1 year

I couldn't let the day go by without pausing to reflect on how blessed I am. 1 year ago today I experienced a loss I never could have imagined I would have to go through. I would be lying if I said it had been an easy journey. It has been a very long year! with ups and downs and a lot of downs. Questions that still need to be resolved and missing a tiny tike I never knew. I think how interesting it is that I went to a Doctor last year and he didn't even bother to attempt to find out what was going on with me. A whole year later I feel like I'm starting to get some answers. I went back to my own doctor who did extensive tests on my blood and found my thyroid problem. I never knew that low thyroid could cause a mis-carriage. I also didn't know how many areas of the body it affects.

So today, I'm grateful for a little boy who chose me to be his mom, who chose to watch over my family from heaven, It's a wonderful blessing to know that I have a beautiful angel watching out for me.

I have been really thinking a lot about how much more important it is that I keep the faith that I have, that I live my life to make that amazing person proud of me, I want to qualify to be where he is, so that when all is said and done, maybe he can say he's glad he chose me to be his mom.

 To my beautiful son Helaman: Thank you for coming into my life!

Thyroid Fun

My dear sweet husband has been working on me for a while to go to a doctor, with my chronic fatigue, heavy breathing, constant clog in my throat and worst of all; my weight will not go down, only up! 

So I gave in and went to the doctor.  The results came back within a couple of days and on March 13th I got a call from the Dr. office. my thyroid is at a 21. They want to see it between 24-39 so it's low enough that they want to treat it. The other thing was that my cholesterol was a smidge high, which could be related to my low thyroid. For that I just need to watch what I eat and make sure to exercise. 

I went to the pharmacy and picked up the drug... oh no I thought now I'm a druggie ;) Really, I'm terrible at taking pills on a regular basis, the bottle says, don't miss a dose, and take it 4 hours away from anything else. Oh joy! when on earth should I take this pill? I have herbals I take during the day, and usually first thing in the morning. So a friend says get up and take it at 2am.  LOL I laughed, I can really see that, 2am as I'm stumbling to the bathroom, oh ya! I gotta take a pill! probably not very realistic. So I started taking them as early in the morning as I could, but then the herbals didn't get taken. so now I take them before bed and it's working better.

So, since I've been on this pill I have noticed a few things. After about a week I noticed my upper abdomen wasn't as bloated as it has been. In fact it feels a bit flatter. (we have a ways to go for sure). The second thing I noticed was that after about a week and a half my depression levels decreased.  I was curious so I looked it up, (thank heaven for search engines right?) apparently depression is a sign of low thyroid. 

For the past couple of years I have felt like I was at the bottom of a pit all the time. I would have a few days a month where I felt like I was kicking it and then I would sink again. Each time a client would cancel their appointment it would almost kill me off. Not enough clientele in the week? depression to the max! I even considered trying out a happy pill. It has been so wonderful not feeling like the end of the world is upon me every time I hit a glitch. the first time I noticed it was about a week ago when a client cancelled, normally I would have sunk to terrible depths for the rest of the day, wondering why I wasn't good enough. I noticed that it did affect me and then I was able to tell myself that it was ok and I had a great date night with my hubby. I rebounded so much more quickly and the weekend went great! I have to say I'm not all the way there yet, but this was such a huge thing for me that even beyond being overweight, this was something I didn't know what to do about.

Speaking of weight I have lost a few pounds. 5 to be exact, hoping for much more as we go along.

So far the pill seems to be doing small things that help my overall outlook and ability to keep going. so I'm excited to see what happens in the next 2 weeks. should be interesting.

REM and Rest

Have you ever been so tired that you could sleep for an entire day? Believe it or not that happened to me recently. I came to the realization that I had been going and going for too long without proper rest. and having a toddler still in my bed was not helping.

I could feel my muscles literally coming to a stand-still as if to say to me, no we are not moving another inch until we have a proper rest. The only way I could describe what was happening was like the tin man, I felt like I needed an oil can to get me moving again, and to go along with it, I was hoarding emotions, health issues, and all the fun things you can't see. I can admit here that this past 2 months has been very difficult on my emotional state. To be completely honest between the mood swings, lack of sleep, irritations, depression and on the verge of a breakdown, I stepped on the scale one day and found I had gained 10 lbs!!! not like me for sure! So is it possible to hoard all the things you can't see?

I was, and it caught up with me and I was so grateful for a Sunday where I was not required to do anything. I slept almost the whole day, Ok so it was off and on throughout the day, but as I was relating the situation to my son, he said,"mom, your body needs it, remember you keep telling me that" ok, use my words to remind me that my body needs rest as well.

So here I am on the internet with a message, Don't let this happen to you. If it does, take it for what it is and rest! It's a principle I'm calling 10% for your health.

We do all kinds of things in life, we spend our time eating out, being of service, working hard, taking care of the kids, making sure everything runs smoothly all the time. Sometimes we are not allowed to have a breakdown because we are required to be strong for everyone else.  The reality is that it catches up.

I had a conversation with a dear friend recently and we talked about how important it is to take the time, money etc.. and prioritize ourselves a bit. I'm not talking about becoming self-centered, I'm talking about becoming aware that our - self, needs to be taken care of. We can do the basics like food and shelter, but when it comes to loving our self and making sure we are healthy we often fall short.

I'm super good at telling my kids, husband, friends... how they need to take care of themselves, and I truly mean it, I want the best for them, but I didn't think I needed it myself, I believed it was my duty to be unbreakable. I may have been afraid to show weakness, but when it puts you down in bed for a whole day and you get exhausted from battling the depression, it's time to do something different.

So I took my own advice, I went to a massage therapist, I bought myself some make-up, and then I went to the doctor. looks like my thyroid is a little low, so it's time for this mom to come alive and take care of myself, it's going to be a new challenge as I find a way to begin, but for now, I'm going to go ride my bike :)