Athletes

Not being able to go out to dinner has forced us to be more creative with our dates.



Last Thursday, Phil and I decided we would go on a date to the batting cages.  We bought 12 tokens with 16 pitches each.  The goal was that we would take turns showing off our excellent batting skills.  I used to be pretty good, you know.  And by "used to be", I mean when I was 8.

I used 4 tokens.  Then I was tired.  And after 64 pitches, I hit probably a whopping 9 balls.

Phil did much better.  I didn't keep track of how many he hit, but I would guess that out of 128 pitches, he probably only MISSED 9.

Saturday night, we went bowling to celebrate our friend Ian's birthday.  Since the lanes were full when we got there, they gave up some complimentary pool (or billiards, if you will) while we waited.

{I was stripes, that's why there are so many of those.}

Phil whipped the floor with me.  Although I did manage to get in some pretty good and intentional shots.  And I never scratched, which I count as a victory for me.

Then came time for bowling.  Despite having to learn bowling in elementary school (yes, we learned bowling in P.E.), I am not all that good. 

{Cosmic bowling.  With the teenagers and middle-aged people.}

I did have a decent showing though.  95 the first game and 97 the second game.  Phil managed to get a turkey in the 10th frame of our last game.  Show-off.

After our weekend of althetic endeavors, I have decided that Phil is not attracted to me because of my batting, pool or bowling skills.  It must be because I look so cute doing it.  :)

I'm not sure batting, bowling, and pool are the best measures of my althetic ability.  But unless sleeping or sitting can considered a sport, those are as good as it gets.

My coworkers are MEAN

Let me preference this post by saying that I am currently preparing for Radioactive Iodine Treatment (oral chemotherapy) as a part of my Thyroid Cancer treatment.  To prepare for this, I am on a low-iodine diet (which mean I can eat basically nothing) and can't take my thyroid medicine (I am hypothyroid).  This post does not reflect my normal behavior.

I walked into my office yesterday morning and a wonderful aroma hit my olfactory senses.  When I turned the corner to go into my office, I saw them.

Breakfast sandwiches.  Ham, Sausage, and Bacon Egg and Cheese breakfast sandwiches.

And seeing (and smelling) these could not be avoided.  Let me show you the proximity of these sandwiches to my actual office (as in where my desk is):

There is no avoiding them.

I know people bring food into the office quite frequently, but I didn't expect them to bring something so aromatic and then put it RIGHT NEXT TO my office.  The entire office smelled like cheese, bacon, and sausage.  One of my coworkers said, "I can't smell them."  I wanted to reply to that with, "That's because you still have sausage grease on your face."

I didn't say that.

I did, however, several completely inappropriate almost reactions to this:

1.  I almost started crying.

2.  I almost took all the sandwiches and threw them in the garbage.

3.  I almost took all the sandwiches and threw them on the floor while stomping my foot.

BUT I DIDN'T!!

And anyone who has gone through this low-iodine diet without Synthroid/Cytomel knows that is no small feat.

Needless to say, I think my hypothyroid symptoms are starting to sneak up on me.

Twitter Family Reunion

My cousins are awesome.  I am sure I have mentioned it before.  Currently, they are all students at Oregon State University getting smart in all kinds of wonderful things.  Because they are young and I am older and wiser, I offered some dating advice for them a while back.

That's what older cousins are for.

Lindsay just got a twitter account and she and I had the following HILARIOUS (at least to me) conversation the other night:

Me:  I've noticed you have a thing for cats:  http://www.moredesignplease.com/moredesignplease/2012/3/27/kitty-couture-by-tokyo-lux.html

Lindsay:  That is the best thing I've ever seen!  Except that the kitty eyes would be on my boobs...

Me:  Oh would that make you uncomfortable?

Lindsay:  Not at all.  I'd have a kitten and that's all that matters!

Me:  You wouldn't be able to say, "Excuse me my eyes are up HERE!"

Lindsay:  As long as nobody tries to pet my cat shirt.

Me:  Only if you want them to.

Linsday:  I'll try that at the next blood drive.

{Kitty shirt from HERE}

She's a riot.  And a ginger.  The two things might be related, I don't know.

Follow me on twitter:  @mrsnjanney

Low Iodine Lunch

I am now 1 week into my low-iodine diet.  1 week down, 4 to go.

Today one of my coworkers told me, "If I were on that diet, I would totally cheat."  Well that would be completely counter-productive.  I'm not doing this because it is fun or to lose weight (although I'd better lose some dang weight).  And just a reminder:  for normal healthy people, iodine is very important.

Lunch is by far the hardest meal of the day for me.  Breakfast is fairly easy... Some egg whites with veggies and hash browns plus a fruit smoothie (read: pureed fruit and ice).  I save all my meat and grains for dinner, but that makes lunch a little tricky.

Last week I tried no-salt peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on low-iodine bread.  But the peanut butter doesn't taste like normal peanut butter (it tastes like peanut butter in England) and my low-iodine bread is getting a little dry.

So here it is... my lunch:

Carrots and yellow peppers with homemade hummus.  No-salt white corn tortilla chips with homemade guacomole.  Apples and a banana.  I am pretty sure my daily recommended 9 fruits and veggies are all right there.  My dinner tonight will be veggie-less.  I am such a rebel.

It isn't half bad except for the fact that it takes FOREVER to eat enough veggies to be full.  I might try to keep this up when my diet is over.  But I'll probably add some things.  Like bread.  And cheese.  And cookies.  And lasagna.

Now I'm drowling.

Monday Funday

I made it through my first day of the week pretty well.  I felt like taking a nap at around 1:30, but I didn't!  So we will count that as a success.  I even managed to get some (one) thing finished on my to-do list.

{The boss said I HAD to make a to-do list because he knows my thyroid-less brain is not remembering everything I need to get done.  Most everything on this list needs to be done by Wednesday}

Here are some fun things I heard during my day wearing the boss pants:

1)  "This is pretty simple. You'll probably be able to do it."  Gee thanks for the vote of confidence.  PS - I do all of it anyway, simple or not.

2)  "How much will that cost?  Please initial that estimate."  Well considering the fact that you just told me the project was SO SIMPLE that even I would be able to do it, it will be costing you more.  And having me initial the estimate made me a little nervous.

3)  "We were supposed to have that last week.  When can you have that done?"  Please refer to my to-do list.  You are now at the bottom of it.

4)  "You have a fax from the boss."  I thought he was supposed to be on vacation?

5)  "You have a fax from the boss."  Ok he sucks at being on vacation.


Here's to a Terrific Tuesday!

This Week

The weekend went by WAY too quickly.  Maybe it is just because I am really not looking forward to this week.  My boss is out of town, which means I am the engineer in charge.  And even though I have been a full-fledged engineer for over a year, the idea of making design decisions completely by myself is a little daunting.

{Story Winery in Plymouth, CA.  This is where my boss is right now.  AMAZING Zinfandel.  That's my unedited picture.}

It will be fine.  I actually know what I am doing.  Weird.

But I have a lot on my plate work-wise, even without having to answer other people's questions.

Plus, I am not 5 days into the prep for my RAI and I am starting to subtly see the side effects of low thyroid hormones.  The ones that concern me the most are the lack of focus and the tiredness.  I know I will have to work pretty hard to make everything is done correctly and quickly which probably won't be helping the tiredness.  Apparently it is fairly common for people to not work when they are preparing for the RAI, so we will see how this goes.

Eating also takes a lot more focus than it used to.  And while I knew it would be a challenge, it has surprised me just how hard the diet really is.  I think the main challenge has been that it started all of a sudden.  You can't really ease into it.  But I am starting to get the hang of it.  It has kind of made me feel like a fatty though.  I never realized how much I was attached to food.  There are several Dr. Phil and Biggest Loser episodes devoted to dealing with this.

And I don't know if it is the thyroid or just stuff in general, but I find I get sad a lot easier.  And blogging has kind of made it worse.  It is easy to get caught up in comparing my blog to other blogs.  Followers, comments, etc.  It feels like high school all over again and I would NEVER sign up to go through that again.  Sometimes I feel like I constantly have to self-promote myself to get followers when in reality blogging is just a good way to make connections with people.  It has kind of bummed me out lately.

All this to say that I may not be posting as much for the next week or so.  Who knows how I will feel after this week.  I hope I won't lose followers and readers, but I know it is possible that I will.  I'll do my best to post regularly, I promise.

A little medical rant

Currently I am riding down to a meeting on site in Eugene. When I was invited to this meeting, I was conveniently not told it would be outside... In the snow. Maybe if I had known, I wouldn't have worn my nude pumps. Oh well. Who needs to feel their toes anyway?

My RAI got scheduled for April 17th. Getting it scheduled was nothing short of a saga. I am not too surprised as almost every step of this process has been a challenge. Not all of it, but most. I really can't complain about my surgeries since they went off without a hitch. Except for the fact that my surgeon tried to get me to not have either surgery. Ok that counts as challenging I think.

This entire process has really pointed out to me just how messed up healthcare really is. And I am not talking insurance (although that is definitely a problem). I am talking about medical professionals. I can not believe how hard it has been to see doctors, get appointments, get people to call me back, heck... Get the nurse to give me anti-nausea medication at the hospital (I thought my mom was going to go primal on her). And I know it isn't just me because my father in law has had some interesting experiences lately as well.

You would think all medical professionals would be supportive and helpful when you are scared and have cancer. But some of them either have forgotten what it is like or have never actually gone through a health crisis themselves because the complete lack of understanding is ridiculous.

For example, I was supposed to find out of my RAI was scheduled in April last week. As I mentioned earlier, RAI involves going off my thyroid hormones and going on a low iodine diet. It isn't exactly something you can just walk into. Well the hospital didn't have the schedule done because the ONE person who does the schedule was on his honeymoon so they couldn't do it.

You mean to tell me there is only one person qualified to put a schedule together? And since he knew he was going to be gone, wouldnt it be a good idea to do it BEFORE he left?

So the scheduler for my endocrinologist laid the smack down. She let them know that wasn't acceptable. Long story short, the ONLY reason I even found out this week that I NEEDED to be on my diet is because I called everyday and asked. Finally the hospital got so tired of hearing from the scheduler, they got it figured out.

I was under the delusion that once you found out you had cancer, your doctors would rally around you and make sure you at least FELT like you were being taken care of. I have found that to be a rarity (not that it hasn't kind of happened but it took a while to get there). Heck... It took me 6 months and 4 tries to even get my nodules biopsied. If I hadn't pushed and done my own research and been my own advocate, I would be sitting at the fertility clinic, probably still not able to get pregnant because my thyroid was all weird, with cancer growing in my neck.

So here is the point of this whole rant: if you work in the health care industry and you have forgotten that the purpose of your job is to take care of your patients, it is time for you to get a new job.

And here is the last point: as a patient, don't ever assume your doctors are on top of things. Don't ever stop being your own advocate. If you are sick and your doctor can't handle taking the time to take care of you, it is time for a new doctor.

And here I thought this post was going to be about the low iodine bread I made last night.




Love, Mrs. Janney