Medical Update, Part Floppity Jillion

I thought it was time to stop referring to the "mysterious medical issue," and let y'all in on the secret.  I have a little more information now, although not all of it.  But first (as the ChenBot would say)...

The update on the hip.  It turns out that I DO have a torn hip labrum, but they found out during the latest test they did that I also have a bilateral (both sides of my body) hip deformity.  My doctor is consulting with someone he believes is one of the best in the country as far as joint replacements, joint revisions, etc., for next steps.  My doctor has discussed the possibility of a hip replacement, an osteotomy (they cut the bone and reshape it - doesn't that sound fun?), and more physiotherapy in the meantime that would be different from what I've been doing thus far.  This PT would be less strengthening and more "hands-on and teaching me how to move the bones and muscles."  He also discussed another MRI looking specifically at this area (now that we know which area to focus on) and or a CT scan looking at my left foot/ankle/leg since all of that could potentially have been affected over the years since it's all weight-bearing stemming from the hip.

So, those are all the various possibilities, but until he's able to consult with this guy and possibly get me in to see Mr Awesome Doctor myself, I won't really know anything else.

As for the "mystery issue."  This spring, I started having a lot of symptoms that made me think my thyroid was acting up again.  I called my doctor, we ran the tests, and everything was good.  We checked my Vitamin D levels (since I do take prescription Vitamin D, anyway, for a deficiency), and everything was good there.  Over the summer, things got worse.  But everything my doctor tried diagnostically turned up absolutely nothing.  In fact, my thyroid was doing so well that if she suppressed things any more than they already do, I would become hyPERthyroid (instead of hyPOthyroid), which nobody really wants.

She really had two theories, and all of her tests were trying to prove one of the theories wrong because it was something I really didn't want.  This week, I went for the results of the last test that she knew to send me to, and it wasn't good.  That specialist couldn't find anything wrong with me, either.

So - what's wrong?  Well, I've been having irregular periods (as in absent for MONTHS on end), hot flashes, night sweats, fatigue, dry eyes...   in short, all of the symptoms of menopause.  To review, I turn 36 next month, I have no kids, and - yes - I want(ed) kids.

My doctor HAS said that it is an EXTREMELY rare side effect of my birth control pills that they can mimic menopause.  So there is still that hope.  I could just change pills and everything could be fine.  But she doesn't want to do this herself because if I suddenly stop, it could affect my thyroid issues, so she wants me to do this only under the supervision of my endocrinologist, who would be the one to run the definitive hormonal blood tests for menopause anyway.  I see the endo the first week in February.

I have been sad since this possibility was mentioned earlier this year, but when I got the latest news on Monday, I have been...  well, a lot of crying has been done.

I am well aware of adoption, but at this point, I am single, and in quite a lot of debt from law school and a Master's programme.  Adoption isn't cheap, and my health insurance doesn't cover in vitro (yes, I already checked).  So.  That's where things are.

I am very happy to be going home to my mommy today.

Holiday Knitting

I am soooo far behind.

I have a wedding gift that was supposed to be done about three weeks ago.  But I got into a funk Rhinebeck weekend, and I stopped knitting for two weeks.  Had I not lost those two weeks, I'd probably be okay.  So I just need to kick things into hyperdrive and stay focused.

One of the gifts I had planned (a scarf) might be shoved to next year, and I might have to think of something else for John.  The other two gifts (a hat and a cowl) are shorter projects, so that would take a lot of pressure off.  A man's scarf is no joke, people!

But I may be able to crank a lot out during Thanksgiving weekend since I'm one of those people who has absolutely no obligations whatsoever (other than, you know, gluttony and couch potato-ing).  And since I don't do the Black Friday thing, I can make use of that time, too.

The Death of a Relationship

I had been feeling kind of bad that Orin and I hadn't had any contact since I found out he had lung and brain cancer.  So I told my mom, "What if he's sitting there thinking, 'Here I am going through all of this and all my daughter does is send me a damned card?'"

So she said, "Well, if you really feel that way, go ahead and call him.  And if he starts acting like a jerk, tell him that this is why things are the way they are between you and hang up."

Today, I did just that.  When we started talking, I asked if he had received the card.  "Yes, and I didn't call you.  That was my choice."  Oh.  While he continued to talk and tell me about his treatment, I mulled over in my head "Is there any way I can take that other than 'I didn't want to talk to you'?" and I keep coming up with "Nope - that's pretty much what he meant."

I won't go through every detail, but by the end, he was accusing my mom of being a liar, he was yelling that he is NOT a racist and he stood behind the emails he sent me (that led to me changing my email address), and then he hung on up me.

So I called him back and I said, "I just want you to understand that THIS is why our relationship is not a good one.  I want to wish you well with everything you're going through.  I love you, but this is the last time I'll be talking to you.  Good-bye."

And that is that.

Job Stuff

So, some of you know exactly what's going on, and others have just heard me talk about the things at the new job going all pear-shaped as of last week.  For reasons that should be obvious (given that this is the internet), I'm not going to go into detail here, but I will say that things are Officially Not Good.

On top of (1) family stress and (2) health stress, I now have (3) job stress.

Is it any wonder that I'm not sleeping nights?

I have no trouble falling asleep once I go to bed, but I wake up about every two hours.  And while I generally fall asleep not quite right away but soon enough, it's the constant waking up that's annoying.  And the fact that the last time I wake up tends to be around 4:40 a.m. when my alarm is set for 5:35 a.m. is EXTREMELY annoying.

Equally annoying is that Felix doesn't understand the difference between "time to get up, Mom!" and "no! Mommy is still trying to sleep.  I love you a lot but GO. AWAY."  There have been a couple of nights where I've nearly locked him out of the bedroom.  He tries to burrow under the blanket, which means that he digs at my neck and arms, to get under the RIGHT layer, but this is annoying because I KNOW (from prior experience) that this will end with him getting under the blanking, turning a few circles, crawling over my body, then deciding this is at all what he wanted, and then coming back up for air (by crawling back over my head).  So I'm trying to nip this in the bud by just not letting it start.  Blech.

Then I end up going to work feeling like I got next to no sleep.

Fun times.

Let's Go, October!

The bad news: For the first fall in many years, I'm missing the race in Kansas.  I could have gone (I told work from the beginning that I needed this weekend off), but I decided (well, Grandma decided for me) to save my days for Christmas/New Year instead.  Race weekend is also my Grandma's 90th birthday, so we'd have to leave the Saturday race mid-way to go to Grandma's birthday supper.  And it didn't seem worth missing two days of work and flying halfway across the country to see a 1.5 races.  And Grandma would rather see me for longer at Christmas, instead of just for a short meal for her birthday.

The good news: I had to miss Rhinebeck (NY Sheep & Wool Festival) last year since I was unemployed, but I get to go this year, with my usual crew of Rachel and Ria.  I'm super excited, and I'm already planning my shopping (mostly based around Christmas knitting).

My new physiotherapist is pretty good.  She's no Sandra, but I do like her so far.  She does seem better than the first guy I worked with.

The maybe news: A friend of mine is awaiting the results of a job interview.  I really want her to get this job.  It would super awesome, for myriad reasons.  I told her the other day that I needed one thing to go right this month (she interviewed in September), and I was picking that.  So it's potential good news.

I also scheduled the consultation with the sleep centre at Jefferson Hospital.  So I've got that going.

Tired

I have things to do.

My mom needs me to write a short note for a thing she's putting together for my Grandma's 90th birthday luncheon.  I'm happy to do this, but I'm just mentally and emotionally exhausted.

A friend of mine has a huge job interview coming up, and I've been doing all I can to try to prep her for it.  I hope it works out.

I still have medical issues going on, and it's exhausting me.

Also, this weekend was heart-attack inducing sports-wise.  Don't these people know I need a little less excitement in my life right now????

A hell of a day

Last night was a hell of a day.  It started out fine.

The middle was me getting accused of knowingly stealing gas from Philadelphia Gas Works for the past three works.

And the end... well, more on that later.  And, I'll apologise in advance, because you'll probably be hearing a LOT about it in the coming weeks/months.

Life Update

I have ten weeks of unemployment left, so I'm not QUITE at the point where I need to start panicking and packing yet, but it's getting uncomfortable.

On the other hand, there are some things going that generally lead me to believe that maybe things are turning around and things MIGHT (just maybe possibly might) be okay.  Or at least okay enough to keep me in Philly long enough for me to figure out a better situation.

Some of you may have read on Twitter that my mom hit the ER this past weekend.  She's doing well now.  Her rheumatologist had decreased her steroids (as a normal course of treatment from her whole thing a couple of months ago), but the decrease was apparently too much and she woke up Saturday with a headache as bad as the one that initially sent her to hospital back then.  Then managed her pain, gave her some stuff to manage her pain at home, increased her meds to where they were, and sent her back home.

My grandma had ALSO just been discharged from hospital (yes, the same one - my family, keeping Centerpointe in business!) earlier in the week, but she's doing fine, as well.  I'm less clear what that was about, because getting clear details from that house is like...  well, let's just say it's difficult.

And that random medical bizarreness I'm having?  It's still happening and it's still difficult. 

That's it!  You're updated now.

Corner Café

Tonight, I called Mom to tell her about my Pay Per View adventures with DIRECTV (it was Harry Potter, get your minds out of the gutter!), and she wasn't home.  This was odd since I knew she had gone to lunch with her brother-in-law and his grandson (and some other people on that side of the family), and they didn't have any other plans for the day.

I called her later in the evening, mostly just to make sure that everything was okay.  She said that when they were out earlier, Dale (her husband) had asked for a piece of sugar-free chocolate pie to go, but when he went to eat it tonight, it was coconut pie.  So they had gone back to the Corner Café to exchange it.  They were told that when the server went to get the chocolate pie for him, they were out, so she just gave him coconut.  Uh, what?

Dale said he liked coconut, so that was fine.  This exasperates me, but it's not my pie.  At this point, though, they weren't sure if it was the sugar-free pie (and since Dale is diabetic, this important), so they threw it out and cut him a new slice from the sugar-free coconut pie.

Now, this is where the story is actually important.  Mom was making fun of Ray and Kathy (who had actually chosen the restaurant) because when they get stuck on a restaurant, they go there (LITERALLY) every day.  They were there on Thursday with Mom and Dale before they went on a Kohl's shopping spree, and they were back there today.  And Kathy had mentioned that they were there again Friday.  I said to Mom that she was not much better because she had been there twice in three days.  But then when she mentioned going back to return the pie, I said, "Ha!  Now you've been there three times in three days!  You're tied with Kathy!"  She maintained that it didn't count because she didn't go IN to the restaurant -- she just drove there and Dale went in.  So DALE it tied, but she is not. 

I told her that I was going to blog about how she's just as bad as Kathy.  She said, "Then I feel bad for YOU because your life must be pretty boring if that's the most exciting thing you have to blog about.  AND if people actually read that, your friends must be pretty bored, too."

Hmph.

2011 so far...

So far, 2011 hasn't been kind to my friends.

One friend has lost a relative that was dear to her.  The same friend now has a relative in ICU.

Another friend has a close friend with inoperable cancer.

A third friend has lost her job.

A family member has failing health.

2011 seriously needs to step it up.

My mom, the comedian

Last night, Mom tole me I'd wake up this morning feeling perfect. When I woke up this morning still feeling half-dead, I called her first thing.

Me: I'm still sick.
Mom: No, you're not.
Me: I'm not?
Mom: Nope. Mind over matter.
Me: Why didn't you tell me that a week ago?
Mom: I thought you'd figure it out.
Me: Why don't come here and take care of me?
Mom: I told you last night - I'm getting my hair cut today.

I called her later that day.

Me: Tell me a funny story.
Mom: Why?
Me: Because that's what moms do when their daughters are sick. They tell them funny stories to keep them entertained.
Mom: But I don't know any funny stories.
Me: Make one up.
Mom: Um... Okay. Joey Logano (her favourite active NASCAR driver) was a cute, handsome -
Me: Okay, Mom. That's definitely made up, but it's not FUNNY.
Mom: Oh, okay. Weeeell. How about this: Tony Stewart will win the Daytona 500 this year.

Sorry, Ria, but it DID make me laugh.

After tonight's X Games ended, I called Mom to do the post-games wrap-up. We talked for a bit, and I ended with "Did you think of a funny story for me yet?" She said she hadn't. I scolded her, telling her she had ALL DAY to think of one. Then I made her listen to me cough for about ten minutes in hopes of making her feel guilty for not coming over to take care of me (it didn't work).

I told her to tell me a story about Grandpa (her dad; he died when I was four). She said he wasn't funny. I said there had to be at least one funny story about him, and then she started laughing. She said one when they were water-skiing, he decided to let go of the rope, and he was going to come up on the dock. But he missed and hit the middle of the diving board instead.

There's this gravestone in New Orleans...

My mom's husband Dale has a habit of telling the same stories over and over again. When he starts, Mom looks and me and we giggle. Sometimes, under our breath, we finish the story before he does. And we can do this because he has this habit of stopping at random points in a story and making you think the story is over. You may even start to reply. But as you do, he'll start talking again, and you'll realise he's finishing the story.

One of his stories is about a gravestone in New Orleans (and each story is told basically the same way each time). It says "I told you I was sick." The most recent time this story came up was when I was home this past Christmas, and we were talking about my ongoing lower GI issues (don't worry, no details here). I said that every doctor was convinced it wasn't in their speciality but that every doctor agreed SOMETHING was wrong. So I was just going to wait until I died and put "I TOLD YOU SO!" on my marker. Cue the story. "You know, there this gravestone in New Orleans..."

Since last Thursday, I've had a cold. It didn't start out too bad, and I was hoping that maybe I'd get to attend the two events I had planned for this past Tuesday (a friend's thesis defence and my favourite author was appearing at the local library), but alas, it was not meant to be. And the past 24 hours of this cold have been downright vicious. Last night, I didn't well because I was coughing so much. This morning I napped fitfully because of all the coughing. I tried to nap again in the afternoon, but again with the coughing. The coughing fits are so vicious that I end up gagging and dry heaving (sorry). My back, sides, and abdomen hurt from all the coughing. And I can't breathe, which seems problematic.

So I called Mom to ask her if anyone had ever died from a cold. She told me no. Go to bed, lay on my stomach, and I'd be better soon (this is a long-standing inside joke). We didn't talk long since she got tired of hearing me gagging (she's always been an empathetic one), but we were on the phone long enough for this:

Me: So, you're sure I'm not going die?
Mom: YES.
Me: Okay. But, you know...
Mom: What?
Me: There's this gravestone in New Orleans...
Mom: And it says "I told you I was sick?"
Me: You got it.
Mom (laughing): I love you, honey. Bye!
Me: Love you, too. G'night.

I then called my friend Med Student, who told me people CAN die from cold, but they're usually old and immunocompromised, neither of which I am. I relayed this to Mom later, and she said, "So I was right; colds don't kill people. The heart attack that the cold gives the people kills them. Or when they're coughing and they fall down the stairs, THAT kills them. But the cold itself didn't do it."

Moms. They always gotta be right.

My Missouri Home

Some of you have heard me talk about my mom and how she has an eBay store with American Girl doll clothes and accessories.  The eBay store is mostly doll sheets since AG sells doll beds but no sheets (those poor dolls!).  For some reason, she sells the doll clothes better at craft fairs, but the sheets sell better online.

This is a picture of her clothing inventory:

I'm showing you that picture first because I had to walk through the inventory storeroom to get to my "bedroom" in the basement (that's a long story for another day).  When I got the airbed that my mom got for me for this visit, I had a surprise.  The bed was already occupied:

For those of you who aren't NASCAR fans, that's Michael Waltrip (more commonly known as Mikey), Mom's favourite driver, who is now semi-retired.  And that's one of four (yes, FOUR) life-sized, stand-up, cardboard, cut-outs that she owns of him.  I also wish that I could say that this is the only picture that our family has of him in bed.  The other one may or may not be of Mom beside him.

This is Mom's older dog, Sasha.  Her full name is Sasha Tory.  Tory is short for Tornado.  She is an orphan dog, and her parents were victims of the Missouri 2006 tornadoes.  She's a pomeranian.  Mom always swore she wouldn't get a pom because they yap too much.  Guess what she hates most about Sasha.

But here's one of Sasha's cutest tricks.  When we come home, Sasha likes to "hide."  We have to say, "Where did Sasha go?" and "Where's Sasha?" and "Oooh, I found Sasha!!!" before she'll wiggle out of her hiding place.

Because Sasha actually likes Dale (Mom's husband) more than she likes Mom (when Dale goes hunting, Sasha will sit at the front door for days waiting for Dale to return), after New Dog died, Mom wanted to get a dog who liked her.  I tried to explain that she couldn't just place an ad for "cute dog who will like me," but Mom lucked out and actually got a dog who adores her.  She got a part-pom/part-shih tzu.  Here's a picture of Mikie (yep, you guessed it - named after her favourite NASCAR driver):

And that's a mini-tour of my Missouri home.

Remembering Jerry Mathis

All of my childhood vacations were centred around Coca-Cola conventions.  My mom collected Coca-Cola memorabilia, and we were members of the Coca-Cola Collectors Club International (and the local chapter, Mid-America Coca-Cola Collectors Club; we were Big MACC, until McDonald's wrote us a nasty letter).  If you ever visit my mom's house, you'll see that our full-sized basement is set up like a town square (complete with Astro-turf in the middle to simulate a park).  We have store fronts going around the perimeter of the basement, and each store front represents a different subset of the collection.

As you might imagine, when one goes to such week-long conventions, one meets colourful personalities.  One such personalities was Jerry Mathis.  Although I lived in Missouri at the time, and he and his wife Audrae lived in Kansas, I rarely saw them at the local chapter meetings.  But I always saw them at the national conventions.  He always wore these red long johns - the old-fashioned, footed kind with the butt-flap in Coca-Cola red.  He would usually do some kind of dance and lower the butt flap, and reveal a Coca-Cola patch or something.

His training was a paediatrician, and, of course, he was great with children.  He was also rumoured to have a bit of an alcohol issue, but, of course, as a child, I only heard rumblings about this, and I saw only that he raised his voice every once in awhile and this wife would lead him away saying, "Now, Jerry..."

Where is this blog post going?

Well, Mom just called me.  Jerry Mathis passed away in December.  As happens, it sometimes takes awhile for news to travel through the Coke grapevine, especially since Mom and I aren't especially plugged into it anymore (certain circumstances caused us to estrange ourselves from it when I was 17).  He suddenly got tired in summer or fall, and eventually went to Mayo Clinic for a diagnosis.  He had a rare and aggressive form of ALS (aka Lou Gehrig's disease).  He was told he had two months to live.  Exactly two months later, he died.

Mom asked me if I remembered Jerry Mathis.  "Sure, the guy in the red long johns!"  She kind of chuckled.  Then she told me the news.  Then she told me that he had asked to be cremated in his red long johns.  While I'm sad that he passed away, it makes me happy that I remembered him in a way that was apparently very meaningful to him.

A very NASCAR Christmas

As Ria could tell you, not very many of the Christmas presents in our family are a surprise.  Part of it is a byproduct of year-round Christmas shopping, and part of it because we spend a lot of time together (or did before I moved to Philadelphia - but the rest of them do).  So when we're together and someone says "Oooh, I like that!" someone else will say, "Want me to get it for you for Christmas?" and we will, but then we'll take it home, wrap it up, and the other person will have to wait until Christmas day to open it.

When we were in Charlotte for Race Week, we bought each other a LOT of stuff for Christmas.  I got Mom a Joey Logano stuffed teddy bear.  She got me Kyle Busch pajama pants and a Carl Edwards coat, and her husband bought me a Kyle Busch hat.  "Joey bear" as he was dubbed came home to Philly with me (because I didn't trust Mom not to leave him alone until December), but the rest of the haul went to Missouri to be wrapped up.

In October, when I met Jack Roush in the pits at Kansas Speedway (which I WILL get around to blogging about someday), I got a really good picture of him.  I decided to get this picture printed and framed for Mom's husband because he hates Roush with a passion.  So I thought it would be a fun gag gift:

Upon opening it, he said, "A picture of the ugliest man in the world!"

Anyway.  First, I opened the Kyle Busch hat.  So I put it on:

 

 

Then, after awhile, I got warm, so I took it off.  And after awhile, I opened the Carl coat.  And I had to try it on:

Then, I thought it would be funny to have both a Kyle hat and a Carl jacket on.  So I put the hat back on.  Then some point later, I opened the Kyle pajama pants.  So I promptly put them on, too.  For some reason, I doubt I'll be starting any fashion fads:

This prompted my mother to tell a story about when I was a kid.  ALLEGEDLY, I was given some underwear, and I was very excited about this.  So I put them on over my pants and wore them for the rest of the day.  I asked Grandma if this was true, and she said it was.  I said, "Grandma!  You were supposed to bail me out!"  She said, "Oh, I was?"  Duh.

Darren Dean: My egg baby

My senior year of high, we had to have an egg baby. We had to have this child for a week. Any cracks in said child, and we were found guilty of child abuse. If the egg baby was neglected or kidnapped, we were found guilty of endangerment or neglect.

Our punishment was one I wanted to avoid AT ALL COSTS. We would have to wear a sign around our neck that said something witty like "ASK ME HOW I ABUSE MY CHILD" or "CHILD ABUSER" or "I NEGLECT MY CHILD."

I did have an incident with my Darren one day and he suffered a crack (these were hollowed eggs). However, my mother knew that such a punishment at school would be The End of Me. We couldn't create a new baby because each egg had been stamped by the teacher. So my mom and my grandma conspired to clothe Darren. By the end of the night, Darren had a cute, red, plaid diaper.

Darren got injured because I was stupid. I would also like to point out that had Darren been an ACTUAL child, said incident would never have occurred. See, I carried Darren around in a little wicker basket. I need to squeeze between the car and the deep freeze. I often raised my arms above my head to accomplish this feat. But this evening, I had a basket in my hand. Force of habit being what it is, I raised my arms above my head, the basket was upside down, and down Darren came.

Oops.

After All the Queens had put Darren back together again (get it?), Darren went to his first hockey game. There, I informed one of his namesakes that he had an egg named after him. Let me tell you, professional athletes get freaked out about the TINIEST things.

I think we actually had it easy. My mom (she taught Family Relations and Parenting as part of her home-ec curriculum) made her students carry five-pound flour sacks. Of course, she preferred that they clothe them, etc. And, like my class, they had to account for their baby-sitting time, etc., if they left the child anywhere.

Then she got these fake babies approved. Babies that actually cried at random intervals. You shut the baby up by putting a key in the baby's back, turning it, and holding it there for a set amount of time (so you couldn't just put the key in, turn the child on it's stomach, and leave it). AND this had a device in it that would tell Mom for how long the baby cried before it was "fed" or "comforted."

Her favourite story is when one of her students complained. "Mrs. Phillips, people on the bus look at me funny. I've got my baby, my diaper bag, my stroller, plus this fake baby, my backpack... "

It was a fun project. I wish the punishment hadn't been public humiliation, though. I FEARED wearing one of those signs, and not in a good way.

Kind of like when we had to do The Marriage Project and I couldn't find someone to fake marry me. I managed to tell the teacher without crying, but Jody didn't.

Of course, she's married now and I'm not, so there ya go.