I'm legit now

It's official, I'm off the crutches and free to walk as much as I'd like. I made Dr. Mo Brown repeat that twice and threatened to tape record him saying it because I thought my husband and friends would think I was making up that statement. I brought the crutch (that I was not using much) to my appointment and was praised for bringing my "prop" along.

It's such a relief to be off the crutches legitimately. I've been using them less and less over the last few weeks. Dr. B says I should be back to where I was running wise in 4 - 6 months. What a coincidence, the Hardrock 100 lottery is today and the race will be held in 6 months and 2 days. Perfect timing! If I don't get into Hardrock this year, I will need to do another Hardrock qualifier this year so I can try to get into the lottery next year. Today is such an exciting day because I can start planning out my race schedule when I find out if I get into Hardrock or not. Either way, I'm excited to get my ass outside and into the sunshine. I've been homebound for nearly 3 months now.

On the endocrine front, I'm starting to feel much better. I'm still tiring out easily and sleeping a lot. I'm hoping that the addition of a little extra T4 and increasing amounts of exercise will get me mentally, emotionally and physically to where I was.

All is well!

Paper whites, icicles and snow

I hope I didn't give you all the impression that I'm running around crying all the time. I just wanted to make the point that I'm not always running around wearing Halloween costumes, smiling and laughing. I had a stomachache for about 3 weeks and I finally realized the cause which also manifests itself as being fatigued and glum. That would be low cortisol! My theory is that I was taking 25 mg of HC but my need was slightly more, like 25.5 or 27 and so on a daily basis I was running a little behind but not enough to make me say, "Hmmmmm, I'd better take some more HC." I upped my HC this week from 25 mg to 30 or 35 mg/day and amazingly (insert sarcasm here!) I got my appetite back and a little energy. Yahoo!

I've been cleaning houses as exercise. It's been an interesting study in efficiency since I can't carry things too well. It's making me silly sore in the arms too.

Tomorrow I meet with my physical therapist/personal trainer/athlete guy so he can give me some working out motivation that will not compromise my healing. I'm sure I'm doing enough on my own to compromise my healing.

Trumpeter Swan dwarfing the Canada Geese!!! TS are huge.

I can't get out in the snow but Dolly can. She loves it.

Dolly, a girl dog, is a medical miracle. She grew "balls". Not only am I healing like a 12 year old, I act like one too.

Things ain't always great...

Here comes a rant and no pictures. It's an Addison's and attitude rant. I'll be coming clean with feeling crappy.

I've talked to and emailed with some Addison's people lately and they're under the impression that I'm always perky and cheerful. Anyone who knows me in person knows this is NOT true. I'm often grumpy, completely politically incorrect and inflexible about doing things late in the evening or inflexible in general! Here I've given the false impression that "life's awesome all the time!" Just the other day my poor son said to me, "I wish you weren't hurt, you're very grumpy when you're hurt."

I can't afford to complain too much here in a public forum because the world can see it, clients can see it and family can see it. Who the hell wants to hear me complain?

If you're still reading, you DO want to hear me complain. The only way I've been able to cope for the last two months, keep working and do my volunteering has been to stop doing much house work, go to bed around 7 or 8 pm, take long baths, not do paperwork, skip showers (my hairdresser would be so proud to read this, she's been telling me to wash my hair less! Right Erika?), be more efficient with my responsibilities and not return emails. I've been a horror to be around. Always exhausted, crying, asking for things to be retrieved for me, relying on my husband and son to help me do my job, crying more, crying again, drinking too much booze.

I think I've been chronically underreplaced with my Hydrocortisone. Besides being exhausted, I don't feel like eating, even don't want to eat chocolate. I take 25 mg of HC a day and I'm hesitant to take more but this chronic stomachache is an indication that I need more HC. I had to cut out florinef because my BP was high for me 150/90. Sometimes I hate having to balance my hormones all by myself. Why can't my body do it for me? I was feeling like my thyroid was screwy, maybe it wasn't maybe it was just that I was walking around on a broken hip for months*? When I feel well, I don't mind the meds. When I feel bad and don't know what's what or when I blatantly ignore my undermedication symptoms, I freaking hate all this balancing and figuring and asking for advice. Luckily, no matter what's going on, I can count on being able to sleep. If I didn't have that, I would go bonkers. Actually the hip hurt so bad for about 6 weeks and I was having difficulty sleeping. I did think I might go bonkers. My family probably thought they were going to go bonkers too. I was prone to spontaneous outbursts of yelling, crying and bad language.

*I'm figuring the stress fracture started on May 28, 2009 during the Pocatello 50. I finally submitted to the MRI on December 29, 2009 and was diagnosed with the stress fracture that day. Pain went from an annoying ache in May to near inability to walk in early December. I purchased crutches weeks prior to my diagnosis, that's how much it hurt!

I'm going to shut up now. I've complained enough. I'm feeling well today. I'm feeling energetic and I'm not grumpy and crying or yelling at anyone, I'd better make the best of feeling good!!!

Many, many thanks to my husband for cooking and cleaning up the kitchen and for taking up my slack with my business and around the house. Thanks to my son for being kind to me when I wasn't kind to him and for helping me work. Thanks to all of my friends (Milissa, Joanne and Kim here at home) and all of my cyber friends for sticking with me and accepting me and my grumpiness. Thanks to my clients for not giving me the boot when I wasn't able to do much without help for the last couple of weeks.

Thanks to everyone for their kindness and support, it's meant the world to me!