So many changes

Shortly after my last post in 2008 I started using Facebook for pretty much everything ... good or bad, that's what I did.  A lot in my life has changed over the past 6 years ...lots and lots of changes.

Labor and delivery ... amazing experience

I had a wonderful pregnancy, but I was nearly a week overdue and my doctor didn't think it would be wise to wait any longer, so around 7:00 in the morning on July 24, 2008 I was admitted to the hospital to have labor induced.

I don't know quite what I was expecting to have happen, but I did know that I wanted to try to keep labor as natural as possible, but kept an open mind about possibly needing an epidural. After a couple of hours my doctor came in and started me on a round of Cytotec, which is a drug used to reduce stomach acid - with a nasty side effect of premature labor for pregnant women. It actually helped to thin out my cervix, but I wasn't really having much for contractions. After a couple hours time my doctor started me on Pitocin. That seemed to jump start the contractions, but I dilated very slowly. I was hooked up to machines and was on IV drips for the Pitocin & after I ate dinner, insulin was added to the drip. I wasn't happy about it, but what could I do??

I paced back and forth in the room, hoping that things would progress more quickly, but no ... over 12 hours later and I had only dilated to a 3. Scott knew it would still be a while before things really started happening, so he ran home around 9:00pm to let the dogs out. Shortly before 11:00pm my doctor came in again and checked the baby's vitals. This was when she decided that she needed to break my waters to attach a wire to my baby's head to get a clearer picture of how he was handling labor. I was NOT prepared for the gush of water that followed. Absolutely everything was soaked. I think I was happy that Scott wasn't back yet to witness all of that.

OK, NOW I CAN FEEL THE CONTACTIONS & it HURTS!!!!! I waited until Scott returned to the hospital to make sure he was ok with it and then I requested an epidural. I was in tears because the delivery process just wasn't going the way I had hoped or anticipated. What I dreaded the most was possibly needing to deliver C-section. I really wanted to experience the whole 'natural childbirth' process... but I couldn't handle the pain of the contractions. Scott held my hand and helped me breath as the anesthesiologist started administering the epidural. I did pretty good, but it hurt like hell. I was distressed when I discovered that only my right side had been numbed and I could still feel everything on my left side. Kind of defeated the purpose! After about an hour I had the nurse call the anesthesiologist back in because the left side still wasn't numb. He gave me another dose & said we should wait for another 20 mintues to see if the 2nd dose made a difference. 20 minutes later my right leg felt like a HUGE tree truck, while I could still feel everything on the left... SO, back he came to replace the epidural ... it didn't feel any better the 2nd time around, but it worked that time!

I was able to sleep for a couple hours before the doctor came in again to check my progress ... I noticed that Scott was gone, having run home to give Jessie her medication & let the dogs out for a while. I think I was in shock when the doctor said that I was still only dilated to a 3 and that the baby hadn't been handling the contractions very well ... Scott came in around the time that she said that we needed to get the baby out safely, for both of us ... and I broke down in tears again as they started to prep me for surgery. It was a very good thing that I had requested the epidural, otherwise they would have had to put me under general anesthic and I would have missed everything.

At 7:00am they wheeled me into surgery and at 7:27am out little baby boy, Khristian James Donald was born!

4th of July celebration

Hope everyone had a fun 4th of July this year. Scott had said that he wasn't going to get any fireworks this year, however when we got our paychecks on Friday, June 29 that changed! I'm not sure how much he spent this year, however I do know that one of the aerial displays was over $50.00 and worth every penny of it. Scott started with bottle rockets fairly early in the day. Because the 4th was on a Wednesday this year and most of our neighbors had the work the next day, Scott thought it would be better to start setting our display off while it was still dusk. He had a variety of larger multi-shot aerial displays. At some point Scott glanced across the yard and started grinning from ear to ear as he noticed that the neighbors across the street had set up lawn chairs in their garage situated so they could see our display as well as those to both the east and west of us. Come to think of it they probably had the best seats in the neighborhood! Anyway, around 9:30 Scott set off his showstopper and WOW ... like I said, it was worth every penny! About 5 seconds after that display ended we heard applause from a small group of people who were lighting firecrackers a little over a block away (they had an unobstructed view of our entire display). It was fun!

Scott and I just got back from my doctor appointment. Guess the tumor marker is back up at 6.3, which is obviously not under 2 as I had hoped it would be. Dr. Oppenheimer doesn't see think it's a good idea to go another round of RAI because it doesn't seem to be having an affect and he's against useless treatments (score one for Dr. O in my husband's eyes). Dr. O has scheduled a PET/CT scan for me on Wednesday, July 11 @ 12:30. Nothing but plain water for 4 hours prior to the scan (so Mindy, that means you can't ingest anything but water after 8:30 that morning). From the looks of it, the PET scan machine is less coffin-like than the Gamma scan machine is, so hopefully I won't freak-out like I did during my first gamma scan! From what I've read about it, but PET/CT scan is highly useful in identifying a variety of cancers in a variety of locations. I'll be given a small does of a radioactive sugar mixture before the scan, but the dose is very low and will leave my system quickly, so I won't have to be isolated. I will have to set up another appointment with Dr. Oppenheimer to get the results of this new scan. Basically, his thought is that we'll just have to wait and see what it shows and tackle it as it comes up.

Love & hugs y'all,

My how the months do fly

So, it's been almost 3 months, to the date, that I last updated my home page.

Mom came out to spend a couple days with us the week after Easter. She was only here a day and a half but we had a lot of fun. On the night she arrived I made a couple pizza's from scratch, which we all really liked. The next day she and I went shopping and had lunch at Panera Bread. Then we made the short drive to Renner Corner so Mom could pick up some of the yummy jerky they make. When Scott got home, the three of us went to the Brandon Steakhouse to satisfy Mom's Orange Roughy craving. That night Mom helped me create a 2-week menu by going through hundreds of recipes with me. While it was time consuming, I must admit almost every recipe was good (there were a couple "OH, don't make this again!" but only a couple.

May was pretty quite ... honestly, nothing interesting or entertaining happened.

June I traveled to Wisconsin to attend a baby shower for my cousin, Katie. She's due on my mom's birthday, so when I saw her she only had a little over a month left to go ... and she looked so cute!!! The only place she has really gained weight is her tummy. I'm sure she probably feels very big because she is a very slender woman, but she looked SO cute! She also looked very happy and content, which is much more important!
That was a very busy, but relaxed weekend for me.
I arrived home on Friday night, in time to go out for fish with Mom & Dad.
Saturday morning we went out for breakfast, a quick trip into Wal-Mart and then picked up groceries.
Saturday afternoon I spent with my grandma and Aunt Georgia ... the three of us just sat and talked for hours.
Saturday evening I made dinner for Mom & Dad.
Sunday morning I went to church with Mom and got to visit with Aunt Rose (my late grandma's sister)
Sunday afternoon I rode to Katie's shower with my sister. And at the shower I got to see Katie & her husband, Sarah (wife of my other cousin, Micah), Aunt Pauline and her mom, sister and her sisters girls. (Katie's husband didn't stick around for the shower.) Uncle Ray and Micah came home just before we all left, so I got to see them as well.
As I said, it was busy, but relaxed and I got to visit with everyone!!

The next week I went up to Anoka for work with Karen K., one of my co-workers. I can only speak for myself, but I had a lot of fun chatting with her on both the trip up and back! We didn't have much free time, but did go out to eat at Canyon Grille and Boston's, plus we did a little shopping at Ulta's. I spent money I probably shouldn't have, but it was only $25.00 and I don't 'splurge' very often any more. As for the work part, it was a productive meeting - the only downer was that I got sick just after lunch on the last day of the meeting and apparently was really pale, causing everyone to be worried about me rather than focusing on the topic we were discussing. I wound up leaving the room about 3 times, once because of a coughing fit and the other 2 to race to the bathroom ... at least I wasn't throwing up, I know it's an unpleasant topic, but I really hate that feeling and would much rather deal with it coming out the other end, if you know what I mean! (I feel much better now!)

Last night I got very little sleep and woke up once around 1:00am because the house was shaking so much I thought there was a tornado (turned out to only be a lot of rumbling thunder). That kept me awake for a while and then, around 3:30 I woke up with a start and couldn't fall back to sleep. I remember feeling panicked, but have no idea why. Anyway, bottom line is that I wasn't myself today and over-reacted to a co-worker and caused a couple hours of tension and upset, completely unintentional and it was two sided, but I was still at fault. I think I'm finally over it, having cried a bit when I got home ... tears are said to have healing properties, so I should be very healed now!!!

I will find out the results of my latest tumor marker blood test on Thursday, July 5. I feel great, so I can't fathom having to go 'underactive' and endure the RAI and torture chamber a fourth time ... so everyone pray for a 2 or less!!! OK? Please? Seriously, pray for a 2 or less :)

Love & hugs y'all,

Happy Memorial Day

Happy Memorial Day to all. Remind me next year that waiting to the last minute on Memorial Day weekend will find all of the camp sites full... No matter, we were able to spend time with a wonderful friend and that's what was really important for either of us anyway.

Not sure why, but I started looking deeper into astrology again. I've done two different online natal charts and both of them tell me that my sun sign is Aries, but it just doesn't feel right to me. I figured out that if I had been born 18 minutes earlier, at 1:36am rather than at 1:54am my sun sign would have been Pisces, which seems to be a much better fit.

Aries is energetic, innovative, original, pioneering, assertive, quick-tempered, strong drive, leader, ambitious, extroverted, sometimes aggressive, competitive, enthusiastic, self-reliant, and self-assured.

Pisces is receptive, supersensitive, impressionable, peace-loving, serious, sympathetic, charitable, compassionate, artistic, creative, dreamer, dedicated, imaginative, psychic, shy, introverted, spiritual, and reclusive.

I was born on a "cusp", when the sun is moving from one sun sign to the next - so I'm both Pisces and Aries, which basically means that I'm unique (no surprise there I'm thinking). This seems ironic, I'm both a water and fire sign, does that mean I put myself out? I just found this while surfing "An Aries/Pisces cusp may leave you confused many times in your life when the inner spirit is gung-ho to do a thing but that tingling bit of caution creeps in to make you unsure. That is the, let's get moving Aries being slowed down by the ever careful Pisces!" Yes, that sounds a bit more like me ...

Here's another interesting tidbit - my mom, mom's brother, my sister and I were all born on a cusp - but my uncle and I are the only two born on the date that the sun actually moved from one sign into another.

No, I don't fully understand why it seems so important to me right now, but I can't seem to get passed it either.

and what about the adrenal glands?

So, good news from the endocrinologist today. There is nothing wrong with my adrenal glands, so the thyroid surgery can go ahead as planned. I felt a great weight lifted off me when I heard this and hadn't even really known that it was bothering me so much! I am really tired tonight, so am going to head off to bed. Sweet dreams to all.

a workaholic! Who, me?

Yesterday, Kristy (my supervisor) and I were discussing short term disability and that I needed to call Human Resources no more than 2 weeks before my anticipated leave of absence to get the paperwork started. She suggested that I call Dr. Helvig again to try to get a better picture of how much time I would have to miss from work, not just recovery after the surgery. At about 4:55 this afternoon I finally got a call back. Here's the latest ... I can expect to be in the hospital for approximately 3 days after surgery, then it could be anywhere from 6 to 7 weeks before Dr. Helvig will release me to return to work. I was told that I might feel up to going back to work 2 weeks after surgery, but by week 4 hypothyroid will kick in to full drive and I will be extremely tired and weak (plus a laundry list of other symptoms that accompany it), plus I'll start the radioactive iodine shortly after that.

Evidence that I'm a workaholic was that I almost cried when she said that I'd probably be out that long. Since I've been with RCIS for 16 years my short term disability covers up to 21 weeks at 100% pay, so that wasn't the issue. It is going to be very difficult for me to sit back and have someone else do my job for me. Consider this, normally Kristy has to remind me that I need to start scheduling days off and I almost always have 5 days to carry over to the next calendar year, so you should be able to surmise that I don't like taking time off work very often.

There may be a blessing in all this though. I've been feeling more and more burned out at work and since I tend to not take time off on my own, maybe forced time off will be good for me. I've got lots of pictures I've been meaning to get into scrapbooks, I've got 2 unfinished afghans that I might finally complete. Then there is an offer I was given recently to design a web site for a local family owned business, maybe I'll get to work on that? Who knows what I'll wind up doing, but it could be good for me to be away from work for that length of time.....