Waking up with Addison's

There are so many people with Addison's on forums that complain about morning nausea and/or fatigue. It also seems that they wait a while after waking to take their hydrocortisone.

You may not be a morning person, you may never be. Taking your hydrocortisone before getting out of bed can make your transition to waking up and getting out of bed much easier.

Here's what you can try, get an alarm clock with two alarms (some cell phones have multiple alarms, excellent for reminding one to take meds). Set one alarm thirty minutes to sixty minutes before you actually want to get up. The night before, put your pills in a small cup, put a water bottle next to your bed and if you don't feel like you can take meds without food, put crackers with the water bottle and pills. When your first alarm goes off, take the pills. When the second alarm goes off, get up.

I'm not exactly sure why some people subject themselves to waking up with nearly no cortisol in their bodies. It takes about 20 minutes for hydrocortisone to get into the bloodstream when you take it orally. That's a long time to wait for the meds to get into your system. Why feel crappy for one + hour out of your day??

Try it, you might like it.

Inspiring story of survival - Keeping Cancer On The Ropes

Dottie Copeland took on Cancer like a prizefighter. She's shown here with her daughter Tina Nelson.

Courtesy of StoryCorps

This morning on National Public Radio was as story about a survivor. Although she was diagnosed with breast cancer, not Addison's, her attitude is amazing! It's a story worth listening to if you've ever been diagnosed with any disease.

Click here to listen or read the transcript of Keeping Cancer On The Ropes.

More pictures, Addison's content eventually

I promise to have some Addison's content soon. In the meantime, more pictures from Idaho.

After my first humming bird on the finger experience, I have a feeling I will be doing more of this. It was so cool!!

Godzilla the turkey rules the roost. Zane took this picture.

The damned feeder is supposed to be squirrel proof. Imagine my surprise...

when I found a squirrel in the feeder. Good thing Zane was with me to take care of the situation. Yuck. Yes, it's dead.

Sucker hole

Teton Valley from Horseshoe Canyon

We've had lots of rain for about a week and yesterday I was lucky enough to get a sucker hole. True to sucker hole form, I was hit with a big storm during the last few minutes before I got to the car. Despite the muddy trail, the weather was spectacular for the vast majority of the run. I was visited by a bull moose during my run. He was growing his rack. Lucky for me, he ran away.

All of the pictures were taken from Horseshoe Canyon.

Big Hole Challenge loop

Wild iris and Relay Ridge from Bovine Bliss

Shark's Belly Trail

Walkway on Shark's Belly. Fun!

Mt. Manning from Bovine, storm is closing in

Expect the unexpected

After 2 years of of migraines on a regular schedule, I got one yesterday VERY unexpectedly. From the things that are going on (trouble spelling, waking up in the middle of the night, weird visual things), I'm guessing there are more on the way. As far as migraine go, this one wasn't bad. It seems that the Imitrex injection administered immediately upon visual aura seems to lessen the after effects of nausea and headache.

Also unexpected was snow yesterday. See pic and video.

Teton Valley snow in June

Lastly, I checked on the turkeys and duckies on Saturday. They are 26 days old. Unexpectedly, this turkey whom I've named Godzilla is GIGANTIC! He towers over the other turkey chicks. I think he might be part ostrich!!