More Thyroid Drama, Oh Snap!

First of all, happy birthday Dani! Hope it was a wonderful day!

I went back to the doc on Monday. Cailin was not so pleasant in the waiting room but cheered up by the time we got to the examination room. She sat on the bed and listened to the doc as he checked her ears and throat. Her ears are fine, but her throat was slightly irritated. Might have had something to do with her using it to voice her displeasure in the waiting room just prior, but hey, I'm not a doctor. He wants me to get her bloodwork done to rule out low iron and to check her sugar levels. I'm not looking forward to that. Carter was good, just tagged along for the ride.

So remember when I said I had nodules on my thyroid and the gland next to it or beside it or whatever? Turns out it's a bigger deal than I thought. The doc referred me to the hospital to get this pesky thing checked out with the radioactive dye/X-ray combo. Imagine my surprise when the hospital called me the next day.

I was under the impression that we would be looking for hotspots in the thyroid, but the imaging staff informed me that they were doing the procedure on the parathyroid glands. This would be one of four glands neighboring that pesky thyroid gland. One of which has a nodule on it. Only they were calling it a tumor. Then there's the whole breastfeeding thing where you can't nurse for 24hrs at least after having the procedure, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. So they told me to call back when I was ready to do it and they would fit me in right away.

I hung up a little confused. I was sure the large nodule in the thyroid was going to be scanned, but now it's the parathyroid? Tumor? Say what?

Google is the most useful tool.

There are four parathyroid glands located behind the thyroid. Despite sharing similar names and close real estate, the two glands are not related at all. These four glands, normally the size of a grain of rice each, control calcium levels in the body. Since many systems require calcium to function properly, these glands are quite important. One of my glands presented on the ultrasound with a tumor on it. I prefer 'nodule' myself, but I stand corrected.

Sometimes these glands just simply puff up and become tumors for no apparent reason. They can mess with your calcium levels, making them too high, and cause health problems like fatigue, generally not feeling well, anxiety and irritability. And cancer and stroke too. You know, the fun stuff. Generally speaking, the cure is to remove the offending tumorous gland(s) before they wreak havoc on your body.

I made the mistake of watching a parathyroid removal video. While it is only a one inch incision into the front of the throat, the narration really got to me. "... And now the surgeon will expose the thyroid and check for any sign of suspicious nodules and remove them, being careful of the vocal chord nerve..." as he flops about the gland responsible for this poor guy's metabolism. Then they showed the removed gland/tumor and I got queasy. Not the greatest feeling when you already have heartburn....

I really hope I don't have to have this parathyroid thingy removed. It really freaks me out that I might have my throat operated on. My arm or leg or torso? That's fine, but not my teeth, eyes or throat thank you.

So it looks like I may have hyperparathyroidism as well as hyperthyroidism. Totally unrelated glands, both really hyper. Nice.

Well It's Still March

I really don't like March much. It's that almost-spring-still-winter-oh-my-gosh-get-me-out-of-the-house-before-I-go-crazy month. You know. But hey, at least it's not January right? I really don't like January at all. Speaking of which, here is our New Years card. A little late. Heh. While it hasn't been terribly cold out, the weather has still been crappy. It's been snowing more than it needs to, and the roads haven't been great. We managed to get out one sunny afternoon for a lovely two hour long walk. Carter slept almost the whole time and Cailin walked the last half of the walk. She threw snow balls and informed me she was 'popping the snow bubbles'. She got to splash in puddles, play in mud and throw snowballs all in one walk.

Carter seems almost as big as Cailin now. He popped another tooth through, and has three more coming in. Despite all that teething, he is in fairly good spirits. He's doing a lot more floor exercises, but is still pretty content to roll to his back and play with whatever he's got in his hands. He especially loves my Blackberry, and is quite sneaky about grabbing it. Seems every time I turn around he's got it in his hands or he's chewing on it. He is also quite smitten with the iPad - something Cailin is not enjoying sharing much. Carter hasn't been enjoying going to bed very much lately, but once he is in his crib (after a few cries of displeasure) he drifts right off and sleeps through the night.

Cailin is getting the potty training stuff down. Without going into gory oversharing detail, she can do all the steps herself, including getting up to the sink and washing her hands. I was bribing her with mini Reese cups (chocolate), but she is much more smitten with puffy stickers. I'm okay with that!

The potty humor is ever expanding with Cailin. Some of the things she comes up with are so off the wall. The other night she was snuggling with me while we played a math game before bed. She suddenly sniffed the air disdainfully and announced, "EWWWWW mom, B smells like poop!" It was hilarious - and I couldn't argue with her since she was right.

Gymnastics is still Cailin's favorite activity. She has so much fun there, and takes home everything she learns and performs it in our house to her fullest ability. No walking beam? She'll walk down the edge of the tub, thank you. No uneven bars? The towel rack works just fine (sans towels of course). Climbing apparatus? The couch cushions arranged into a maze/obstacle course is just the ticket. Nothing to jump off of? The back of the couch to the ottoman works great. I could pull my hair out when she climbs the curtains, and Bailey isn't fond of being ridden like some rolly polly miniature horse. Carter is very content to sit back and watch Cailin go through her routines and laughs the whole time at her.

I've also been busy lately myself. I went back for yet more bloodwork on Friday and I'm going back to the doctor next Monday. Hopefully some of the the previous issues will be cleared up and we'll be able to attack the thyroid issue soon. In the meantime, I'm still feeling antsy in my pantsy 98% of the time. It's annoying. Even after sleeping through the night I feel tired, yet hyper.

I made two cakes this week. The first, Cat in the Hat. Which strangely didn't include the Cat:

The second was a string monster much like the Oscar cake I made a few weeks ago (a month ago?). I didn't get to take a picture with the big camera before it went out the door, and so only have a crappy cell phone picture of it. I'll have to post it later.

The kids have been sleeping a little better and a little earlier in the the night, and I've been able to work a bit on hats. Every time I catch up on an order, I get four more. I might have to stop taking any new orders while I catch up with the current ones. I also found some time to update my website and deleted the hats I will no longer be making. Here is my favorite "Chloe" hat of my 2012 Spring Collection:
I've also been working on a new collection of Modern Animal hats. Here's the Teddy Bear:
This one is for a friend's baby. I also really enjoy just getting creative and crafting hats without any particular person in mind. A local store in town here asked if I would be interested in selling my designs - aka my patterns. I told her I don't write them down as I wouldn't know how to. She said that's not a problem as she would help me. I find the idea very interesting, but as of just now, I just can't commit to the time it would take to sit down with her and write up these designs. Maybe in the future. But it's still exciting!

Tonight Ryan and I sat down for some quality time together - and did our taxes. We submitted them online and I felt quite accomplished for getting them done. It wasn't as hard as I expected. Definitely beats waiting at the tax office and paying 5X the price than that of the software. Carter even helped out by swatting the keyboard for me until we set him up with Angry Birds on the iPad.

Now we wait to see if they weren't difficult for a reason (like I did them wrong). Heh.

Teething and Rolling

It's been a couple of exciting weeks for Carter. He woke up one morning with his first tooth! The other front bottom tooth is about to break through as well. He decided to start sitting up by himself too. He's a little tippy still, but getting more steady everyday.

He also decided that tummy time maybe isn't the worst thing that ever happened to him and is starting to enjoy it - and when he's tired he rolls over to his back. From his back he can roll up to his side and stays there forever, balancing and looking all over the room. Then he can roll back to his tummy. So he went from not sitting or rolling to sitting up, and rolling front to back and from back to front. Sometimes he looks like he's moving in slow motion while he's doing his floor exercises.

Carter is the happiest and sweetest baby. I didn't know he was even cutting a tooth, a nice change from Cailin's usual mode of cranky tooth cutting. Speaking of which, she's been cutting her two year molars for about seven weeks now. That means the household hasn't slept much in the last seven weeks. She now has two fully cut on the bottom, and one poking through on the top. It grew over and then popped out again. Hopefully it stays out now. We're waiting on that one last pesky tooth.

We keep telling each other that after these molars, she's DONE. At least until around six years old. But that's a long time away.

Cailin has been enjoying gymnastics, going shopping and trying out Papa's new hot tub. Everyday she is surprising me with how much she is learning. Her potty humor is developing at a rate that makes my head spin. But don't even ask me about potty training.

I've been feeling pretty on edge with this pesky thyroid thing. The kids have been tag teaming me most nights and I haven't been able to work on my hat orders. They are piling up and the deadlines are looming. I am absolutely swamped and feeling the strain.

Anyways, it's been a very event filled and milestone reaching kind of week.