when I feel "off", but most of the time I'm too busy to notice.  I suppose that's a good thing.

My triumph this week was finishing grading all my students' research paper work before 5PM today, so I actually had time to do some other things.  It will be nice to start the week off with a good night's sleep!

In other news, DS1 starts his new job tomorrow!  Ah, how delightful is the prospect of having an offspring that can actually support himself! We'll be managing with only 3 cars for a bit until he saves up for a car of his own, and I'm the designated non-driver: DH will drop me off at school in the mornings, and someone will pick me up in the afternoons... I hope!  We'll see how it goes.

inventory, planning

I had to go back and look to see how long I've been on this new dose.  It feels kind of like forever, but I know that's not true. 

Minor injury month continued with me stubbing my newly-healed, once-broken baby toe last Thursday.  It hurt for a while, enough for me to think What is wrong with me? Did I break it again?!? but then it settled down.  It wasn't broken, merely insulted.  It was very red for a day it's back to usual now.

Physical symptoms are not too bad.  My hip was bothering me today, probably from the way I was sitting all curled up watching the Downton Abbey movie, which was delightful.  I mean, it was a piece of fluff, but it was still fun to watch. Except I'm paying for it with a sore hip today? It's just a guess.

The lymph node persists, but is only interminttently painful.  Palpitations have nearly disappeared, as has the pulsatile tinnitus I've had for several years.  I only notice it when it's really quiet and/or I'm dehydrated, so it's not really a bother.  I could usually switch it "on" by listening for it, but now if I try to hear it, I can't.  I suppose that's good!

On the other hand, I'm definitely more likely to say something to irritate my family these days. My sanity-filter seems to be malfunctioning:  there are things that I think, but I don't say, because I know they'll only cause problems of one kind or another.  Lately I've been saying those kind of things anyway, with the predictable results of various people being annoyed with me.  I could blame the new dose but I know I'm just a jerk sometimes.  And then I think, well, do I have to be gracious when I cook a nice dinner at the end of the week when I'm exhausted and nobody says so much as thank you? Feeling unappreciated makes me want to say jerky things.

School-wise, I'm doing my best to keep up with my grading, etc, and I'm managing better.  The first half of the year is difficult because I'm losing two afternoons a week to Robotics, and also dealing with all the extra grading for the science fair.  It's a lot.  I've been looking through my plans and dropping things I've done in the past that didn't seem to help the students' learning, things like virtual labs, and that's helped me keep up a little better.  I've seen how many grades the other teachers take and even if I drop an assignment here or there, I'll still have more grades than anyone else. 

We're heading into the time of extreme exhaustion, because we're all ready for a break but we don't get a fall break, just a long weekend.  It helps, but it's really not enough.  But this year I'm taking an extra day to go to New Orleans with DD! Wedding dress shopping is something I've literally never done, in spite of the fact that I've been married twice -- and did, in fact, wear a dress each time.  The first time I had a custom dress made for me by a friend of a friend who was a costumer for her dance company, and the second time I just wore a cocktail dress.  So the whole bridal gown experience passed me by, and now I'll get to enjoy it vicariously.  I believe being the aunt on the shopping trip is ideal, because I have zero involvement in planning the wedding and therefore zero stress about the bride choosing a dress. 

Other travel plans are percolating, too. I've been going back and forth on what to do for our 25th anniversary, and had really decided to just stay home and work on the house. (We're selling in a few years, and it needs work before we do.)  But various people have told me not to be ridiculous, that we out to do something special to celebrate, and I think that's right.  I should have some good memories and not just an updated kitchen which I will eventually be leaving behind, right? So I had to really think about the kind of trip I want, because DH was talking about going to Rome.  Italy sounds really lovely, but honestly I'm worried about my dietary restrictions.  When eating wheat makes you very sick, it's really hard to be around it all the time.  The breads and pastas in Italy are fantastic, and I wouldn't be able to eat them without possibly ruining the rest of my time there with joint pain and digestive upset.  I know I would be able to find something to eat (a girlfriend jokes that I could just have a steady diet of gelato), but I think it would really bother me to be in that environment and not be able to properly enjoy it. 

Then I started thinking about what kind of trip I would like:  a nice, comfortable place to stay - no camping or roughing it in any way; really good restaurants; nature that I haven't seen before that is accessible to someone who's in pretty good shape but is not a mountain climber; perhaps some culture (music, museums, shopping), but those are the least important. I want to be able to go for beautiful hikes to breath-taking places but be back in time for a really great dinner.  Today I settled on Colorado Springs, but we'll see where (and when!) we end up going. DH rather maddeningly keeps asking me what I want to do, without telling me what he wants to do.  I think both should be considered in making any plans, and the planning really is a big part of the fun.  Sometimes I think the anticipation of the trip is at least an equal pleasure to the trip itself.  If it seems as if it's more, that's only because the anticipation lasts so much longer!

fall

Minor injury month continues (extended from minor injury week.)

Yesterday was a long, mostly pleasant day.  School was fine, and afterwards I led a professional development session that went well.  I was able to leave almost immediately afterward and came home, and shortly after that I went to pick up DD where her ride-share dropped her off. We stopped on the way home for Starbucks for everyone.

Back home, all the offspring (no longer kids, right?) were gathered around the kitchen counter with their drinks, catching up.  I unpacked an Amazon delivery and decided to empty the small, indoors recycle bins into the huge one outside the garage since there was no room for the box... and that's when I fell. 

Our garage has a raised area by the door, kind of a like a sidewalk.  I appreciate it because it prevents you from accidentally driving into the back wall of the garage, at least if you're going slow enough.  I honestly don't know what happened, but one minute I was walking with the two recycle bins and the next I was on the garage floor with recyclables everywhere.  The garage is well-enough insulated that the offspring didn't even hear it, even though all that plastic and glass crashing to the groud seemed very loud to me.  I'm very grateful that none of the glass broke!

I picked up everything I noticed and disposed of it, then limped back into the house, grumpy.  I have several nasty bruises in progress -- they're still not visible but they hurt!  I don't think I hit my head (I fell near the car, after all), but my jaw is sore and my hip joint is really complaining, too.  Ah, well.  This won't kill me, but it certainly wasn't fun, and when the bruises come out it's not going to be pretty. 

Just another note in my "hey, you changed my dose and look what happened" file.  For the record: no alcohol had been consumed prior to this event.

haha!

Of course I blogged yesterday about a painful node, body aches, brain fog, and getting little sleep because of too much work to do.

So today, on less than 5 hours of sleep: the node has made barely a twinge, body aches just about gone, and brain fog, well, I can't really tell but it's certainly not worse. 

(eyeroll)

No harm in keeping track of these things, but this reminds me of the times your tech refuses to work until you actually call tech support, when it auto-magically starts working perfectly again.

I'm just glad I'm feeling a little better.  We'll see.