Back to School. . .

And I'm already ready for Christmas Break. It has been a bear of a week. I was told on Monday that I was not allowed to smile at the kids, ever. Then I was told the first day of school was a complete disaster because the kids did not leave the cafeteria in an elementary order. Meaning that the high schoolers were let go when the bell rang in one big group not led out by a teacher by grade level and section. Then, half the lockers do not work. I tried every single combination in the book for those lockers and NONE of them worked. I have been chewed out by not only parents who refuse to follow school protocol but by my principal as well. I never want a repeat of this week, ever again.

I also found out this weekend that my husband's little cousin William (he's about 2 or 3 years old) has tumors on his brain. He is at a children's hospital in Utah. Many prayers and people fasting for that little boy. He is a doll and a half and the funniest little kid I have ever seen. IN the words of little William "Aw, Man!"

On the bright side, my energy is through the roof! I have not had any feelings of wanting a nap in the middle of the day even after getting only a few hours of sleep every night. The surgery was a success and the biopsy came back clean. I go back to the doc this week to do some blood tests to make sure all my levels are still good and in the clear. My mom told me about this cloud she felt like she was under before she had her surgery and then after it was lifted. I didn't really understand her at the time, but I do now. I feel like my old self again! I am so happy I had the surgery.

Today Leland and I will finally get to go dryer shopping! He was able to secure some financial aid and receive two months worth of pay. This will make laundry way easier to do. I hate having to wash my clothes at home then go to the laundromat to dry. I would also hate to go to the laundromat to wash and bring home to dry. Either do it all at home or all at the mat, but going between both is awful! Hopefully we can find something within our price range.

Well, that's all I have time for right now. Maybe I can write some more later, maybe ;) Have a wonderful weekend!

The surgery was a success! The two adenomas and glands were removed and my levels have dropped to normal. The strangest thing happened during the surgery though. I swear to all that is good in this world that I began to wake-up during the surgery. I know some people don't believe me, but at one point I remember hearing the doctor talking and feeling a pulling on my neck as well as a burning in my neck. I also remember trying to move some part of my body and trying to yell to let them know I was felling something, but I couldn't do anything. It was strange. I have heard of this happening to people before, but I have had four previous surgeries and have never had that happen so I though it would never happen to me and it never even crossed my mind. From what I have heard from news shows about the phenomenon, it happened. The things I heard described is what I felt. Call me crazy or say it was all in my head if you want, but I know it happened.

The recovery has been slow and I am not happy at all. I have been locked up in my apartment for four days, four days! I am going crazy! I am not suppose to go anywhere until my doc appointment on Wednesday, but I have to get back to work Tuesday. Whatever the doc doesn't know won't hurt, right? I am also doing my best to let Leland take care of me. My mom came for a few days and did a great job of being Nurse Mom. It's not easy for me to be so helpless. I want everything to go okay at the doc so I have to keep reminding myself to stay down and let other people do things for me.

In news from around the country, the US has lost it's triple A (AAA) credit rating and the markets from around the world are crashing. The Dow has lost 600+ points in less than a full day of trading. The world is starting a huge slippery slope of markets. Fox News just showed the European markets and every country has lost huge. Just another sign of the times.

I am starting to feel a little light-headed so I should get back to my recovery. Have a great week!

Goin' Under the Knife

I don't have much time to write seeing that I have been in meetings all day and now have a ton of assignments to do before surge tomorrow. Surgery is tomorrow. I am a little nervous, but I know and have enough faith that things will be okay and turn out how they are suppose to be. No biggie. Mom is driving into town as we speak, er, write. The only items on my list of things to do before I have surge are laundry and grocery shopping. I had plans to do all of that yesterday afternoon and today, but meetings at work took six hours each day. Six hours! Let me tell you, it's going to be one really, really, really long school year. I just may have to try to find another job next year. Hopefully they won't be as bad as what I am thinking they are going to be. Back to work!

Surgery. . .

is a go. Friday I received a call from the doc office saying the scans showed a bilateral parathyroid adenoma and a possible thyroid adenoma. I will have the two glands with the adenomas removed and a possible thyroid biopsy if there is something there. I am fine with the removal of the parathyroids, no sweat. I am more worried about the thyroid adenoma. All the "what ifs" start coming to mind. What if it's cancerous? What if it's metastasized? What if what if, what if? On the other hand there is relief knowing that what is ailing me could be gone forever if the adenomas are removed successfully. Such a mix of emotions! Now it's a race against time to prepare every needful thing not only at home, but at work as well. I have my surgery Thursday and the following Tuesday teachers and admins go back to work. I have to make sure I have all my presentations ready so that I don't have to try to do too much when I get back. That's the plan for today. Get all my presentations updated and ready to go. In order to finish all that, I have to stop playing around on the computer. Have a wonderful Monday and an amazing week!

I went to the ENT yesterday to find out if there was any more information that she can give me about my whole situation. I will be going in for some more scans tomorrow to find out more. If there is anything on the parathyroid I will have surgery next Thursday. If that's the case, it will be good to get everything done before I go back to working full-time on August 9. It does put a little kink in my plans though. I am suppose to have some dental work done next Friday, that may not be happening. If I have the surge on Thursday the doctor wants me in the hospital for 23 hrs (so it's still considered an out-patient surgery) because I am a red-head. I guess she has had experiences with red-heads and this surgery. I have never had any real problems directly after a surge, but if that's what she wants, then that is what she will get.





Last night I went to the temple. It felt so good and so many of my worries were put to rest. It's great to be able to go to the temple and have that feeling of joy, happiness and peace. After I left the temple I called Leland and told him that we are both going to get to the Celestial Kingdom no matter how hard we have to work. Since he was at the Rangers game with his dad last night I went by myself. I told him it was so wierd to be sitting in the Celestial Room and not have him come walking through the doors. It made me a little sad to know that there are people whose families don't make it back. The feelings I was feeling, well, I don't want to feel like that ever again. This life is about experience and work. There are no free passes to the Celestial Kingdom. Faith without works is dead. It's not enough to know, but you have to do. I hope I am doing what I need to do in order to not feel the way I did in the Celestial Room and so my relatives do not have to experience those feelings as well.

Summer of Crazy

I feel like the Cathy cartoon, AAAAAAAAACK! The school year is nearing and new principal is going to be way different. He wants all graffiti cleaned off the walls right after it happens (not at the end of the day because that takes too long) and the paint can will be in my office. "If you don't have control in your restrooms, you don't have control anywhere else". Direct quote from said new principal. I am a little weary about how this year is going to go. It's going to be, well, interesting. Every year with a new principal is always interesting. They all come in with their own agenda and try to force it upon everyone else. I think this is the fifth principal in my going on six years now. Outside of one other person, I have been on this campus the longest and know this building and the things that need to happen. On top of that we are going to be more ghetto than ever. Now, new principal wants to place a fence (chain link no doubt) around the dismissal area for, "the safety of the children". The kids thought it felt like a prison here before, now they are going to really feel like they are in a prison. In talking with new guy I felt that my concerns were not heard or really cared for, but we will see what happens in the next few months. Crazy, crazy.

What else in the past few weeks? I finally went to a real doctor. I know shocking, me going to a doctor for something other than an emergency? I can say that I have a real doctor that I can see for all the little things, but know I will only go for periodic blood testing and a yearly physical. This physical was an experience. I went in to ask a few questions in get all my levels tested to see how well I am. The doc noticed some strange things with my results. My red blood cell count is really high meaning my body is making too many red blood cells. This is a sign for sleep apnea, yay. I still have to do a sleep study for that one. He also noticed my bilirubin levels were high too meaning there is something wrong with my liver. After going through an ultrasound of the abdomen, it was found that my liver is fine but I do have what is known as Gilbert's (pronounced jill bears) Syndrome. Basically, my liver is a little sluggish in flushing out the toxins. No biggie though. He also noticed that my calcium levels were really elevated and much higher than they should be. Knowing that my mom has parathyroid issues he saw that as a red flag and ordered another blood test to check out my pth (parathyroid hormone) levels. The big news, I have hyperparathyroidism. After seeing those levels I went in for another ultrasound and they found three nodules in the parathyroid region. Tomorrow I go to the ENT to find out more. Basically, the parathyroid controls calcium levels in the blood. If the para is messed up it will sense that there is not enough calcium in the body and it will take it from the bones causing elevated levels of calcium in the blood. Many people do not see that as a big problem, but it has huge ramifications. Many people, like my mom, don't find out they have this problem until after they have kidney stones or something else happens. You can have this for years and never know. I don't know how long I have had this, but as I look back on the past year and half I can tell when I started feeling different and noticing something wasn't clicking. I just thought I was having a difficult time with some changes in my life, but now it looks as though that's when my para could have been starting to act up. The only way to cure this is through surgery. No meds or alternative therapies can fix the problem. If there is a nodule, I will have to have surgery. Once the surgery is done, the problem is over. Hopefully I can get things taken care of quickly. I do worry about things like this, but I just have to roll with the punches. And right now life is handing a lot of them to me. I know some of the things that are happening are out of my control. Okay, almost everything is out of my control and I am trying to deal with that and understand that, but it's so hard to do. A lot of faith and a lot of prayer.

On the plus side, Leland, the luckiest man in the world, had some luck fall upon him. So it's not the funding he is looking for to finish his dissertation, but it is something to get him away from some stress. He won tickets to the Texas Rangers baseball game tomorrow night! Incredible! Since I had previously made plans with a friend, he will be taking his dad along for an incredible trip. He wins everything, concert tickets, sporting event tickets, iPads. Man, I got one lucky guy =0)

I have successfully caught you up on my dealings. Oh, yeah, we finally moved to a new place! A cute 2 bed 2 bath apartment. Now all we need is a little doggie and life will be complete, for now ;) Have a wonderful week!

What a Month!

I can't believe it has already been a month since my last post! A few things have happened since then. Leland and I have started moving into our new apartment which I love. It has been a little difficult in doing that since he is working on his research or clinicals everyday and it has been left up to me to get it done. I understand he is busy, but I feel like I am in this by myself. I was able to go see my parents and my college buddies for a week. It was nice seeing all my EP friends. Jeanne got married and I finally got to meet her little 3 month old, Joshua (absolutely adorable!). Jeanne was so beautiful and happy and her new hubby, Eddie, was just beaming with joy and happiness. Erika, one of the funniest people I know, is about two weeks away from delivering her second (and last) baby, a girl. The rest of the gang is doing well and living the life. I miss those girls and we need a reunion with EVERYONE soon. There were a few that were missing that would have completed the entire thing. My other good college buddy, Kristi, is getting married this weekend. I so wish I could be in Hawaii right now for everything rather than SA doing work and moving everything, but it's all good. I wish her and her hubby the best. They are really the perfect match. Outside all that news, not much else is happening. . .or so I would like you to think.

These past two weeks have been really trying for the both of us. We found out that Leland has no funding to finish his research and has no job opportunity for another, at least, three months. Because congress could not pass a budget the Navy, who was funding his research, had to cut it out of the budget because they didn't know how much money they were going to have. Thanks congress and Obama. My husband was a month away from finishing and presenting his dissertation and now, he may have spent five years wasting his life because you couldn't get your act together. On top of that, we will have to pay upwards of $1800 just so Leland can present his dissertation. We will have to pay a full semester's worth of tuition for a couple of hours of work. Why? Because his advisors will be out of town until August 20, the day he would have to present by in order to not have to pay the tuition. Now, I know his advisors go out of town from July 15 ish to August 20 ish every year, it's a tradition. BUT, if you know you have someone who is about to finish their dissertation, has no more funding, and can't afford to pay another semester and has no job, you can cut your vacation short a couple of days. Leland has been working with these men for five years now and they can't cut him a little slack? On top of that, he has always had to wait on them and other people to do his research because the school doesn't have the equipment necessary. All in all, it's not his fault this has taken so long to complete. It's a whole chain reaction. Oh, the best news we found out about, UTHSCSA is the MOST expensive public university in the entire nation. Awesome. It is going to be a tight couple of months. I am still hoping that the school realizes they are being dee,dee,dees and will find some type of funding out there for him. Prayers and faith are being stretched at this point.

Now on to me. There is a reason I never go to the doctor, even if it is just for a wellness check. No matter what I go in for, the doc always finds something wrong or weird. I finally went to a doctor yesterday to do a routine physical. I was concerned about a couple of things, mainly thyroid/parathyroid issues and diabetes since those things are in my family. They did the normal blood tests and read the lab work. I get a call this morning saying the doctor wanted to see me to discuss my results. There is a litany of things going through my head at this point. I have thyroid problems or diabetes, he found something else, or he was just calling me in to praise me for such good results. Boy was I wrong! All my red blood cell readings were too high indicating that I may have sleep apnea so now I have to go through a diagnostic sleep study. The rest is a little weird and where the weirdness factor comes in. My bilirubin is really high indicating something could be seriously wrong with my liver. Which is weird because I don't drink alcohol nor do I smoke. Best case scenario is that I have a slow running liver and there is no issue. Worst case scenario is that I may have the beginnings if cirrhosis of the liver. Again weird because I don't do the things that would lead to cirrhosis of the liver. The other possibility is a fatty liver because of the extra weight that I have. The extra weight that I cannot get off no matter how much I work out and what type of diet I am on could be the effect of sleep apnea. If that is the case, then there is a simple solution to everything. If that's not the case then we have no idea what is going on. So, there is more stress to add to the piled high stress we already have. Hopefully I will know more tomorrow. Then the blood work showed my calcium levels are way too high which, due to my mom's parathyroid condition, is a concern for me because high calcium is a sign of parathyroid issues. Again, I should have more details in the coming days. The good thing is, my thyroid is perfect and so are the other tests, BP, cholesterol and other stuff. I always knew there was a reason I didn't like going to doctors.

The good thing is, these are little trials that we will get through. I know we have these trials for a reason. They are definitely faith trying. I know that we will both grow from this and learn some pretty cool things. I love that I have the gospel in my life and I know that these things will be for my good. I have the knowledge that these things are placed in my life for a reason and I decide how I am going to view them. When it rains, it pours. But I have the option as if I am going to only see the never-ending rain or if I can look to the extended forecast and see the sunshine ahead. I choose the latter. My Heavenly Father knows what I will be able to handle and he will never give me more than that. I have the responsibility to be faithful and do what I know is right. I see this as a little shower that will end. How long will take? I can't say, but I know I will be okay, that Leland and I will be blessed as long as we stay faithful.