Matters of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of True Happiness

Dec. 1, 2008 - It's been a long time...

Now I'm coming back home. (Name that tune!)

So...a lot has happened. We added a new baby in June. My husband's parents have moved in with us (they live in an apartment we built for them in our basement). The kids are all older since last I wrote.

Probably the biggest change for us (aside from the new baby) is my recent diagnosis of Hashimoto's Disease and stroke-like migraines. At the end of September the left half of my body went numb. I went to the ER and they did a CT scan, but didn't see anything that looked like a stroke. I was given some migraine meds via IV and sent home.

After a visit with my family doctor and a recurrent episode of stroke-like sensations, I had an MRI of my brain. They found a mass of something and told me to go see a neurologist. The neurologist said the mass in my brain is fairly common and nothing serious. He ordered more tests to rule out more serious problems before attributing these symptoms to migraines.

After an MRI of my neck, I was told I have an enlarged thyroid. I saw an endocrinologist who ran some labs. My tests came back positive for Hashimoto's Disease, which is an auto-immune disorder that causes my body to attack my thyroid. My thyroid compensates by growing new cells to replace the ones that my body kills off. The result is hypo-thyroidism. I have a follow up visit this month. Eventually I'll need thyroid medication. I had an ultrasound of my thyroid to make sure I don't have cancer (I don't--whew!). I've been feeling quite fatigued lately, but I'm not sure how much that is a result of the Hashimoto's or the fact that I have five children.

The really hard thing has been getting 1-4 or more migraines every week. I decided to start taking a migraine preventative. I've been on it for a little over a week and it may be helping. I've only had two migraines so far.

Song(6) has been sick with a stomach bug today so I've got to process the laundry (again) in my efforts to that clean up. The kids really want to get the Christmas decorations out. I told them that we've got to spiff up the house a bit first. There's really nothing festive about decorating clutter or garbage.

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"Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils." ~ General John Stark

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Feb. 23, 2008 - 20 weeks already & a general update

Posted in General

I realized yesterday that I'm now 20 weeks into this pregnancy. That went fast! I've been busy (what mom of four kids isn't?).

We're still plugging away at school. I had typed up a really cool detail about how I'm organizing our studies now, but accidentally deleted it. Ugh. I really do want to share it, though, so I'll type it up again.

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"Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils." ~ General John Stark

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Dec. 9, 2007 - A general update.

Posted in General

School has been a bit sparse in the past few weeks. At the beginning of November we got the surprise news that a new baby will be joining our family in July sometime (most likely). While my morning sickness this time has be relatively mild, I haven't been up for anything much beyond reading aloud most days. We finished The Hobbit and read Casting the Gods Adrift (as recommended in The Story of the World activity book for Egypt). We're currently reading the original Winnie-the-Pooh. We're enjoying it very much and I'm delighted that Disney didn't do too bad a job in its adaptations for animation.

It seems I've traded throwing up for sudden fatigue, too. There comes a point in the afternoon when I just conk out (thankfully, that's corresponded to when my one-year-old takes her nap, too). That's why I'm writing this at almost 4 in the morning--I fell asleep at 6:30 last night!

I hoping that come January we'll get back into our groove!
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"Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils." ~ General John Stark

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