This is for me... Not really for you.

This week I had a post all written and ready to be posted on Tuesday. It was going to post automatically yesterday (Thursday) but it didn't feel right so I stopped it. I didn't know what I wanted to post until today. Today I want to say things that are for me. Things that I wish I would have said in the moment. These things are not to one person, group, company or thing. If you figure out who/what I am talking to I might confirm but this post is mainly for me. This is how I have felt over the 2010 year.

P.S. You do not have to read these and don't take offense I am thinking of things that really happened and they do not apply to all circumstances. 

• Thank you... I do not know what I would do without you. I am sorry to have been so distant but you always come through.
  
• You are a JERK. I am perfectly ok with you not keeping promises that you made to me. I know the reasons and have seen how things have developed. That gave you no right to make promises that you had no intention of keeping.
  
• You have no idea what our talk meant to me. Really we only talked the once, it was awesome, you let me put it all on the table without questioning motives. This world needs people like you. It wasn't take you felt sorry for me or that you didn't care. I didn't really know you but you sat you accepted and you didn't put on an act.
  
• This is an odd thing to say, after all you are younger than I am but when I grow up I want to be just like you. I want to have what your parents have and I want to embrace life like you do.
  
• You really don't know how I feel about you, you might have gotten a clue at one time or another but I don't think you comprehend it. I think you could but I also think that you don't want to.
  
• It has been hard, most of the problems started during the summer time. You cared enough to see how I was doing most days and especially after my doctors visits. |
  
• This is not how I wanted it to be. I know I messed up. I was a jerk and I really didn't do anything to make it up to you. I still think my actions were justified I might change of couple of things but in general I am sticking to my point, the one that you never tried to understand.
  
• Unacceptable. It hurts more than I can say. You will never know that it hurts. I will smile, I will do my part. I will put on a show because you can never know the truth.
  
• Things will never be the same. This year was not when our problems began. Things have always been a little shaky, but this year more than once I have felt almost overwhelmed because of you.
  
• I miss you. I have all year. What happened? Why did we let it happen?

I guess that is enough. Ten Things I wish I would have said to someone or something during 2010. I am ok with this post. It still feels like it is missing something but this will be posted.

Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concerts

This past week was awesome... For the past two years I have been able to preform with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir through the Bells on Temple Square for their annual Christmas concerts. Last year I preformed with Natalie Cole and this year was with David Archuleta.They sang great and the choir was amazing.

I am so lucky that I get to be a part of that. This year after each number that the Bell Choir was apart of I was left feeling drained and tired. By the end of the week I was ready to be done, I really did not want to do another performance.

I heard a new Spanish Christmas song that I have never read before, "Los Pastores a Belen". I think it is my new favorite Spanish Christmas song.

Los pastores a belen corren presurosos, llevan de tanto correr los zapatos rotos. Ay ay ay,que alegres van, ay ay ay si volveran. Con la pan pan pan con la pan con la pandereta y las castañuelas . Un pastor se tropezo a media vereda y un borreguito grito ese ahi se queda. Ay ay ay, que alegres van, ay ay ay si volveran. con la pan pan pan con la pan con la pandereta y las castañuelas.

The shepherds swiftly run to Bethlehem Their shoes are broken from their running Ay ay ay, how happy they go, ay ay ay, yes they will return. With the bread, bread, bread with the bread with the tambourine and the castanets. One shepherd tripped half-way through the journey and a little lamb laughed "that one will stay there" Ay ay ay, how happy they go, ay ay ay, yes they will return. With the bread, bread, bread with the bread with the tambourine and the castanets.

I really think that it is a good song.... and sounds much better in Spanish than it does in English.

PS. I translated this myself so you might translate it differently

BUSY WEEK!!!!!

So, this week is the last week of the semester... Finals Week, it also happens to be the week that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir does their Christmas concert. It happens every year that the two are on the same week. This makes for a very busy, complicated mess that sometimes I feel is almost too much to handle.

Luckily for me this year I have really grate teachers. I know I have complained about them a lot but in the end this year they have souls. They have worked with me through medical issues that caused me to miss classes. They have given extensions on assignments, they have worked with me so that I could find some time to sleep and do all my finals this week.

I am very excited to be doing stuff with the Bells on Temple Square again. It is a nice break from the normal passing of life. I have found that I really enjoy the drive down and back. It is nice to have time to just think, I haven't been taking that time when I wasn't driving down every week and I have missed it.

I am so glad that I have the opportunity to rub shoulders with the some of the best and most talented people. I am really happy that I can call my self part of that family.


If you want to you can tryout to be part of the bells too, just go to the Church News & Evernts page to find out more

Today's Visit

At the doctors office today I was told that the medication is working... my thyroid counts are almost back to normal..... also meaning that although I still feel like crap a lot of the time there is no need to speed up the process.

This means that currently there is no reason for surgery or radiation treatments. Also we did not adjust my medication at all, I will keep taking the same dosage for another three months and then go back in and have my blood work done again.

Good new and bad news cause I really would rather have the whole time come to a quicker close but I guess as long as it is working I should be fine.

New post now on Saturday or Sunday

This week has been busy so I will post on Saturday or Sunday

The Test Scores and Diagnosis

The day after having my blood drawn the doctor's office called me to tell me the results of my tests... The good news, my thyroid had started to shut down... meaning not cancerous at this time. The bad news, my thyroid is shutting down. This means that the autoimmune disease that I have is actually Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Meaning my body attacks my thyroid and this will cause it to over or under produce the hormones that it makes.

I don't know when or why but at some point over the last year my thyroid started to die (under produce). The signs of Hyperthyroidism and Hypothyroidism I can see throughout most of my "adult" life. The thyroid controls or regulates a lot of our lives. It controls metabolism (greatly influencing weight), mood and energy.  Looking back when I have had problems with these things we never looked into the thyroid only treating symptoms. 


For the past month since I have found out what it is, I have been taking Levothyroxin to help replace some of the T3 and T4 hormones that my body is not producing enough of. This medication while replacing some of the hormones I am missing also signals to my body to stop producing, so the longer I am on it the higher dosage I will need. This is why I have the poll, how long do you think it will  While I am glad I am taking this medication I have started to notice more and more of the symptoms of hypothyroidism creep into my life.


I have little to no energy to do anything and this week I have had a hard time sleeping when it is time to sleep (insomnia) even as I type this (Wednesday afternoon) I should be sleeping but I can't. I am so tired that when I got home from work I sat down for what was to be 5 minutes and slept for 2 hours, missing classes. I have spoken to my professors and let them know what is going on and for the most part they are ok with it and are working with me so I don't have late assignments and things.

I am almost never hungry. I have no desire to eat food... at all, except maybe freshly made tortilla chips. Its hard because I know I have to eat but often the sight of food makes me feel sick. There are other ones that I notice but I don;t want to post on the blog.


So that brings you to today... (well when I typed this)... so now its just me living day by day.

The wait....

The first week after I was told my results were spent looking at the possibilities of what I had and what it could amount to. I researched all the reliable sites that I could find. I went to class and ignored my readings and homework for my classes because I wanted to know I could about what was going on.

I started to eat 4 to 6 times a day to help with the hypoglycemia. Everything else I was just waited and learned about. I found myself getting sick, I believe that I went a month with being sick at least once a week. It didn't always keep me from doing things but it was annoying not feeling well and I didn't want to go out and have "fun." I just wanted to be lazy and sleep. I felt better after a while and didn't get sick for maybe another month.

I didn't feel 100 percent but I started to take daily vitamins and this helped... I started to live.. I did things but I would usually come back about once a day and think about what was going on. Just looked up more information and started to focus more on my homework.

As this month went on I started to get more and more tired. I was rarely getting hungry when it was time to eat. I wasn't getting sick though so I just kept trucking on. On October 9th I got a cold, a normal cough, some of my roommates had the same cough. They woke up the next morning and they were just fine. I however got worse, and worse, and worse. I had this cold for about a week and a half, on October 20 I went back to the doctors for my cold.

The normal cold had developed into bacterial bronchitis, I was prescribed some antibiotics and a stronger cold medication than what I was taking. We also decided to run another round of thyroid tests. I did the blood work and went to go get my prescription and go to bed to try and get better.

The Doctor..

I found a doctor that took my insurance and set up an appointment to go in the next Monday, August 30. My Doctor is now Dr Brad M. Goates, while talking about my symptoms we suggested that we also do blood work not only for diabetes/hypoglycemia but to take my thyroid counts.

I don't know about you but I love am ok with having my blood drawn. I would much rather have a needle put into me and have it take out blood then to get any kind of shot. Taking my blood was no worry. What I was worried about is that I would need to give my self shots if I was diabetic.

When the blood work came back we found out that I am a little bit hypoglycemic and my immune system is attaching my Thyroid. This means that I have a autoimmune diseases at this point we did not know what kind it was.. however one of the nurses misread the doctors notes and told me that I had a over active thyroid, hyperthyroidism.

I started preparing myself for taking beta blockers and living watching for signs that my thyroid had gone into extra over drive so I would be able to catch any further problems/complications before they got bad.

However, the doctor had wrote in his notes that he didn't think it was hyperthyroidism because when my test were done my T3/T4 counts (thyroid hormones, thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3)) were normal but my body was creating antibodies that were still attacking the thyroid meaning there was a problem and I needed to come back in later to have more tests run.

The Beginning

The start of my thyroid problem is very vague. Looking back on the last 4 or 5 years I can see the symptoms manifest in different ways. I am going to start with the reasons behind my visit to the doctor on August 30, the day this semester of school started.

During this past summer I started to notice that I was getting sick more often, and I was having a lot of problems just keeping going, having energy to get through the day. I interpreted these as being symptoms of diabetes and/or hypoglycemia. The reason that I went to the doctor is that I needed to know why my blood sugar was being weird, I was having migraines and just feeling overall crappy about everyday.

At its worst I would start to shake uncontrollably (jitters) and felt like I was going to throw-up/pass-out. When this had happened three times in one week I called and tried to set up an appointment just to do a sugar test but was denied. Apparently in order to have blood work done at the Logan InstaCare you have to have a doctor prescribe the work. At the time I did not have a "primary care physician" I hadn't gone to see the doctor expect when I was sick and because where I was working needed a doctors note. Needing to have a physician request the lab work delayed me going and getting the test done for about a week.

Background

I am being asked a lot about what is going on with my health. Common questions that I get are usually:

• What is actually wrong?
• How did you know to go to the doctor?
• What are you doing about it?
• How long will it last?
• How does this effect your life?
• What can I do?

I have created this blog to answer these questions and give a way that my family and friends can see how I am doing. If I see that people follow the blog and comment I might actually keep updating the blog. If the blog is worthless, meaning I don't think anyone is visiting it or cares about it, I will stop when I have covered the basics.