My dear friend Suzi came to visit from Croatia last summer (well they were here raising support for missions, but I will pretend it was to visit us). Suzi has always been very encouraging in my writing and she was absolutely shocked that I had never asked to write anything for publishing company (Christianity Today) that I have worked for for 13 years. She offered to write a letter to the editor asking them to let me write. It was an incredibly sweet, albeit mortifying, gesture. Word got to my friend Ashley, who knows our Croats. She was going to start working for Today's Christian Woman along with her editing job at Church Law &Tax. She told me that once she started at TCW she was going to ask me to write an article for them. I was over the moon! A month later, she quit her job to freelance (very successfully, I might add). So...crap. Since my new resolution this year was to be brave, I was going to have to put on my big girl underpants and just ask the editor myself.

After much whining and asking for encouragement from family and Ashley, I typed up an article idea and sent it to the editor along with some links to my blog. Then I curled up in the fetal position and rocked. And checked my email every five minutes. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, she works remotely so I couldn't walk past her office several times a day so that she wouldn't forget me. Being the super nice and professional person that she is, she responded pretty quickly that she was swamped but promised to get back to me. And she did! And she liked my article idea! I didn't tell many people, for fear that the article would get cut (the anxiety meds help with day to day stuff, but I still have my fear of rejection ;) ). But yesterday, my article went live, and 99% of the feedback has been very positive. I am prepared for some people to disagree with my choice, but I have developed a thicker skin in the last year--and not just from my thyroid weight, so I should be able to handle it. I am so thankful for all my friends and family that have been so supportive and encouraging and I can't tell you all how much your kind words have meant to me! Here's the link to my article if you haven't read it yet http://bit.ly/1S7ovpY

Where I've been

So, do you remember how at the beginning of the year I said I would blog once a week? Yeah, so that didn't happen. I have been MIA for a little while for a few reasons. The first reason is this guy.

He's kind of hilarious. Every day this kid makes me laugh--he gets his energy from making people laugh. I found out that our school district is switching to full-day kindergarten in the Fall, so this is the last of my one on one time with him. tear. sniff. time, you can stop now, mkay? So we've been hanging out and playing and making the most of our time together. 

The other reason is that I have been just plain exhausted. The thought of opening up my computer and typing words, coherent words, sounded like a nightmarish chore. So now comes my PSA (Public Service Announcement). You have to advocate for yourself (or your kids) because noone else will. Since last fall, I have been tired A LOT, and I also gained about 13 pounds that I could not get off for the life of me. If you know me, you know that I enjoy exercise and I have no problem doing a lot of it. I also don't eat horribly. So, getting the weight off shouldn't be too hard. Well, after working out religiously and counting calories, the weight wasn't budging. All it was doing was making me more tired. I regularly went to bed at 9:00--and often wanted to just go to bed when we put Rori and Liam to bed, but Bill usually talked me into watching one show in bed (which sometimes I didn't make it through). Bill assumed it was from the new early rising hour for Brendan's school, but I knew I just didn't feel right. I wanted to take a nap at 10:00 in the morning, and I can't tell you how many times I laid down at 2:00 and had to set the alarm on my phone in case I fell asleep and forgot to pick Rori and Liam up from school. Brendan would want to play, and I would literally have to force myself to do it with self-guilt-talk. I completely understand the term bone-tired. I was so tired, it almost hurt.

I pressed my normal doctor to check my thyroid levels since my dad has been hypothyroid since his mid thirties. The doctor said my levels were normal, but when I googled it (I love Dr. Google) it said many doctors don't use the new ranges, they still use the old ones. With the new ones, I clearly had hypothyroidism. This was about 9 months ago. When I complained about it, I felt like everyone just assumed I was getting old and lazy. But I knew that it wasn't normal to feel like this. Everything was an effort. I didn't want to play with Brendan, I certainly didn't want to clean the house. At work, I wanted to put my head on my desk. Often I forgot things, or thought I had completed something that I hadn't. It was really affecting my life. I brought it up to my doctor again about a month ago. He said "Are you sleeping ok?" and pretty much left it at that. He told me my thyroid had been ok when he checked it in the fall, but we could check it again in 6 months. He basically implied that I'm getting older and have 3 kids, of course I'm going to get fat and be tired. So I fired him (well, not to his face. I am much too polite, or too big of a wimp for that). 

A friend who has had thyroid cancer suggested seeing a more holistic type doctor that specializes in thyroids. I did a google search of thyroid doctors and found one only 10 minutes away; it's a general practitioner that focuses on thyroids and other hormones. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get in for months, but they were able to see me within a week. I brought along my old lab work and she immediately said I should be on thyroid hormones. She gave me a low dose to start on until she got my new blood work. My new blood work showed that my ranges were now in what even my previous doctor would have considered hypothyroid as well, but he didn't want to test me again for 6 more months. I would've been even more hypo by then. 

So we are now in the stages of balancing out my hormones and gradually increasing the thyroid medicine. Some days I feel good, and some days I still want to nap. Apparently it can take months to get everything regulated, but I am so happy that I found a doctor who listened to me, and is willing to help me get back to being me. Bill has noticed an improvement--some nights I can stay up until 11:00 now, but then others can be bad and I want to go to bed at 8:30. This has really taught me that a lot of doctors just go through an assembly line and don't want to get to the root of your problem. You have to fight for yourself, or nobody else will. So, all that being said, hopefully I will have energy back soon, and be able to pick up my blogging again! I have missed it!