OK, so here is the news:

1. HOLY COW do I FEEL SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER!  Tomorrow I am going back to Bikram after an almost 2 week absence.  I have missed it terribly but I felt SO HORRIBLE that I just couldn't do it.  I can't wait to get back to working out, feeling good and taking off this 10 lbs that I have hanging around

2. Yes I did it, I adopted Robin!!  See family photo above!  Yes, I look bad in the photo but I sure am happy!

3. My student from Fiji got married over the weekend!  YEA!!! It was a FANTASTIC wedding!  I mean wonderful!  Ranjita looked soooo beautiful and Kari and I got to wear our sari's to the event.  We had to drive to south GA and we stopped in a great bbq restaurant in a very small town.  As it was a 4+ hour drive, we rode down in shorts and decided to change in the restaurant.  So after we ate, we ran out to the car and all changed.  Imagine, a tiny quaint GA town and a tiny quaint BBQ restaurant/sports bar showing the "pit crew challenge" on tv when suddenly, two women walk out of the bathroom dressed in traditional Indian ceremonial attire!  LOL!  We took photos outside, with a water tower and Harley in the background.  When I have a copy of that photo, I will post it.  It was a stunning event and so many people, including the bride and groom and family of both the bride and groom, changed into or wore Indian dress attire as well to show the embracing of the bride's heritage.  I could not have had a better time, meeting her new family and current family from Fiji.  

GOOD DAY!

Before I leave the house in the morning, I take my thyroid meds.  These must be taken on an empty stomach.  Then as I leave I walk out my front door and gather up the Wall St Journal.  This morning I made a very interesting "ohhhh" noise when I bent over to get my paper.

Now If I were a good 85 that noise wouldn't be so unusal.  However I am less than 1/2 that age and am a yogi!  I can wrap my legs, arms, etc around in strange and unusual postures.  

Another fabulous side effect of hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue.  But today is different.  Today is my first day on Cortef.  I take it 2x a day, once with breakfast and once with lunch.  Now at 4:40pm I am here to tell you I feel a difference.

It isn't a HUGE difference.  But I can tell.  My joints ache less.  I am not completely exhausted.  

Imagine what wonders may happen by day four!

Small improvement but I have been down for so long that I wanted to note a positive progression.

On a commentary note, I appreciate all of your items and suggestions and I have been down that road and therefore respect all the items mentioned.  I have a tempurpedic bed, sleep like a log, used to work out in the am but don't right now, watch my eating habits, caffiene consumption after 5pm, etc.  All this means that I intend to keep up good habbits and perhaps soon, I will be able to go riding horses for I am sad to admit, only the third time in my life.  Crazy especially since my one of my best friend's has a horse and I am the benefactor of several horse shoes!!  

More on day #2~

I love Kung Fu Panda. I look forward to the day when I am not so tired that I sing Kung Fu fighting again and watch that movie without falling asleep.

I surrendered yesterday.

I sent an email to my Dr. yesterday. I needed help.

I feel so bad that I almost tear up just writing about it. My joints ache, I am exhausted, I am emotionally out of whack, I had to take a whole DAY to recover from one day of yard work this weekend. I am spent and almost disinterested in going to Bikram right now. I just want to sleep and wake up when it is all better. I can't feel things now like I did before, that is to say I use to take joy just from waking up and having my little dog lick my face to wake me up. I used to take joy from rubbing the dogs bellies, cooking for my honey, enjoying listening to a news program and discussing it with my honey, waving to my neighbors, looking at photos of my friends children, experiencing a pretty spring day, working on items for Rotary, reading a book, etc.. All of these things are a lukewarm wash of a watered down moments. Everything is a task and I am too worn out to appreciate the good and have developed a level of resentment to the rest.

This isn't me.

3.5 years ago I switched to the dr I have now. He is my team player. At that time not only did he run a whole host of tests on me but also wanted to do a saliva test to see how my adrenals were functioning. You can't brush your teeth the day of the test and I was too superficial to do it. 1.5 years later, I did the test, after I had so much stress in my life that it caught up with my body. I was way out of wack with my adrenal function as well as my thyroid function. We moderated the thyroid function but I learned it is a delicate balance between the two. He started me off with a natural supplement for my adrenals as I refused to take a steroid.

i have repeated the test and have gotten a little better but it is to the degree of passing a test with a D. Pathetic. Finally yesterday my dr called in a prescription for Cortef. I won't kid you, prescriptions scare me. I refused to let my dog with IBD be on a long term steroid. I cook for him. (another story for another day).

I will start taking it tomorrow. I have been reading A LOT about the response people have had to getting relief from the medication and I am excited about that. The more I read about adrenal fatigue the more I realize my Dr is a genius and I should get out of the way and let him do his job. Still, it is change and to some degree it frightens me. Probably because I did not attend medical school and my web surfing knowledge is just enough to be dangerous. Reading what I have, I see that it will be a new beginning for me. Still my control freak side wants to live and thrive and be healthy without any assistance and that means prescriptions as well as support.

If I could do that, I wouldn't need to blog I suppose? We could just have a lovely discussion about say, Shakespeare or horses or Bikram or springtime.

I look forward to finishing "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo", watching movies, working, going to concerts, taking care of rescue dogs, finding new ways to serve the community through Rotary and being a good friend to everyone I know again. I guess I just need help getting back to all I love about being alive.

Hypothyroidism symptoms wear on you. Watching yourself go through the symptoms is like looking out at a landscape that was altered because of water erosion. After a period of time, it feels impossible to imagine the landscape will go back to how it looked before the erosion began. First you have to redirect the water and once you solve that problem, you can rebuild.

Ten years ago, when I was first diagnosed I got so much worse before I got better. This was a result of being SOOO out of whack that instead of just getting better, my symptoms were the equivalent of a 100 year flood on that landscape. Then SIX MONTHS later, I got better. MUCH BETTER. I felt great again.

I am there again. I have been off for months and now I feel as if the 100 year flood is here. I have brain fog. Yesterday I couldn't calculate a 20% tip. HELLO I work with figures all day long. Math is a breeze for me. My hair falls out in clumps, my face is dry and looks horribly puffy to me. My normally perfect skin is bumpy and has zero glow. I have lost muscle tone and am slowly putting on weight. My joints ache. I am so tired that I am forgetful.

That isn't the worst. The worst is that the hormone imbalance means that most of the time, I don't behave like myself. I am someone else that is generally a person simply reacting to information based on the way I feel at that moment. I have always been a person that is incredibly critical of myself so I know that I judge my own actions too harshly however, now that I have done that every day, it has begun to erode my self confidence. I don't feel like a good girlfriend any longer. I don't feel like a good person any longer. I don't feel attractive. I used to carry on conversations on everything from financial issues, to politics, to dogs and now I can't focus enough to retain what I read in the WSJ or listen to in most of my podcasts. I feel like a blob.

It isn't that I have actually become a blob. I am still almost 5'8" and between a 6 - 8. But how I feel about myself has eroded. I can't ask for everyone around me to pretend that I am not here and that what I say and do that doesn't seem like me to simply ignore. I can't stand not even being able to perceive how others perceive me now. I can't stand asking for a pass. I don't seem to have the capacity to give one to myself, so how can I expect it of others?

I dropped Robin off at the shelter Tuesday night and I will not longer be her foster mom. This helped my hormone imbalanced state to tank on Tuesday evening. I wasn't myself and I said things to my boyfriend that were not bad, just unlike me. On my long journey to Alabama to pick up my new SUV yesterday, I wasn't myself. By the time I got to dinner with friends last night, I was very quiet because I was afraid that everything I said was stupid (socially). I know that the 36 hrs my honey had with me were un fun but I also wonder how many dings can you put into things before you shift someone else's feelings about you?

My honey tells me all the time that I am a nice person. What if he is rethinking this?

This is a process. There will be an end and I will feel better. All these symptoms will reverse themselves and it is impressive when I get back on an aggressive workout schedule (too exhausted and joints ache so badly that I am down to 3x a week) I will be back and fierce but right now I can't even grasp when that will be. It could start today. It feels like it will never happen. I have been here before. I don't like this place.

PS I don't know how to answer the question regarding "If I were an automobile, what would I be"? as right now I am trying to remember and hold tight to who I know I am not who I FEEL like I am right now. I wish I had a better answer. Perhaps I will focus on that thought and use it as a great tool to focus on the good right now.

As you all may know, I have had Robin my foster dog, in my home for about 5.5 weeks now. She has been for adoption for an unusually long period of time for dogs from Atlanta Pet Rescue. I don't know if Robin has ever been in a home before me. She has adjusted well to the house and is good friends with Madison. Max doesn't really interact with her but also doesn't have any issue with her.

Every Saturday I bring her back to the shelter for adoption day. Also occasionally if I am not going to be around I have brought her back to the shelter. She has adjusted enough to my home that I when I leave her at the shelter, she gets depressed and when I pick her back up she is exuberant but clingy as this back and forth is upsetting to her.

So after talking with the head of volunteers at the shelter, we have decided that after this week, I should not be her foster parent any more so that she can readjust to being in the shelter until she can be in a permanent home.

Oh God.

So I am considering adopting her. I don't really want another dog but I want what is best for her. I clearly love her but am torn.

Please feel free to weigh in, I don't know what to do!

I got the best complement ever a few years ago. A friend called me the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer.

Let's regress a bit. I have been a host to a student from Fiji this year. While carting my student along with another student around (this one from Poland) we got into a discussion about education. My student from Fiji is way behind in an accounting curriculum. Part of this is due to the "core". Classical education. Now both these students think the core is a big joke. They don't understand the value of understanding world history when studying accounting. I stopped them in the middle of a well heated rant to fully disagree with them. I agree with the saying that those that don't know history are subject to becoming a victim of it.

Yes while at Carnegie Mellon I studied PLENTY of things outside of my area of focus and absolutely stunk at many of those subjects. I also was one of those "slightly" competitive students that wanted to dominate the classes in my area of study so students that were in my classes from other areas of study, absolutely loathed me. Still this cross genre education served me well. I am not employed in my field of study yet 14 years ago I transitioned successfully into what I consider my second career in the field construction. FAR FAR FAR from what I studied at Carnegie Mellon. Yes in order to be successful I did go back to school to focus on limited items as well as additional classes such as spending a week in Mold School. (not kidding). The value of a classical education is that you learn flexibility and have to understand many approaches and a limited amount of information on many subjects thus you learn a level of fluidity that will benefit you no matter what you choose to do in life. (Sometimes this means you know just enough to be dangerous such as each time I work on our server!)

My friend M has me figured out. He is the one that gave me the unfrozen caveman lawyer complement. I enjoy finding myself in a situation where I can ask whatever I want and say "come on, I am a roofer what did you expect?" and get a few giggles. Most people (with the exception of my vendors) have no idea that I have the ability to fully asses a situation and put together a cohesive argument for what I want. Most people assume that because of some combination of my field and my age makes me unable to be competent or/and effective. That means I always get the advantage of the surprise attack. 90% of the time this works in my favor. The balance of the time it just gives me the opportunity to see people for who they are and usually this is out of a frustrating experience. I can handle that 10% as long as I can keep up with the unfrozen caveman lawyer. I credit this to that well rounded "core" education. I won't always be successful, I won't always make the right decisions but I do know that I have enough of a background to put me on the right path.

PS this is a photo of CMU. I have to call them on this one, this photo MUST have been taken during the only warm (ish) sunny day in Pittsburgh. I remember being a cold, drenched student most of the time...

OK, when I am this down from exhaustion, I look for inspiration to draw on whatever reserve of adrenaline that I might have.

Now I have seen this ad on TV so many times but for some reason the other night, I found the way to tap into my inner bad ass ~ THE SOCK MONKEY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJqs3D2vv4I

Let me segue for a minute. Back to the marriage. When I was married, my ex drove an Audi TT. I was not allowed to drive his car. Yes I was allow to pay for the insurance and the maintenance and the repairs but no driving. I didn't have a problem with that. I respect that we all have "stuff" that isn't for anyone else to play with. My current boyfriend has a few motorcycles, one is a Ducati Monster.... Oh it makes my toes curl. I love it. I wanted to go to take classes from Ducati in Italy I love it so much. I have a motorcycle license but would NEVER take his bike out for a spin. I get asked a lot why I don't ask my honey to put a sissy bar (back rest) on his Harley Road King for my comfort. Easy ~ you don't mess with the man's bike. I never messed with my ex's car as I get it.

I did however wonder about how much fun it would be to drive a car like that. Now I am not a big fan of Audi but I am a great fan of all of Toyota. I have owned three toyotas, a Celica, a Lexus RX300 and now a Lexus IS 250. And let me tell you, when I drop that IS 250 down a gear and pass and hug curves with ease and grace, I am glad that I had enough respect for my ex to leave his car alone.

Here is the problem, I love my dogs and I love to foster and help dogs more than I love that IS. I also go to Target and the grocery store and Home Depot and Lowes all the time ~ I need another SUV. I don't want another Lexus as the RX is too big for my in town home. Still, emotionally there goes that cool feeling you get from driving a car that really can HANDLE ~ I mean SING around town.

THEN CAME THE SOCK MONKEY. Thank you Kia, for making the SUV cool. Too bad I am picking a RAV4 on Wednesday but I salute you and your marketing team. You brought out my inner bad ass with a childhood toy! KIA, you rock!

How you like me now??

(PS although I enjoy driving cars and motorcycles, that doesn't mean I have any talent whatsoever. Just ask me to parallel park, very sad)

My little foster dog from Atlanta Pet Rescue was NOT adopted this weekend. I am both sad and happy about this. I enjoy spending time with her so I am happy to see her again but sad as I want her to get the best permanent home possible.

Sure enough this wasn't without a wee bit of drama. Last week when I dropped her off for her "TV debut" we discovered that she is allergic to something in my home. After discussion with my sister we thought that it might be my laundry detergent. So after Saturday's adoption day proved unproductive for Robin, I went to Trader Joe's and bought the detergent they carry and washed 17 loads of laundry over the next three days. My obsessive compulsive side is happy and my heart is happy too to welcome Robin back for awhile until she has her forever home.

AND on a silly note...

So my prior posting was about how absolutely exhausted I am thanks to hypothyroidism. I am still wiped out and over the weekend I wanted to make my honey's favorite dessert as his birthday was Monday. Now I am a very good cook but still have yet to "master" blackberry cobbler. I thought that I would kick it out of the park this weekend. While getting detergent, I also purchased fresh blackberries and ice cream. Sure enough I misread the recipe and FORGOT TO ADD TWO INGREDIENTS! HELLO!!! When we sat down all happy for dessert, it was everything I could do to NOT spit it out! It was soooooo salty that he asked if I was trying to promote him to have high bp! Finally we tossed it into the backyard so he could "cause the opossums in the area to have heart attacks". LOL!! Don't worry, Sunday I made another one and since I reset the blackberry cobbler bar soooo low, it was a home run!

I am exhausted.

No I haven't been out partying or overextending myself. I am hypothyroid.

This is more common than people think. HOWEVER my case is a little more challenging than cases for most people.
fortunately, the solution is simple. You take a pill for the rest of your life. There are both synthetic and natural hormone derivative that you can take. For a chronic condition, they are affordable and in most people they have to have there levels measured regularly but no big deal.

Not me.

First let me explain the symptoms, some people have a few of these or a combination:

Early symptoms:

Poor muscle tone (muscle hypotonia)
Fatigue
Cold intolerance, increased sensitivity to cold
Depression
Muscle cramps and joint pain
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Goiter
Thin, brittle fingernails
Thin, brittle hair
Paleness
Osteoporosis
Decreased sweating
Dry, itchy skin
Weight gain and water retention[9][10][11]
Bradycardia (low heart rate – fewer than sixty beats per minute)
Constipation

Late symptoms
Slow speech and a hoarse, breaking voice – deepening of the voice can also be noticed
Dry puffy skin, especially on the face
Thinning of the outer third of the eyebrows (sign of Hertoghe)
Abnormal menstrual cycles
Low basal body temperature
[edit]Less common symptoms
Impaired memory[12]
Impaired cognitive function (brain fog) and inattentiveness.[13]
A slow heart rate with ECG changes including low voltage signals. Diminished cardiac output and decreased contractility.
Reactive (or postprandial) hypoglycemia[14]
Sluggish reflexes
Hair loss
Anemia caused by impaired haemoglobin synthesis (decreased EPO levels), impaired intestinal iron and folate absorption or B12 deficiency[15] from pernicious anemia
Difficulty swallowing
Shortness of breath with a shallow and slow respiratory pattern.
Increased need for sleep
Irritability and mood instability
Yellowing of the skin due to impaired conversion of beta-carotene[16] to vitamin A
Impaired renal function with decreased glomerular filtration rate
Elevated serum cholesterol
Acute psychosis (myxedema madness) (a rare presentation of hypothyroidism)
Decreased libido[17] due to impairment of testicular testosterone synthesis
Decreased sense of taste and smell (anosmia)
Puffy face, hands and feet (late, less common symptoms)
Gynecomastia

Last year the company that makes my medicine changed the binding agent and this caused some patients to be taking the equivalent of a placebo. Then the same company had issues with the FDA and it became impossible to get the medicine. So about nine months ago, my levels began to tank and my dr tried to bring them back in line with a combination of natural thyroid meds and synthetic and sure enough my levels tanked further.

I found a local lab that makes my meds. I started to get better but we need to increase the dosage. Each time we change my meds I get much worse before I get better. I can not express to you how bad I feel right now.

I am so exhausted that I could nap an hour for every hour I am awake. I am so exhausted that I have trouble focusing. I have gained weight and can not do anything about it. I have lost muscle tone. I feel like a rhinoceros (ok so I am between a size 6 and 8 so I don't look like one but when I put on even 5 lbs, I feel disgusting). Since your thyroid controls your metabolism, dieting won't cut it. My joints ache. My vision is not as sharp. I am losing hair. I can cry on command right now. When I bruise, it lasts for six weeks. My skin is so dry I use pure coconut oil on it. I feel like I turned 85 this morning.

Most people, including my prior dr have trouble believing me when I tell them these things. I am type A to the letter so no matter how badly I feel, I get it done any way. Most people mistake my personality for how I feel. I generally will not let how I feel stop me but it has made me rethink some things in my life.

For example, I decided when I was 30 that I would not be a good mother. I never felt the desire to have children but more importantly, I am too tired to do a good job. Every parent I know gets worn down but I would not be able to recover fast enough to do a good job and that is too important of a job to screw up. Thus I chose not to do it. I would have had a tough time getting pregnant any way as your thyroid function has a large hand in that as well.

Right now I am trapped in obligations. I spent all weekend in meetings or at a conference. I hardly had time to run to the grocery store. Thus no rest, thus further exhaustion. I am so tired that I am at the point of resenting my obligations. This is temporary but it is so hard to find balance. I want to cancel everything that isn't essential. I want to go home and nap for about four weeks, wake up and pick back up where I left off. There is no pause button in life. Thus I keep going on.

My honey is sensitive to this. He wants me to "take it easy". I am not good at "take it easy". Before I got married to my ex husband, I purchased a small book for him so that he could understand what I was going through when my levels were off. My mistake here was assuming that he gave a damn about me. When I spoke to him about the book, his response was "that is bs I am not reading it, I don't believe you any way". He saw me taking meds every day and going to my dr regularly. He was such an ignorant asshole. As was I to marry him.

I don't know how to find balance right now. I can not stand doing poorly at anything but I know I am not doing a good job. I need to take things off my plate but don't know how to prioritize these items. I feel stuck, tired and quite blue about going through this imbalance AGAIN. I hate being weak and I hate having my boyfriend see me weak. I hate needing about seven cups of coffee to make it through the day. The first two to three weeks of the transition are always the hardest. One day in the very near future I will wake up feeling like the fog has lifted. I know it as I have been in this place before. Just right now, it seems soooo far away.

If you haven't seen it, here is a comment on my last post:
"One of the many reasons that "one" is reluctant to let go of those former relationship thoughts is basically a type of self defense mechanism. Everything about you is picking up on things that are almost an exact reminder of the good times (if there are even two of them) that were shared in your former relationship.

And what's really strange is the trigger mechanisms; such as ones sense of taste, hearing, and smell, and the like- but especially smell. Think of it this way...

The former most likely brought you to certain locations when dating (and possibly when married); such as restraunts. Some of those same restraunts might have foods which might be considered rare. By having that same "smell signature" ran by you again opens up some of the older images and files in ones mind that can almost literally bring you back to that former point in time.

Which is also why (in most cases) that clothes can literally hold scents such as cologne and perfume even after being washed or even dry cleaned several times- even after time periods well in excess of one year. Or to compare people with ones household pets... Dogs do not recognize each other by sight, they can simply smell each other from very great distances.

But not only is is your sences that are opening the older files in ones mind- it's also the self defense mechanism. The same exact mechanism that is telling you that you did get burned once- and to try not to let it happen again."

Let me copy a quote also from The Matrix:
[Neo sees a black cat walk by them, and then a similar black cat walk by them just like the first one]
Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu.
[Everyone freezes right in their tracks]
Trinity: What did you just say?
Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
Trinity: What did you see?
Cypher: What happened?
Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.
Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same cat?
Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.
Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!
Neo: What is it?
Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.

BOOM Deja Vu????

Before I got married I was horribly nervous about it until my wedding day when I was miserable. THEN I got married. Duh that was dumb.

I have been wondering lately about marriage. I am always surrounding by people that are married but I wonder if I can do it again. I want to be married but I think where would I live, do I have to share my house, would I revert to the person that takes care of all the meals, etc?? Mundane items but I have been thinking about them. Mind you I am in a happy relationship with a man that I love but I am so freaked out by my past marriage that I guess that the closer I get to thinking about what it would be like to be married again I barf up some kind of baggage. (Understand, my honey and I are NOT talking about or thinking about marriage or any type of real change in our relationship.)

So I was weighed down this weekend by more shame that I feel from my marriage. My honey maintains the position that there had to be some good qualities about him otherwise I would not have married him in the first place. I wanted to spend my free time traveling and seeing the world and we traveled well together. I was traveling with my honey this weekend and we are planning other trips together and we also travel well together. I love a few days away with him. Was this my trigger?

I guess I should learn to accept it as just a cat and let it keep walking by.