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.

hmmm

Just keeping track a little more closely:  I do think I'm coming down with something, but I can't figure out what.  I have no sign up anything upper respiratory -- no post-nasal drip, no congestion -- except I now have a remarkably painful lymph node just under the jaw joint on the right side.  I think I've had this before?  It's a weird place to have a constant pain and it is kind of distracting. It started Monday morning, I think, but yesterday was an all-over painful kind of day so it was just kind of background noise.

Body aches again today but not as bad as yesterday, but that may be because I slept for about 9 hours last night.  That's not happening again today because I had too much grading to do, since I didn't do any yesterday because I was sleeping!  Anyway, fewer body aches meant that the painful lymph node was that much more noticeable. And I'm just going to say it: it's just a reactive node, and not cancer.  The odds of it being cancer after the incredibly thorough workup I had over the summer are so close to zero we'll just call it zero. Even though it feels like one node to me, it's really a small cluster of survivors from neck dissection, and they freak out if something's going.  I've had them biopsied at least twice and examined under countless ultrasounds and they're always 1) reactive which means 2) not cancer.  (The evil-thinking part of my brain thinks, Wouldn't it be funny if you got a recurrance because you're on a lower dose now? To which the rational part of my brain responds, Shut up.)

I'm trying not to psych myself out of (or into) anything here, but I feel ... off.  Clumsy.  In the past week I have sustained 3 minor injuries in the kitchen: one burn, one knife wound, and then to top it off, I grated the side of my thumb just enough to make it sensitive.  None of these injuries are life-threatening, but to me they are a sign that I'm not at the top of my game, so to speak. 

I really can't afford to be operating at less than peak efficiency.  If this goes on much longer I'll have to think about ditching the new dose and going back on the old one, hoping the damage is reversible...  or maybe I have a little virus or something that will blow over in a few days... or maybe there's nothing going on (I just typed "they're" and stared at it for a few seconds knowing it was wrong but not knowing how to fix it! I finally figured it out.) and it's all in my head and I'll have forgotten all about this by next week!

I'm busy enough.  It's not as if I want to sit around examining how I'm dealing with this new dose, but enough "off" things are happening that I really need to document if I'm going to convince my doctor to put me back on my old dose, even if it is stressing my body in other ways.  At least my brain was working well on it...

Week 3

Everything hurts.

I have been working long hours, but my work is not physically demanding.  I don't recall spending a day grading leaving me aching from head to toe, literally, but that's where I am.  Perhaps I'm coming down with something?  It's a possiblity, but I don't feel sick, exactly, I just hurt all over.  Muscles, joints, you name it. 

I'm also exhausted beyond what I think I should be!  I haven't been too bad on getting sleep -- at least 6 hours and usually more, which is, to be honest, great for me.  I have at various times routinely stayed up until 1 or 2 while still getting up by 6:30, so shouldn't I feel less tired?

Digestion: meh.  Still nibbling on ginger frequently, and I haven't had the really horrid gastroparesis-full feeling I had a few times the previous week.  But I go from having zero appetite to being ravenous, and I'm not sure what that's about since I eat the same way all the time.  There's nothing new going on in my diet.

I have been wearing my shoes with the metatarsal orthotic, and I was thinking that was making my legs ache (not a bad hypothesis), but then I realized that there is no way the orthotics could be bothering my hands, so I gave up that idea.  I suppose it's still plausible.

Today in my first class I oollected their homework from over the weekend and put it in my expandable file, and then, about 5 minutes later, handed them back out to the students because I had forgotten what they were!  The kids laughed about it and forgave me that bit of silliness, and in all fairness we did have about five different things going on at that moment, but it wasn't one of my best mornings, to say the least.

Just a very long and painful day. Here's hoping tomorrow is better.

two weeks in

Approaching the end of my second week on my new dose, and trouble may be brewing. For the past three or four days I've experienced the return of my gastroparesis symptoms: feeling full after eating just a few bites, feeling bloated all the time, having to burp a lot...

This could be unrelated to the change in meds, but maybe not.  We'll see.  I'm coping by nibbling on candied ginger, and chewing gum when I can. Both seem to help a bit, but the vaguely unpleasant feeling is still hanging on.  I hope it goes away soon!

In other news, I scored two pairs of sandals and a beautiful pair of pumps at The Walking Company's Labor Day sale.  It will be nice to wear shoes with the correct footbed to keep me from furthering injuring myself.

I'm almost done with the ridiculous amount of grading I had to do, and then it will probably take an hour to enter all the grades.  I think fondly of how good it's going to feel when it is done, and I vow to do a better job of keeping up with the grading, going forward. Thank God for this 3-day weekend so I could catch up!

free!

Doctor cleared me from boot-wearing yesterday: the toe is finally healed!

I wore the same sandals on both feet today and felt short! It was awesome not having to stump around campus in that thing.

The toe still feels a little "crunchy" and the doctor says that's normal.   I still feel like I have to have an ice pack with me and my 20-minute timer whenever I sit on the couch.  That will wear off eventually. 

Now to try to dig out from the pile of grading I've got myself into...

checking in

Since I'm on a new dose of my thyroid meds, I'm going to make an effort to check in more frequently so I can keep track of how I'm handling it. 

So far, so good.  In fact, the beginning of this school year is almost suspiciously smooth, with no major problems or headaches or seemingly intractable problems.  Maybe it's because this is my tenth (!!!) year teaching and I've finally chilled out, but I don't have that sort-of-an-itch feeling that there are things that are just waiting to explode.

Which is not to say that those things aren't there (we're having a meeting to review IEPs for our students this Tuesday), but so far, so good.

I'm seeing my doctor regarding my broken toe tomorrow, and hope that I can finally stop taping, and wearing the boot, etc.  We'll see.  It's less than ideal timing with respect to my dose change, but I also started a bone-growth-promoting supplement the last couple of weeks to see if it helps.  Here's hoping.

Without getting too graphic, I had some kinds of an intestinal bug for about a week that finally seems to have resolved.  I was thinking it was a side-effect of the bone-growth supplement, but I haven't stopped that and everything has finally settled down anyway.  It was unpleasant but didn't get in the way of teaching, so it could've been worse!

So far no signs of fatigue or brain fog, and I'm definitely feeling calmer, less tightly-wound.  I don't think I had any palpitations this week, whereas normally I would feel my heart going crazy at least two or three times a week. It's really too soon to tell, though, since it has only been a week.  I'm going for my blood test in mid-October and have even already scheduled it.  I'm trying to stay on top of things, with fair-to-middling success so far (she says, eyeing the huge stack of projects left to be graded!)

new dose, day 1

For about 15 years now I've been on the same level of thyroid medication.  After my last (exhaustive) round of tests, my new doctor has declared me "disease free" which is very nice (I don't really buy it, but whatever, the effect is the same) and decided to lower my daily thyroid meds from 137 mcg/day to 125 mcg/day.  I dimly recall being on a lower dose before my cancer diagnosis, but that was all so very long ago...

Anyway, I have some trepidations about this.  I know my dose is high, it gets flagged as high every time I have blood work done.  But I feel good.  This is "normal" for me now.  I'm not particularly enthusiastic about adapting to a new normal, not when the school year has just begun.

That's going just fine, except for me wearing THE BOOT at school because that damned pinkie toe is still not healed.  I actually bought a new supplement designed to promote bone growth and I'm now putting up my foot in class to try to get it to actually heal.  It has been more than 2 months now!  I would like this process to be over.

Lots of stuff happened that I did not write about, as usual, now.  I accept that is the way things are for the present and forseeable future. Overall things are just fine and I have every reason to expect they will stay that way!

laziest day

Halfway through our east coast vacation, we're suffering with high heat and humidity as the remnants of that hurricane (Albert?) make their way up the coast.  Ninety-plus degrees with similar humidity are a good excuse to stay in and lounge around, so we did.

This year's vacation is weird because it's just DH and me.  We left the kids out of the planning because they're all supposed to be working.  As of this writing, DS2 just landed a job but the other two are working at finding one, although DD had an interview today for a position that's a great fit for her, so we'll see how it goes. 

We're also not doing our usual jaunt to Mystic, because my brother hosted a mini-reunion at his place near Boston, so we did an overnight there instead.  I have played more cards in the past two weeks than I've played in the past five years, but that's OK -- last week I taught my boys and their visiting cousins the very basics of whist, our family's favorite game.  We'll have to revisit when I get back because my siblings caught me up on some of the finer points of bidding... let's see if I can remember everything they said!  They are all much better than I am at paying attention to all the cards, not just the trump suit and the picture cards.  It's a great mental workout and a fun way to spend time together.

The next day, DH and I toured the Adams National Historical Park at the suggestion of my sister-in-law.  I had not been in Quincy center for years, and the re-design makes the historic places so much more accessible.  The visitor's center has a great half-hour video to prepare you for the tour, starts with a trolley ride to the birthplace homes of John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and then takes you out to John Adams' later home, Peacefield, where several more generations of Adamses lived until they deeded it over to the nation. We had a little time before our tour shuttle left, so we walked from the visitor center over to the United church where both former presidents and their wives are encrypted.  John Hancock's father was minister there -- founding fathers everywhere you looked!  The tour was excellent.  I particularly liked Peacefield's all-original-to-the-family-everything.  Wallpaper, floor boards, carpeting, dishes... the family stipulated that nothing be changed, and so it's all the original stuff, very nicely kept.  The stone library building built by JQA was amazing, too.  My only regret is we spent literally not time in the garden at all!  There simply isn't time on the tour for it, which makes sense because half of the year it's barren.

Plans are somewhat vague for the rest of our trip, but we'll be heading back up to Boston for a Red Sox game on Thursday (fingers crossed we don't get rained out.) 

It's simultaneously nice and weird to have no responsibilities.  Lots of time to read!  I finished Unseen Academicals, my last Discworld novel (although I may have missed one or two of the witch-centered ones.)  Pratchett's later novels all deal with self-discovery and acceptance, but not in a politcally correct way.  His faith in people was wonderful, and made his books a joy to read.  He was as keen an observer of human nature as you are ever like to find, even if he often wrote non-human characters. 

This same attitude ("humans are actually pretty great, even with all their flaws") was the underpinning of the novel he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens.  I read the book before I watched the new Amazon mini-series, and rather liked the mini-series better.  The book had kind of a "showing off" vibe to it; some parts were written specifically to be amusing and didn't always help the flow of the story.  The mini-series managed things better, particularly the denouement, which I absolutely loved. 

Also watched season three of Stranger Things with DS1 (along with pretty much all of Farscape) and enjoyed it as an aesthetic experience but like many others, find it lacks a central message. It got really out there this season and while it was a lot of fun, it's hard to find any substance there.  Remarkably, one thing that came through this season is patriotism (!), along with family, and trusting your friends. I'm curious to see how the events of the last episode affect the characters going forward.

Health stuff: My little toe is still (fill in your own expletive) broken. I'm trying to keep it up as much as possible, but I'm not encouraged.  It's hard to wrap it in a way that the wrap itself doesn't end up making it hurt.  It will heal eventually...  My new doctor called to say yeah, all those test results mean we don't really have to do anything now, although I apparently missed a blood test last week (oops).  So I'll do that when I get back, no big deal. One odd thing was I developed an absolutely huge bruise on my forearm from the IV placement. It's finally starting to fade after growing for several days, and it still hurts like heck. Other than that, things are OK but I am really not sleeping well at all out here.  I try to go to bed at a decent hour and just end up lying awake... jet lag. I will just get used to the 3-hour time difference when we are going home!

this house is too big!

Post-dinner, I'm sitting in the family room with a glass of wine, listening to the soft shush-shush of the dishwasher.  DH is upstairs in his comfy chair, and DS2 has moved his computer up to his room so he's not here, either.

My niece and nephew headed back to to New Orleans this morning after a really delightful visit, and DS1 is currently on his way home from a quick trip to California with some friends.

I feel very much like I'm rattling around here, but that's always the way it goes after visits.  The visit was great for keeping my mind off the intense round of medical tests I had on Friday: brain MRI, CT scans of my thorax and head/neck, and a PET/CT as well.  So far the results of the first two have come back completely clear, which is great, but it's of course the last two that are most dispositive.  I am wondering what my new endocrinologist will say if the scans show something, or if they don't (which seems to me is more likely, even though my tumor marker is consistently detectable these days.) 

I did a review here of how my cancer has been followed and these tests were all requested for me five years ago (five years!) when I had a similar, positive tumor marker + negative whole body scan, result, but my insurance company at the time (Cigna) denied every requested test.  Those denials kept me on the same useless ultrasound/Thyrogen/whole body scan merry-go-round until now.  Sheesh.

I'm still not expecting anything to show up.  Or should I say hoping nothing will show up?  What's worse?  I don't know.  I just don't want to be thrown back into any sort of treatment loop. 

Good news is the pituitary adenoma appears to be stable, so brain surgery is not likely in my future.  Totally not sarcastic: Yay!  Technically I have to wait for the nurse to call me and tell me what the doctor wants me to do, which won't happen until the other two tests are posted.  I can wait.

so, not done...

My head and neck surgeon at MDA referred me to their endocrinologist, and I thought, "Why not?" I like my endo just fine, but her office staff is neither friendly nor supportive.  I always feel as if I'm inconveniencing them when I call, if I actually connect to a human.  If I don't connect to a person, I inevitably get bounced to a voice mail box that is full.  This year, because I wanted to be tested at a more local hospital, I had to make a half-dozen phone calls to figure out where the order should be sent.  That's not my job, and I resented it having to do it.  I'm glad I did, though, because for the first time ever I didn't have to drive all the way to Phoenix for my testing.

My tumor marker test results finally came in, slightly lower than last time (3.60) at 2.90.  But my new endocrinologist and I discussed whether this result is useful or meaningful for someone like me.  Her opinion: at this point, it's detectable vs undetectable.  I should haven't any cancer activity, so the tumor marker should be undetectable.  The fact that it's not means I have some cancer somewhere, albeit (most likely) very small.

Since my ultrasound and my whole body scans consistently come back clean, even though my tumor marker is detectible, that says these tests aren't worth doing any more.  (This has been going on for years, after all.)  The new endo explains it like this: we know the cancer is there, but it's not showing up on these tests, so there's no point in doing these tests anymore.  Half of me says, YAY! No more low-iodine diet, no more Thyrogen (r) trials, none of this foolishness anymore! 

The other half says, Wait, what? Intellectually I knew that sometimes thyroid cancer just stops picking up radioactive iodine sometimes, I just never thought mine was like that... except it obviously is, since I've got cancer that doesn't show up on the whole body scan.

The new endo wants a thorough work up to stage my cancer, so next Friday I'm going for a lab test that looks at adrenal function (to see what's going with my pituitary), as well as a CT scan, a PET scan, and a brain MRI.  It's going to be a fun (haha) and expensive day. 

The good thing is, after all that, we'll know what we're dealing with, because honestly at this point all we know is that there is cancer somewhere.  I've been operating on the assumption that it's small because it's not showing up on the whole body scans, but that's only one possibility.  The other possibilities include a) it's not small and/or  b) it's not picking up the radioactive iodine anymore.

I'm just glad it will be over relatively quickly, and I'll have some idea what's going on soon.

In other news, I had another round of x-rays on my broken toe and it's worse, at least the break near the bottom joint. I'm now buddy-taping two toes over and wrapping around the ball of my foot to try to stablilze it, and I'm back to elevating the foot and icing it as often as possible.  I could not possibly be more irritated with that situation.

On the other hand, I watched and enjoyed season 3 of Netflix's Jessica Jones (spoiler, foreshadowed from the very beginning of season 1: Trish was the monster all along. ) and all of season 1 of HBO's Big Little Lies, and I've read two Terry Pratchett novels and have one last one I'm kind of saving.  Plus I'm listening to the McElroy's podcast The Adventure Zone, and am caught up with Amnesty but just started the Balance arc.  If I'm going to just be listening, I need to find something else to do, so I'm actively toying with the idea of a knitting project.  I just don't know what to knit!

Niece & nephew are visiting next week from New Orleans, and then the following week DH and I are heading east.  Summer's not flying by but it is going by faster than I'd like!

and, done!

Most likely. 

Since I had the scan at a different hospital, the nucmed doctor was not there to look it over.  Technically I have to wait until I get the official report, but I looked at the images and didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  I was particularly interested to see whether the weird area of uptake in my chest re-appeared, but I didn't see it.  (Doesn't mean it's not there, but if it is, it's very subtle.)

There was a blip, however, at the lab: my bloodwork that's supposed to go to UC Davis? "We're not using that code anymore," the technician told me.  She assured me they would call the doctor's office and find out what was supposed to happen, and that's all to the good. But I had a blood draw last weekend before this whole process started that was also supposed to go to UC Davis, and now I'm wondering if it actually went. 

I could allow myself to become agitated about this, but I won't because I'm not going to find out those results for another month. I'm just going to back-burner all this until my next appointment.

at the turn

I'm happily exhausted.

Monday I started my low-iodine diet and my first-ever stint as a summer STEM camp instructor.  My school sponsored a session of Camp Invention, and it was both very busy and very fun.  The best part was the team I worked with, including the director and one other instructor, both teachers from my school, and then all the interns and "leaders in training" -- older students -- who helped make it all possible.  I'll get a stipend that sounds great for a week of 9:00 AM - 3:30 PM contact time, but we all earned every penny of it!  I think one afternoon we teachers were out by 4:30, but all the other days it was more like 5:30 or 6, and the day started about 8 the latest.  NIHF sends all the material (more than adequate amounts, but a lot of absolutetly lowest-cost supplies) and curriculum (truly superb), and they provide online support with everything from training videos to background music and timers.  Even though all I had to do was read through the curriculum and deliver it, there was still considerable prep work involved, and my two classes were probably the least fussy! 

The kids had a blast.  It was interesting to work with such young students.  It took me back to my story-time days when my own kids were very small.  The very first sort-of teaching thing I ever did was story time at Borders!  The younger group (rising first through third graders) was completely onboard.  The older group (rising fourth through sixth graders) had some holdouts on some of the slightly sillier things, but there was only one who pretty much sat out the entire week.  Fortunately she wasn't able to poison everyone else's enjoyment, even though she refused to participate in practically everything.  The kids built, and we sent home with them, an inordinate amount of stuff that would make me shudder if anyone brought it into my home now, but looking back, I remember that's what you deal with when you have young kids.  Also: building and experimenting is such a positive activity for them, they all (except that one) loved just having time to make stuff, and no one telling them to stop making a mess or "No, you can't do that."

Notwithstanding all that, I'm definitely in the right job: teaching the "littles" for more than a week and I think my head would explode.   I couldn't even begin to count the number of times the phrase "suck it up, buttercup," went through my head when a child whined about something not being exactly the way they wanted it... I managed not to say it aloud even once! Something to be proud of, I suppose.  Redirect, redirect, redirect... In a week, you can really suss out who the good kids who are and who are, sadly, more or less rotten.  By today I just wasn't as willing to give the brats a lot of energy or attention.  Everyone survived.

LID while at camp: no breakfast (never eat breakfast, really), apple at snack time, a banana and fig & walnut thing from Trader Joe's; after school, a peach, and then dinner.  So far it's going OK but DS2 threw a mini-tantrum about the boring roast pork loin and I did rather harshly put him in his place by suggesting that he find a better recipe and cook it himself!  With any luck, by this time next week I'll be off the diet and have a clean report from my scan.  The scan will be done, of course, but I don't know if I'll get the results immediately the way I usually do, because I'm going to the different, blessedly closer, hospital this time around. 

So, a blood test tomorrow morning kicks off the merry-go-round of appointments. Oh yeah, between the ultrasound and the scan, I'm spending $1000 on medical testing next week -- there goes my stipend...

into the maelstrom

In five days, give or take, I'll start the low iodine diet in preparation for my whole body scan two weeks from today.   That will give me a solid week before my dose of radioactive iodine.  It ought to be enough...

I have an inordinate amount of medical appointments scheduled for the week after next.  I feel as if they have come out of nowhere, but they all materialized over the last few days.  I have three ultrasound-related appointments, and then four whole-body-scan-related appointments, and three trips to the lab.  I still need to schedule my last follow-up appointment, which will be right before I head into my pre-service days, as well as a "spot check" .  

I don't really want to think about my summer being over yet, but that's how this plays out.  I really wanted to do the scan in early June, but that didn't work out.  At least I'm not driving all the way into downtown Phoenix this time, but the situation is still somewhat tenuous.  At UHC downtown, I went every day to the same place for the injections, the dose, and the scan.  At the closer place, I'm in a different locale for each step!  They sound like they have their act together.  I just hope they do.  

Next week, I'm teaching at a STEM summer camp program at my school.  It's a later start than my usual school days, I'll be out by 4, so the days won't be too long.  I hope having a broken toe doesn't impair my ability to have fun while I'm there!  

same foot, different summer

Yesterday was a very busy and productive day: the two boys and I finally, finally painted DS2's room.  Yay!

Except on the way back up to his room to finish up the second coat, I stubbed my little toe on the rug that is usually in the hall -- I had flipped it over so it wouldn't get (any more) paint dripped on it accidentally.  And then I walked right into it, smashing my little toe in the process.

I have a podiatrist now, after smashing my big toe last summer and breaking it in 3 places. I spent most of the summer in a boot, praying it would heal before school started.  It did, and I've been very cautious about going barefoot since then, and especially since the neuroma kicked up in my right foot, too.  Why is it always the right foot?

Anyway, saw the doctor, she took x-rays, and showed me how it was broken in 3 places. Horrifying, actually.  No cast, just buddy-taping, and she wants me to wear the boot again for another six weeks.

Not likely...I feel barely recovered from the hip damage I developed from wearing the boot last summer, and this isn't a big toe, which you really need for balance and walking, etc.  This is just a baby toe!  Sure, it's kind of purple now, and I will keep it elevated, and ice it, and all that stuff, but I refuse to surrender another summer entirely.  Also, I've got sandals that accomplish pretty much the same thing.  We'll see how it goes.

best excuse ever

I have some correspondence to write, but the piano tuner is here. 

It is possible to maintain a coherent thought, but stringing more than one together with another? Nope.

summer

The first unofficial start of summer in my family is Mother's Day, when we celebrate the coming season with a cookout.

The actual unofficial start of summer is Memorial Day weekend, because here in AZ, school (at least my school, and up to this year, my kids' school) conveniently end just before that.

Of course, science-wise, summer doesn't officially start until the summer solstice, which is some 3 weeks away.   My brain seems more atuned to that calendar, because I'm surprisingly not exhausted and ready for long, lazy days.  I have a long list of tasks I'd like to accomplish, both work-related and house-related, and I've been chipping away at it all week.

Which is not say that I'm being super-productive.  Just moderately so, as in, "not completely lazy and doing nothing."  But it doesn't feel like much of an accomplishment to spend hours trying to schedule medical appointments, and still be without any for my long-delayed whole body scan.  I did schedule an ultrasound, though, and I may just skip the WBS for now... again.  It just seems like a lot of money and hassle (Low-iodine diet? No, thanks.) for very little information.

I had my vision field test and eye exam on Tuesday.  My eyesight is holding steady which shocks everyone. There is widespread disbelief that I can function well with the same lowest-level cheaters I've been using for years.  I guess it's unusual.  The VFT, however, showed a gap in my left peripheral vision that I actually noticed during the test.  Directly to the left, there's a blind spot.  Upper left and lower left, I could see all the flashes just fine, and close to the center, no problem. I requested records be sent to both my endo and my head & neck doctor at MDA, so we'll see what they say.  I can't remember the last time they imaged the pituitary, but I do know my pituitary hormones are still behaving themselves.  The doctor is having me repeat the VFT in six months to keep an eye on it, so that's something to look forward to, just before Christmas.

I'm still processing the fact that I have only 2 college students now.  DS1 is home and diligently applying for jobs but he's going to have do something about his inverted sleep schedule!  He's getting lots of interviews and we're all just waiting for something to click.  DS2 is also home, post-high school graduation, and we gave him this week to be lazy, but he'll be looking for a job now, too -- the kind of job you can have and still be a full-time college student.  We'll see how that goes.

DD is spending the summer up in Flagstaff, and is looking for a job up there.  I've seen a bit more of her recently as she's come home for Mother's Day and DS2's graduation.  I've made the drive up to Flagstaff multiple times, too, helping her furnish her new apartment.  I have to say it's much nicer than any of my college apartments ever were, but then, my parents didn't help my furnish mine.  She has great taste and we've been lucky finding her good used furniture at good prices in resale and antique stores.   My mother-in-law (visiting for DS2's graduation) found her an awesome little table and chairs set absolutely buried in stuff at the antiques mall.

I'm sure my restlessness will settle down eventually.  My classroom is in great shape for the fall, I just want to give my desk a good cleaning and a thick coat of wax to spruce it up a bit.  I had the luxury of time to go through all my files and clean out stuff I didn't need, and organize what was left.   I'm working one week in June at a STEM camp at my school, but I'm also seriously thinking of applying at Pearson as a scorer for piece work over the summer, too.  Otherwise I think I might go crazy doing nothing?

Last summer I had to sit around with my foot up because of the broken toe.  I certainly don't want to do the same thing by my own choice this year!

wistful

This evening was DS2's last high school chorus concert, and it was wonderful.  The senior boys of the Men's Choir did an adorable rendition of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," and the Schola Cantorum was brilliant as always. 

We'll get to hear him sing one more time, at graduation... and that may be it.

Already I'm sad. The end of an era is fast approaching. All three of my children are legal adults.  DS2 is already enrolled in his classes for the fall, but I had to stop myself from typing "three college students" because DS1 is graduating tomorrow!  So, two college students, but no high schoolers anymore. 

It's so strange to think about how little they were once, and how big they are now.  Me? I'm just the same, or at least I feel that way.  Maybe that's what makes it so hard: they are growing and changing so much, and any changes (or growth) for me are nearly imperceptible.