Better?

I don't know if you can call it better. The sun is shining and I'm not crying all the time. Except for this morning on the way to the endo. Does that count?

More thyrogen in my butt this morning. I ended up with a sore shoulder yesterday. I have no idea why. I'm wondering if I'm going to get one on the other side today. My butt is now sore. Better I suppose than it being twitchy, as it was yesterday.

Tomorrow is radioactive day. I am going to get a small dose of radioactive iodine and then, on Friday, they can look at me glowing. Apparently, according to the nurse, they won't get my results back for two weeks. Interesting. I have an appointment with the endo in less than two weeks after my scan. That should be good then. He'll be able to tell me exactly zero about whether the cancer has come back. I wonder if he'll tell me that I'm imagining all these symptoms as well. "Mrs Dodd, you aren't hypothyroid according to your blood test so IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD..."

Not Just a Bad Day...

...I'm finding life more and more difficult to cope with at the moment. I am spending more and more parts of the day in tears for NO REASON.

I had the thyrogen this morning. So, now, on top of all the horrible possible hypothyroid things I've been feeling, I now feel tired and nauseous. More tired than I did before. And I have three children to cope with. Mind you, I'm glad they didn't make me come off the synthetic hormone as that would have been one hell of a lot worse.

I was supposed to get a pregnancy test on Friday but I didn't as I came on. I found it faintly ridiculous that I have to turn up to have a pregnancy test when things down below are doing their thing. Properly. Cramps and normal amounts of stuff and everything. Not implantation bleeding or anything. However, in order to prevent stupid people from suing, the nuclear medicine department insist that you have it, so they made me get it. So I had to wait for 45 minutes feeling nauseous and yuck whilst corralling a 2 yo in a waiting room full of older people so he didn't run off into the depths of the hospital and trying to explain to my 5 yo why she had to sit still and wait, when she wanted to run about or watch something on telly that didn't have Rachel Ray's grinning mug on it.

Then I stupidly got involved in an internet argument that I really shouldn't have.

Didn't need that today. Really not.

So Sad.

Just really sad today. No reason that I can see. Just want to cry the whole time. I seem to be very tired and am finding it difficult to concentrate on a screen, my book, anything really. Little things keep setting me off for no reason so I think I shall avoid the internets for a bit.

Sean just asked me if I felt like this when I was hypothyroid last year but I have to answer honestly that I really can't remember. It is, quite seriously, a blur. I vaguely remember my mum being here and my sister spending the entire time she was here on MSN to her lover but that's pretty much it. What we did while they were here? Can't tell you.

I've got to have my blood tested next week. I am wondering if it's going to say that I am hypo or whether I'm within acceptable limits and, if I'm within acceptable limits, just how the hell am I supposed to live like this?

What's Occuring?

Not much!

Been a bit...off...for the last week or so. I'm due to get my first body scan since the radioactive iodine treatment. Truly, I should have had it at the beginning of February but due to a catalogue of errors more often seen in farce, I'm not getting it until the end of next week. I'm on a low-iodine diet but it's nowhere near as harsh as it was last year. Last year, I couldn't eat anything that I like to eat at all (and still managed to put on 15lbs in two weeks...go figure) and I felt very sorry for myself. This time I'm actually allowed to drink a small amount of milk in filter coffee (no instant), though I still can't eat any dairy or fish or soy...oh bugger, I just remembered those two Boca burgers I had on Monday...never mind! I don't know why that small amount of milk is making me more happy than last time. I suppose as well, there's light at the end of the tunnel this time, in the fact that I know exactly how long I have to bear with the diet. Last time, I was told two weeks maximum...ended up being nearer four...

Anyway, went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway on Sunday with just Imogen and the Girl Scouts. There were 18 of us and it was really nice. The show was really good; very much different from the film as you can't really have a merry-go-round horse race on stage and they did away with the whole laughing scene with Bert's mad uncle. They also changed all the words to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, which was really annoying as I couldn't sing along...OK, maybe that wasn't a bad thing! And do you know, I managed to spell that correctly, first time of asking!

I haven't really spent much time in the company of the ladies from our troop but they're all really lovely mums. I often feel like a bit of a fraud because Imogen's my eldest and I really can't do as much for the troop as some of the others. Out of her troop of 15 girls, there are only 3 of us with younger children and only me with a baby. So I haven't done any of their camps, I haven't gone and been a helper, the only thing I've done is I'm always 'emergency contact' as I'm always at home. I don't think anyone really minds, I just don't think anyone's actually spoken to me for more than five minutes at pick up time. I kind of accosted a couple of them by being all proactive and sitting next to them on the train and at dinner. It's nice being foreign; you can do things you wouldn't normally do and know they will just bypass it in their head as 'strange foreign thing'!

By the time I got home on Sunday night, though, I knew I'd done too much. We walked from Grand Central to the theatre, back down to Times Square as we were early and some of the others wanted to go to the M&M store, back up to the theatre, sat in the theatre for two and half hours which always gives me a headache, over the road for dinner and then back down to the station. I managed to forget to take any drinks or snacks with me, so I had nothing to eat or drink from 10am to 4pm...bad move. Imogen was fine as I bought her a huge soft pretzel, but I couldn't eat it as I didn't know if the salt had iodine in it or not. I also bought her the orange syrup they call Sunkist over here. I should have got a bottle of water then...duh!

So, Monday was a complete washout. I collapsed into bed on Sunday night at about 9:30 and didn't move off my chair all day on Monday, except to cook dinner and play cars with Gabe. I've also been so cold just recently. And all my nails are breaking again. Couple that with the strange infections that grow out of all proportion, the inability to shift any weight at all and no improvement on my energy levels from doing more exercise, I have many, many things to talk to my endo about when I finally see him in April!

What things are innate?

I am currently watching my son dip his chocolate graham goldfish into his glass of milk. I'm not being silly or anything but WHO taught him to do that? I didn't. I don't dip. Well, mainly because I don't eat biscuits. Much. Well, not ones that can be dipped anyway. Dark chocolate Hob Nobs are too nice to dip...

The girls don't dip, apart from bread in soup and we all do that, so I'm pretty sure that's a learned behaviour. So how did he make the connection between knowing that bread and soup can be dipped to dipping his biccies in his milk?

It's obviously good because he's still doing it! And now he's lost one. That's always the way; you dip your biscuits, think you've got it all in your mouth and then the layer of mushy Rich Tea at the bottom of your mug accosts you. Actually, looking at the bottom of the glass, there's more than one stray goldfish swimming about in there.

Makes you wonder what's innate and what isn't. I love this age! They're full of contradictions and enthusiasm. The cognitive leaps he makes on a daily basis astound me, in exactly the same way the girls did. But the leaps he makes are different to the ones that Imogen made, that Miranda made. And that's the thing that makes us want to keep going, to have more, their ultimate individuality.

Homesick

It's weird the things that make me homesick. Mostly, it's food. Missing decent chocolate and decent cereal and basically anything that doesn't involve cinnamon or artificial vanilla, both of which will assault you from the strangest of places.

But today it was music. I ended up going to the supermarket on my own, a blissful occurrence that only usually happens if Sean is particularly amenable or one of the kids is sick, as was the case today. Gabe's been running the high temperature that Miranda's had for the last three days. He seems to be shaking it quicker though.

Anyway, I sailed around the supermarket with my iPod going full blast. I've currently got it on random mix of everything labelled 'Alternative & Punk' which includes everything from Placebo to Paul Weller to Green Day to Keane... So on comes the Chilis with Emit Remmus which has a lot of London references. I lived there for 7 years and I still miss it to my bones, though I couldn't bring up children there, so the deep longing I have is more wistful these days. And then, as I got in the car to come home, this is playing:

I remember thinking murder in the car
Watching dogs somersault through sprinklers on tiny lawns
I remember the graffiti
We are your children coming in with spray cans of paint
I remember the sunsets and the plains of cement
And the way the night just seemed to turn the colour of orangeade
In this town, cellular phones are hot with teens
In this town, we all go to terminal pubs
It helps us sweat out those angry bits of life
From this town, the English army grind their teeth into glass
You know you'll get a kicking tonight
The smell of puke and piss
The smell of puke and piss on your stilettos
Here comes that panic attack
My heart stops... and then it starts
Give me a drink
I'll drink your round
I take you round the pole
It's cold up here (I see the universe waiting by a minibus)
You'll catch the flu
Or you'll catch the city
Either way, you'll catch the flu
Or you'll catch the city

This is Essex Dogs by Blur and it's Albarn singing about Colchester...

And, bizarrely, I want to go home.

Random Musings

Why is it when I sit down to write this, having had all sorts of ideas running round in my head, I can never think of anything to say?

This week I have been mostly watching Heroes and Being Human.

It's interesting to me that both shows are really exploring the human condition from the viewpoint of extraordinary people who want to be normal. In Heroes the themes are about our differences, how we cope with them, how we need to be accepting and finding common goals. In Being Human it's more down to Earth than that, it's more about what defines humanity. George's understanding at the end that being human means love and sacrifice just spoke to me. Because that's what it all comes down to in the end; how much we love and what we sacrifice for that love.

My train of thought on sacrifice and love went off on a tangent then and I got to thinking about something my beloved and I don't agree on. It's quite biblically unacceptable to think that homosexuality is a right and proper thing. Where it is mentioned, it's usually mentioned as a violent thing, something that's akin to male rape. However, I believe in a loving and just God who would not make creatures to be homosexual if it wasn't glorifying to His creation. There are too many examples of homosexuality in the animal kingdom for it not to be a normal bell-curve thing and I believe very strongly, given how much evidence there is, that about 10% of men and women have the brain chemistry of the opposite sex. So, what should a God-fearing, Jesus-believing homosexual do? Does it come down to monogamy or abstinence? And is that abstinence the ultimate sacrifice for the love of God?

It's been a bit of a slog this week, generally. Miranda hasn't been well with a high fever and the clocks going forward last weekend didn't help any of us. We've all been walking around in a fug! Today is such a lovely day though. I want to go out and take a walk and smell Spring on the air, but Miss Miserable won't change out of her PJs! Ah, well, I shall just have to go and bake a cake instead.

Negative Equity

*sigh*

According to Zillow, the real estate tracking website, the prices of the houses in my town have fallen 14.4% in the last year. This means that our house is worth about $75,000 dollars less than we paid for it.

If we wanted to move, we couldn't. Which we don't, but you never know what tomorrow will bring.

We live in a lovely town in a beautiful part of the US. It's a typical New England town, with old houses that are pale coloured with cedar shake sidings and pretty gardens. It has a thriving town centre and a politically motivated populace who turn out for town meetings in large numbers. It's an aspirational community, somewhere you might see and think 'Ooo, I'd like to live there'.

We ended up here largely by mistake. Sean was and is working in Stamford, a city on the edge of both Connecticut and New York State. We talked about it before we came but we came to the conclusion that moving from a village into a city was too much of a jump, especially for Imogen who was 6 at the time and struggling even in a village school. So, with our rental allowance in hand, we looked at all the places we could afford and discovered that the nearest we could get to Stamford was here in Ridgefield, for the money. The problem with this area is that it's a dormitory for NYC. It's a bit like Surrey with Surrey-like prices.

We liked the town. We loved the school. So, when our rental contract was up, we looked to buy into the town. So, we bought a house. At the top of the market, or thereabouts.

So here we are, like hundreds of thousands of families across the world, in negative equity. But, we're in a rather unique position. We have two houses as we kept our cottage in Essex and have been renting it out for the last year. It is NOT in negative equity; in fact there's still some equity in it! If the worst came to the very, very worst, we could just up sticks and flee with tail between legs back to Blighty.

The lack of communication between countries with regard to credit is abysmal. Our credit score in the UK is amazing. We've always had credit and we've always paid it off. When we've had troubles, we've told our creditors immediately and arranged a payment scheme that suits both parties. When we came here, NONE of that came with us. We've had to build our credit score again, even though the main credit score companies here are the same ones as at home. It's taken four long years to create a credit score that actually allows us to run a reasonably priced mortgage. BUT, this works both ways. We can walk away from the house, the mortgage and ALL our credit here and it will have zero effect on our credit score at home.

We could never come back to the US though. Not even for a holiday! So it's not a real option. But it helps me sleep at night...

Why doesn't everyone take vitamins?

It's taken me 37 years but I'm finally taking a regular multi-vitamin outside of pregnancy. I always resisted taking them before because I'm a great believer in a balanced diet. I eat a balanced, healthy diet. OK, it might be a bit heavy on the portion size and light on the exercise, but it's healthy.

I've been taking the multi-vits for the last four months, basically since I had my last bad bout of infection. I was desperate and it was the only thing I could think of to do, other than wash in antibacterial soap, that might, just might, stop the damn thing happening again. It's a fairly wide spectrum one, pretty much 100% of RDA of everything and a few things at a larger amount. I also take a regular calcium supplement, something you're supposed to do once you've had your thyroid removed, to prevent as much osteoporosis as possible. A month ago, I added a flax seed oil supplement too.

At the same time, I started the kids on regular multi-vits. If anything, they eat better than I do because they eat more fruit than I do and tend to self limit on the portion sizes. But I thought if I was doing it for myself, I'd do it for them too.

Why this is important is because this cold season has been surprisingly easy for all of us. Even when Gabe and I went down with the horrible cold last week, the girls had sniffles and not much else. Also, usually by this point in the season, Imogen's hearing has deteriorated to the point where her behaviour in class is bordering on unacceptable. I finally got my ar$e in gear to get their hearing monitored and, as is always the way, both girls have had no problems this year at all. Apart from two colds back to back in October, before they started on the vits, the girls haven't had a cold all season...

I'm signed up to About.com's Thyroid updates and I hadn't even thought about taking a supplement to boost and support my metabolism now I'm without a thyroid. But reading their information, it seems that the multi-vit I'm taking contains all the right elements in the proportions that they suggest. And I feel great! I haven't felt this good for a long long time. My skin is in good condition, my hair is looking nice, I haven't had an infection since September, my cycle is just about back to normal (thank God) and I'm finally, FINALLY, losing weight.

So, my question stands: Why doesn't everyone take vitamins?

Maybe it's just me that they seem to be working for!

Lenten Diet

I've given up chocolate and alcohol for Lent. It's the first time in a very long time. What with all the palaver with being pregnant (obviously alcohol went but you can't ask a pregnant lady to give up chocolate; not and keep your head), then finding out I had cancer, then having to go hypothyroid (the most horrible experience of my life), with all that I just didn't have the ability or capability of going on my Lenten fast.

Traditionally, the alcohol has actually been the most difficult part of this and, as previously, I am getting to 6pm and thinking 'Where's the voddy?'. I've resorted to making a part mix of cranberry and raspberry juice with diet tonic water. It's fooling my tastebuds mostly, so far. But I still can't drink all that much of it as the juice is packed with sugar.

I am also finding that, this time out, giving up chocolate is pretty hard too. Sean and I are used to sitting down with something sweet once we've got the kids to bed and that's usually chocolate. Just recently though it's been cake. And ice cream. And just about anything that doesn't have chocolate in it. Last night, we were down to 3 year old mini packets of jelly babies for me and some left over candy corn for him...

So, I get on the scales this morning expecting the worst. I haven't done much exercise in the last week as I've had this cold and then so did Gabe. In fact, I haven't done any Wii Fitting since Friday last week, what with the snow day and general laziness on my part. I even cleaned the kitchen yesterday to avoid working out. With a Brillo pad.

But, bizarrely, the scale showed a definite loss of another 2lbs. OMFG! OK, I haven't yet been on the Wii Fit yet for it to tell me in its squeaky overly saccharine voice that, despite the fact I've lost weight, 'That's Obese!' as if I didn't bloody know! I shall have that dubious pleasure later. But 2lbs. That's a nice weight loss for a week. And incentive to stay off the chocolate and eat more cake, methinks!

Snow Day!

So the entire North East and much of the East Coast from DC up has been hammered. It's still falling and we have about 10 inches sitting out there already.



It's been pretty warm here for the last week or so and all the nasty grey ice piles that have been sitting round since the last storm had finally melted in the most part. Only to be replaced with new ones today. Oh joy.

This is the time of year we usually get the 'last blast'. This year's been a good snow year. We've actually had some! Last year was very quiet and we actually had more rain than snow. This year, I reckon we've probably had a good 50 or so inches over the season. We've actually been skiing locally, it's been so good!

Sean was working last night when the servers fell over and he then spent the rest of the night trying to get them back online. So he's currently in bed sleeping...good thing too, to my way of thinking, looking at the roads.

The kids are downstairs playing video games. Probably not the best thing they could be doing. I might go and watch a movie with them later. I recorded War Games on the DVR last week as I think Imogen would get a kick out of it and I haven't seen it in ages!

I've also just made a HUGE pot of home made chicken noodle soup. It's just about the easiest thing to make and tastes AMAZING! You boil up your chicken carcass, after having your roast dinner, with the giblets and the skin, a stick of celery, a carrot and an onion, in about 3 pints of water for about 3 hours, topping up the water periodically. Then you strain off the liquor into a tub, pick through the bones returning any nice chicken bits to the liquor, and put the tub in the fridge overnight. Throw the bone and veggie mess away. Following day, scrape off the fat from the jelly and put it back in a saucepan. Add a couple of sliced carrots, some veggie stock or veggie water, a handful of left over chicken chopped up and about 4ozs of spaghetti broken into pieces. Boil it until the carrots and pasta are tender and serve with crusty bread. Yum! Just the right thing for a snow day!

I'm trying to write this thing more often...

...but I'm not having that much success! I suppose it's because, compared with the rest of the world, I lead a very dull life.

I mean, look at today. No. Really don't. Got up. Chased round after the kids and got breakfast. Showered. Did 3 loads of washing. Downloaded the first ep of the new UK Law and Order. Read some board posts. Did a tag post (the one with the Album and Band name). Chucked the kids outside and watched them play for a bit. Got lunch. Put Gabe down for a nap and put Miranda on the bus. Did more washing. Did an hour of Wii Fit. Came up here and started writing this...

You get the idea.

Did anyone do anything interesting? No. Gabriel might have got completely covered from head to foot in ice cold mud the second he went outside, but other than that, dull as dishwater.

Anyway, this is not what I was going to write about. I was actually going to moan on about how cr@ppy my week's been, what with the God-awful cold I had at the beginning (laid up in bed, husband at home, THAT bad...) and then Gabriel getting it (so maybe getting covered in ice cold mud on his first well day wasn't the BEST idea). But maybe, it's not been so cr@ppy. Not really. Shrove (Fat) Tuesday was nice, with sweet (lemon and sugar, maple syrup or Nutella spread) and savoury (Ratatouille...yum!) pancakes and large amounts of alcohol consumed. But now I'm off chocolate and alcohol for Lent.

I wanted to write that down. Just in case, you know, I forget. Hah!

Anyway, we (being Sean, Imogen and I) are doing a walk through book for Lent called Reliving the Passion (which Mum gave him for Easter last year) which isn't bad so far. It is a bit dismal though. In a good way. If that's possible. It's very focussed on death and sin and how bad we all are and YOU put Jesus there, it's ALL your fault. In a good way. If that's possible.

And it's the weekend! Imogen has a softball tryout tomorrow, so that they can accurately put her in a team. I think they try and space out all the good and bad ones so it's fair, now that they play competetively. Imogen's not bad, though she's probably a bit rusty from the off season. I'm also doing a partner swap with my friend. LMAO! Not THAT kind of partner swap! She's coming here for dinner and Sean's going to her house with her husband. Her hubby is an ex-veggie but he kind of still wants to be, so he'll be cooking Sean something good veggie-wise, whereas my friend is an out-and-out carnivore, so I get to eat yummy meat. It's a pretty good arrangement. We did it the other way round last time! So that's should be fun...except no wine :(

I thought exercise was supposed to give you more energy.

But every morning I wake up and seem to have to drag my sorry ar$e out of bed, rather than spring forth full of the joys of the season. I also thought it was supposed to make you lose weight as well, but that doesn't seem to be happening either.

I've increased my general exercise quotient by about 100% since having the Wii Fit. Yes, I'm actually doing some... I was doing yoga DVDs on a fairly irregular basis but now I go down there every day and I work up a sweat doing the yoga on the Wii Fit program and playing all the 'aerobics' games. I suspect that the Wii Fit yoga isn't as good as the DVDs and I think I'm going to have to go back to those, but at least I'm actually doing it, which I wasn't often enough with the DVDs.

So why am I still tired? And why am I not losing weight? I've started eating smaller portions and less fat too, so why is the weight not going away?

I'm going to see the endocrinologist in a couple of weeks. It's time for my now yearly full body scan to make sure there's no more cancer. Maybe he can shed some light onto what's going on. Maybe I need my Synthroid adjusted...

Is it OK to vacuum the cat?

I'm fed up to the back teeth of the cat hair tumbleweeds.

Before we got him all I had to cope with was forgotten jelly droppings on the hardwood floor and ground-in playdoh in the carpet. And I was promised by my husband (and, to be fair, all the websites on the breed) that they didn't shed as much as ordinary moggies. Which is complete balderdash.

So now I'm vacuuming more than twice a week. Which is scary. I have never vacuumed that much in my life! It does mean, though, that I discover the jelly droppings and the playdoh crusts before they get fossilized and become part of the 'patina' of the flooring...

I also have a HEPA filter going night and day because, despite what all those websites asserted, Maine Coon cats are just as allergenic as ordinary ones if you're allergic to cat dander...

I don't know...

...how to get a boy to understand the word 'No'.

Girls, they just look at you, with your stern face on and your stiff tone, and realise that what they are doing might be wrong or bad for them in some way and they stop doing it. Immediately.

Boys, they continue to do it until either they fall down, fall off, get their finger trapped, crack their head open, get burned, get all the tiny pieces everywhere, swallow the penny, eat the cat food or get covered in the dingy, stinking water.

Amazing...I'm actually well!

OK, I have hole in my leg, but I feel pretty amazing, nonetheless! I ended up in the ER to have the huge growth on my leg cut open and drained. I got diamorphine for my pains and IV antibiotics.

Mmmm, warm, fuzzy diamorphine!

Anyway, it's taken about two weeks to heal properly as it had to heal from the inside out and they cut right down to the muscle. I have a small cut left and a little hole.

Now we have the lovely game of finding out why this is happening as it's not just happening to me. The kids seem to be getting quite random infections and Miranda keeps getting skin infections when she gets her reaction to tree pollen in the spring. So I'm seeing an immunologist as well as the infectious diseases people to see if anyone can pinpoint it.

I suspect, though, that the cause of my problem is easier to work out as I have a feeling that my blood sugar is a bit abnormal. My endocrinologist has me on a quite high dose of my synthetic thyroid hormone which means I'm slightly hyperthyroid. This, combined with the fact that I've put on every pound that I has lost before I had Gabe so my pre-diabetes has probably kicked in again, means my blood is super yummy to the bacteria on my skin, so whenever I get a little blemish, like a shaving cut or an ingrown hair, they have a field day. Great excuse to not shave!

I've done my utmost to diet this week and seem to have shifted a couple of pounds, so I just need to keep with it. As soon as this damn thing has healed completely then I'm going back in the pool. Until then, though, I'm getting out the yoga DVDs!

Can't wait till Christmas, though! Hopefully, my lovely man will be getting me a Wii Fit. I've dropped him enough hints!

Actually, Christmas is making me all excited! I've done quite a bit of shopping for the kids already. I have actually also bought my sisters' presents and something for Sean. It's a bit more difficult to do the kids though as I buy one whole load of gifts then split them 3 ways - birthday, Santa and tree! Imogen's not so difficult this year as she's getting 3 big pressies, but still needs a Santa sack. I'm finding it really difficult to buy for Miranda because we pretty much have everything for her age group that she likes to do; it's kind of more of the same which is a bit sad really. Gabe is fun to buy for though. I'm buying cars and garages and cool boy stuff!

Lord knows what I'm going to get for Sean though...I can't buy him a plane!

We've also sorted out their parties already, which I am very thankful for. Imogen's taking some friends to see Madagascar 2 and Miranda wants hers at the same gym as last year and I'm quite happy about that!

Hopefully, we should be spending Christmas at home in the UK. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see if it comes off. As this is the last time it's going to get paid for, we really should do it! It's a logistics exercise getting all the pressies there and back but we've done it before, we'll do it again!

Something that has made me very happy this week is that Imogen got brilliant grades in her Connecticut Mastery Tests (CMTs). She was in the 'Advanced' section for two and one mark short of 'Advanced' for the other. It has no bearing on anything but the school's placing in the district and the county but she was invited to try out for the Johns Hopkins University Centre for Talent Youth's Talent Search. It's a big countrywide competition that about 1000 students win through to, out of about 75,000 invited to enter, so it's pretty good odds! I'm just amazed at how well she did and how far she'd come in a year. I know they coach them to the nth degree but I'm not disrespecting her acheivement at all. I think she's done remarkably well and I want to tell everyone what a superstar she is!

Urgh...

Another boil gone rampant.

My first one was in April and it was somewhere delicate so I couldn't walk. Result? Flu-like symptoms and being told by my doctor when I finally went that I should have gone to the ER. Two antibiotic shots in my backside and a course of horse pills later and it went away.

Then I had two less problematic ones on my legs that took lots of soaking and draining and a month or so to get rid of.

Then, while I was in the UK, I had one on my wrist. It was huge. It was obvious and it was embarrassing. A course of antibiotics and cream later and it drained...horribly.

Two weeks ago, I had another one in the delicate place but it was less deep than the first and when I got it to drain it went away quite quickly.

But I now have one on my thigh, which is fairly obviously an ingrown hair gone mad and the pain is ridiculous. My heat pad is out again. I have antibiotic washes and creams coming out of my ears but nothing seems to be working, so I'm off to the docs later...

Marvellous.

The bigger point, I feel, is why am I getting them? Apparently, one of the reasons possible is that I may be diabetic. Thing is, the actual healing thing is not a problem, once they drain. They go pretty quickly and the scar is quite small, so that's not a good indicator of being diabetic. I also have no ketones in my wee. But still, better to be safe than sorry, I feel. I still have all the paraphernalia from the gestational diabetes so I shall check my blood sugar later; just need to get a battery for the unit.

I only use this blog to moan...LMAO!

Long time, no write!

Yes, it truly has been a looooong time! March and it's now September. Much of that time has been eaten away by life in general. I suppose I wasn't really properly well until June any way.

So, what's new? I went home to the UK for the summer. Literally! Spent 6 weeks there, 3 with my MiL and 3 with mum. MiL is lovely. She looked after us so well. We went all over the shop with the kids and they had a ball. They ran her absolutely ragged, insisting that she went round the block with them every night. While we were there she went off her diet (she's lost 3st since last summer) and didn't think she'd put a pound back on with all the walking and running after the kids she did!

Mum was also great but she is in so much pain she can't do much. I went with her to the docs and argued the toss about getting her an appointment to see the orthopaedic surgeon so that she can have a new hip. Originally, the man she'd seen at the hospital had told her that she couldn't have the operation until she had got her BMI down to 31. Not being funny or anything, but Mum was on a 500 calorie diet and put weight on because of all her various hormonal issues. She is also in so much pain that she can barely walk, let alone exercise to shift weight. So basically asking her to lose that kind of weight (4st), whilst leaving her in agony, is tantamount to human torture. I put my point thoroughly to the doc. The doc wrote the letter, she got to see the specialist who told her that he didn't know who'd told her that she had to get her BMI down that far but he was talking rubbish and they scheduled her in for 18 weeks.

Gah!

Anyway, my Grandpa, who will be 95 in December, is also quite sick. The hospital can't quite decide if they're going to send him home because he's doing so well or whether he's never going to go home again... His sister, my great Auntie Marie, came over from Australia to see them for what she though would possibly be the last time and seemed to be on the money. She's been kind of looking after my Nan, who's not always very lucid, while my Aunt Pam has been away as Mum isn't really able to do so. This is frustrating for everyone. Mum because she can't do the looking after, Pam because she had this holiday booked and then Grandpa took sick, Marie because she's kicking on a bit herself and didn't expect to go on holiday and have to look after her much older SiL and Nan because she can't understand why Grandpa just can't come home.

Mum's also dealing with Dad and his failing business. I think we always knew it was a lost cause but everyone was pleased that he could give it a go. I just wish that he had taken some advice and not just played at being a boss. I'm still not sure that it would have succeeded, but at least he would have been able to say that he gave it everything. As it is, they're going away from the business about £40k to the wind at a time of their lives when they need to have put away every penny *sigh* He's not taking the loss very well. I think he felt he had something to prove, having lost his first business to a scummy business partner. Now, he has no one else to blame, though he's trying to blame Mum...

Anyway, we had a lovely time at home. Coming back here was hard. Don't get me wrong, I do love where we live and I love my house and our standard of living is crazy high but with Grandpa and Mum sick and Dad depressed, I really wish I was 45 mins down the road and not 3,000 miles away.

We've fallen back into the old place and the kids have gone back to school now. Miranda's started half day Kindergarten and is loving it, though she's so tired by the end of the day she can do little else but lie on the sofa watching Spongebob! Imogen's in 5th Grade and the homework amount has gone through the roof. To be fair, she's thriving on it at the moment; she hates school when it's slow and dull!

We bought a kitty last week. The kids have been going on forever about getting a pet. I don't want rodents (have enough mice in the walls thank you!) or lizards and I wasn't sure about getting a budgie, so we compromised and got a 'low allergen' cat. He's a Maine coon and he's called Jones. I'm not sure he's that low allergen as Imogen started sneezing the moment he arrived but she's very good at taking her meds! She knows full well that if she doesn't, the cat goes back and she'll do anything to avoid that!

Here is the little man. He's quite handsome!



Anyway, enough of all that. That's where I'm at today. Not tremendously interesting, but there you are!

'No Evidence of Metastasis'

So, by now, mostly everyone has heard my good news.

I underwent the radioactive iodine treatment in the middle of February. Let me tell you that being hypothyroid is possibly the most unpleasant thing I have ever been through.

I stopped taking my synthetic thyroid medication in the second week of January. I had expected to feel tired almost immediately but I didn't. Had a bad case of man flu! Silly, I know, but I think I let myself 'suffer'.

The low iodine diet was hard work. No dairy (they use iodine to clean the milking equipment), no processed food or eating out (possible iodised salt), no soy(a) (no idea why), no seafood or fish (high iodine content from the sea), some beans were a no no too, no red food colour (one of them is iodine based). Hmmm. Take away my fish, soy and cheese and this demi veggie has very little left to eat! I was existing on unsalted nuts, avocado and home made flapjack!

By the middle of the second week, I began to feel rough. Especially after my endo told me that my numbers weren't high enough and he expected me to be a week, maybe two, longer in the process. I lost the will to do anything other than get the kids to school, wash their clothes and make sure they got fed. By the end of that week I felt like I was thinking through fog.

During the third week my creativity left the house completely. I normally write a fair few emails and posts and even this blog but I couldn't do any of it. I couldn't even play with the kids. I felt like a blob. I eventually (after my treatment) read about the fact that the original 'cretin' was found most in regions where there was little natural iodine in the food and water. not only was cretinism signified by the goitre but it was also typified by people who weren't stupid in the village idiot kind of way but more that they were dullards. Completely devoid of liveliness and creativity. Yes, I became a cretin. No goitre as no thyroid, but I was a blob just the same.

Luckily my mum arrived at the end of the third week and the fourth week passed in a blur of shopping! My sister, bless her, did put the purple highlights in my hair that I've been going on about for ages! Now I just want more of them!

Had a full body scan on Wednesday 13th Feb, having had a small dose of radioactive iodine on the Monday and went home in the meantime. Then I got the full dose on the Thursday. I was then released from hospital, still radioactive, on the Friday. I was not allowed to be more than 3ft from anyone for more than an hour for adults and half an hour for children, for the next 2-3 days. Yes, the US doctors discharged me on that proviso, knowing I was going home to a house with a 9 yo, 4 yo and 1 yo. Angry about this? Moi? So I went to a hotel for 3 days, without telling the hotel. I figured this was safer than going home. For Pete's sake, I can still technically set the radiation alarms off at the airport for another 2 months! Anyway, I stayed at the hotel and saw everyone briefly on Saturday and for a little longer on Sunday, before mum and Jess flew home. My throat came up huge on Saturday, so the goitre I never had looked like it had finally arrived, but it was just my salivary glands getting a kicking. Lots of water and sour sweeties later and the swelling began to go down. I didn't appreciate the Jabba the Hut look!

I managed to put on 15lbs without changing my eating habits in the final 2 weeks. It has only just started to come off again...

My piece of paper arrived on Saturday with the magic words 'No Evidence of Metastasis' written on them. I'd been feeling much better during the last week as my thyroid meds had finally started to kick in again but the relief I experienced from reading that was unseemly! You don't realise the weight is there until it's gone.

So, hopefully, I shall stay that way through the next 5 years, which is how long they keep tabs on you after this op. If you're still clear after then, they pretty much assume you're properly cured. Of course, I shall have to take the Synthroid for the rest of my life, but that's just one of them things.

New Year, New You?

Well, thank goodness that's over...precisely my thoughts when the ball dropped on the 31st, announcing the dawn of a new year. 2007's only true bright spot was and continues to be my 3 gorgeous kids.

Imogen seems to have finally got a handle of her social skills, though she occasionally forgets herself still. She is doing brilliantly academically. She's in the top 25% of her class for everything which, as she's the 4th youngest in her year, is fab. We're fairly good friends right now but the pre-pubescent young lady pokes her head over the parapet every so often to let mummy know not to get too complacent as teenage angst is not far away!

Miranda is mostly a delight and we're on top of her allergies, including the puzzling spots on her head (children's shampoo was too drying). She has a tendency to be maudlin and can't cope when she hears the word 'No' but we're working on it! She watches far too much TV though. I'm mostly keeping on top of it by offering other things to do but I remember that her sister was much the same at this age and it hasn't done her too much harm. So long as she watches 'educational' TV and not endless re-runs of Spongebob, I'm not too worried!

Gabriel is wonderful. Having the time to take pleasure in watching him turn from a helpless baby into a full-on almost toddler has been the most wonderful thing of 2007. Regardless of all the awfulness of the past year, it is that thing that I hold closest to my heart. He is so laid back, nothing phases him much. He is pretty much always happy. In fact, I don't think he's had 20 days of miseries in the last year. When he is miserable, it's a shock! He eats well, he's almost walking, he has four or five recognisable words though he uses more sounds than that, he loves to swim and he adores both his sisters. I managed to catch a brief snippet of him wall walking yesterday:



I finally managed to persuade Gabriel that he didn't need mummy milk any more, though he's been having digestion problems with the cow's milk. At least he drinks it which is more than can be said for the girls at the same age! He's on a mix of my frozen milk and cow's but I'm almost out of the frozen stuff, so we're trying him on a mix of rice milk and cow's today. I hope that will keep his tummy calm. As for my health issues, I am getting there. I had a lump in my shoulder biopsied last week and am awaiting the results. Regardless of those, I am getting the radioactive iodine probably, depending on blood results, at the beginning of Feb. Assuming the lump is thyroid material, the RAI should kill it and it shouldn't need removal. I will need to be away from home for about a week until I stop glowing, but I should then not need any more intervention for the cancer. Just stay on the thyroid meds for the rest of my life.

So, hopefully, that means that 2008 will be a much better year for me. Maybe I'll then be able to shift the lard that I seem to have accumulate from all the pity chocolate!