My ENDO didn't request anything but the FT4 test, according to his assistant. Weird, because I thought I saw three vials when my blood was drawn last Friday.

Well, my FT4 level this time went up from 1.6 to 1.9
My ENDO is decreasing my Levoxyl dosage down to 137mcg. Wonder what my TSH level was.

How does my neck look? 11/7/10

When I was at Noah's yesterday to give Frankie a bath, both Hannah and Megan said they could barely see my scar. I guess they can't see it, but I still can. But if they can't see it, then probably a lot of other people (esp those who don't know what I had gone through this past summer) also cannot see it. Yippee! I have been getting that tingling feeling along my scar, not every day, but once every couple of days. Still don't know what that is all about. But what do you think? - How does my neck look?

So, the close to another weekend. This one included the time change, the end of day light savings. Run club should be interesting this week. I was told they are going to give us little (Nike) flashing lights or reflectors to put on our shoe laces so we could have some light as we run in the dark. I hope so. I remember it got pretty scary out there last year, esp when no cars were passing by.

Thank goodness for my chiro appt on Friday! My neck and shoulder felt so much better afterward. I could still feel the tension in my shoulder when I got to the rock climbing gym, but the pain was gone. My chiro told me to move my telephone and mouse at work to the other side - right now both are on my left side - until the pain went away. And, I'm going back this Friday in addition to my appt next Friday. The rest of the weekend it felt pretty good. Every now and then I'd feel something on my neck or left shoulder, but it didn't last very long.

Last night we were out late shooting night shots. We were on Coronado taking shots of the downtown skyline, then at the Hotel del where we discovered that the breaking waves were intermittently light up by this pretty blue color. We still don't know how they were being light up that way, but we got photos of it. We also took some shots writing with light - can't remember what the actual name of this technique is called, but some of my shots turned out Ok.

I managed to get a lot crammed into this past weekend. I'm exhausted. Starting to think about my work week. I'm looking forward to finding out the results from my blood draw this past Friday. Crossing my fingers for TSH and FT4 levels that make sense, and are where they need to be.

Although I feel really hypothyroid, it's probably just really bad PMS. No crying or depression but I'm craving greasy/fatty foods and am completely exhausted.

Activities

Red stained foot from my climbing shoes

I'm still trying to get my workout routine down. No, I have not added on a weekly yoga class, but I am at least getting in one climbing day every other week or so. This week I get to go twice since I went Tuesday night and plan to go again Friday after my chiro appt. My climbing friend will be in Australia for a family reunion over the Thanksgiving holiday, so I think I may try to take a climbing class through REI one of those weekends. The class takes place outdoors, at a local rock climbing area. I figure by then I may have picked up enough technique at the rock gym to be able to scale something outdoors.

Running. Here is my heart break. I really need to get in more than one day of running a week, or I'll never be able to go longer or farther. At this time last year I was already running 3 miles without stopping. I know, my serious runner friends will chuckle at that, but that was saying a lot last year just three months into running, with my weight, knee issues, etc. Every now and then I am able to do a little over a mile on my Wednesday night run club outings, but have not quite made it to the 1.5mi mark. But last night (Wed), I finally did it, in fact I made it to the 2mi mark!

I'm not quite back to where I was in pilates before my surgery either. It seems every time I miss a class (Th or Su), it takes a lot more to make it up. I just try to do the best I can though, and listen to my body (or my cramping legs/feet). The most important thing is that I am going to pilates at least once a week, but twice a week most weeks.

Good thing I at least have these activities to distract me. I have been feeling really stressed at work lately. I always have to take off time for something - some medical appt whether it is my own or for one of my parents. My boss is Ok with it, but I feel like I'm not getting enough time to do all my work. I haven't even worked on the redesign project since the off-site meeting last month. Something always seems to come up during the day. Last week my boss asked me about restructuring our group, if say I were to report to someone else on a dotted line (but still to her, ultimately) and be on the more technical side of our team. I started to get heart palpitations afterward, which have continued into this week I have not had that sensation in my chest (over my heart) since before my surgeries in May. And, I'm getting the neck (left side) and shoulder tension (both side) issues again. I can feel it when I run and when I climb. I need to remember to leave my work stress at work, and be more present in my other activities. Have fun again. And if all of that fails, I at least have a chiro appt Friday afternoon, so he can fix it for me.

More info on my levels: from my ThyCa email group, the thought is that the reading was wrong or my ENDO suspects something, hence the extra draw this month.

"Low metabolism".... means new shoes?

Today at my WW meeting I shared my ThyCa experience with the group. I decided to just because the topic was metabolism, and there was a lot of talk about how people say their metabolism is s/low. I was a victim of slow metabolism as I could not, for years, take off the weight. Well, I also love to eat food, but no matter how much I exercised or ate what I thought was a healthy diet, since 1997 I had problems losing weight, but no problem at all putting it on. So I explained how and why my thyroid problem was found, all the way up to my two surgeries. But what I really wanted to share with the group was that one of the Thyroid disease books I bought actually named Weight Watchers as being a recommended program to help with weight maintenance if you are hypothyroid. So although I joined before I even knew about my disease, I was already going in the right direction.

As much as I want to do well again on WW, I have to admit I am struggling, and this is only the start of week #2 for me. Somehow I did manage to drop three pounds. But I have to preface that with the fact that I decided to eat like I had no cares in the world the week before I joined so I could get all my cravings out of my system. I don't think that worked too well because right now I would really like to eat some creamy brie cheese with Trader Joe's Kalamata Olive bread, or a giant tub of PinkBerry plain tart froyo, or.... pretty much anything and everything that is now off limits, or rather put into moderation. ARGH! I just have to keep in mind that if I did stay on track last week, perhaps I would have lost five or more pounds....

So I turned to retail therapy to help motivate me. Yes, I bought another pair of 'toning' shoes. I have a pair of the Reebok EasyTone shoes that I got last year before Thanksgiving. Those shoes are Ok, but now I can leave them at home and use my new pair at work, or vice versa. The new pair I got are by New Balance, the 850 TrueBalance shoes. Much different technology than the Reeboks. My hams were sore after my walk this evening, so I guess they are working! So I have a new pair of walking shoes. I think I may need another pair of running shoes too, but I think I'll give it a couple more weeks before I start seriously thinking about new running shoes.

Tomorrow is Election Day, so remember to vote!