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May 25, 2005
Odd Habits
I have belatedly realized I developed the habit of posting health/doctor things here, and the rest of most of life foo on my LJ. This is silly. So instead of talking about how I was lethargic and tired and nearly dropping dead from exhaustion before realizing I forgot to take three doses of my medicine today, I'll talk about something else.
I sent a book to Miss Parshall a few weeks past. I'm biding my time. I hope she likes it. My theory is, secretly she will like it, but publically she will curse my name and vow an oath to spit on my grave when I'm dead. Suicidal bunnies have a way of doing these things.
I keep thinking about picking up my flute. The urges have been strong with this one, but every time I find something else to do. I need to stop finding 'something else to do' and get down to business. I also need to write music. Maybe I'll do that this weekend.
Friday is my belt test day. I'll be shedding my yellow belt for a yellow black, barring I don't inadvertently kill anyone during testing. Afterwards, Joe and I are going to tromp on up to Flagstaff to heckle Mr. Fresh. It's time Mr. Fresh had some good, clean, non-crazy fun. Hopefully, there will be a little frolfing, a little Clear Creek action this weekend. I need a good, relaxing, fun weekend....
...because, and here we are again at 'Gumming It', I'll be working straight this coming Tuesday, the 31st of May, through June 6th, without any breaks. Two weeks including a hefty weekend in between. I am certain I will be staving off the urge to kill several people, so I am compiling a list of 'Crazy Songs That Stave Off The Urge To Kill Several People." I just have to cling to the idea that this will enable me to go to California without using vacation time.
Speaking of, the bigger events in my life currently are:
May 27th: Yellow-black belt test
Memorial Day Weekend: Flagstaff
(work)
June 4th: The Strand concert
June 11th: Eyebrow, Lip, and Brazillian Wax @ 11:30
June 11th: Highlights and haircut
June 18th: Garage Sale for 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk Funds with Laurie
June 19th: Father's Day
June 21st: Leave for CA at 7:10 p.m.
June 26th: Melina and Paul's Wedding
June 27th: Return to AZ
June 28th: Return to work
I'm pretty sure I have more to notify of myself, but I can't think of what it is. I'll tell myself later.
Posted by Kelli Little at 03:02 PM | Comments (2)
May 20, 2005
All Hail.. Stuff. And Things.
A little anecdote to begin my post:
IDIOT SIGHTING: At a good-bye luncheon for an old and dear
coworker who was leaving the company due to "downsizing," our manager
commented cheerfully, "this is fun. We should do this more often."
Not a word was spoken. We all just looked at each other with that
deer-in-the-headlights stare.
-------------------
Work has been exceptionally busy recently, as we have headed into the full swing of revamping my division physically. My boss and I are the ones in charge of the entire chaos, and you wouldn't believe the silly little time consuming things that must be done. Red tape, red tape, red tape. Minus the occasional whiny managers and wishy-washy directors, the chaos isn't horrible. I'm sure we'll hear about some mistakes later, but this frantic, over-time chaos isn't the "I would rather carve chunks out of my body with a dull spoon, pouring salt and lemon juice into my wounds before I died from major blood loss" feeling I had at the dentist office.
This is to say, despite all, I am content.
I heard a voice I've been thinking about for a really, really long time on my voice mail last night. Rather, I heard the voice of the person I've recently been thinking about: BJ. James too. Hell, all of my friends in Fairbanks, but BJ and James have been popping up often in my head. A song will come on to remind me of them, I'll go dancing and think "They'd SO like this", I'll miss gaming and talking and eating with them, I'll see an article on possible dinosaur cloning or dino poo for sale.
Anyhow, if anyone down in Fairbanks knows them and is reading this, tell them I'll give them a call.
For that matter, I should call everyone this weekend. I miss the snot out of you all. And this includes my peoples in Wasilla and Anchorage and Bozeman and WhereverTheHellYouAreMatt.
I guess, in the end, this is more of a 'I miss you' post than a 'This is what I'm doing' post. I'm ok with that. At least I post. Joe's a little remiss. Kinda like his inability to give me access to a photo page. Punk.
Posted by Kelli Little at 12:07 PM
May 18, 2005
I haven't posted here in a while, but the truth is, I haven't really had time. Work's taking away my lunches and making me stay late, and what few breaks I take are occupied doing Other Things.
Last night I went to a great concert - VNV Nation as the headliner, and Imperative Reaction as the opening - with Michael. We met some of his friends, danced our booties off... a bigger run down is on my LJ post.
Not sleeping still. Don't know why. I'm not sure if it's because I am not keying down after work or not, but that wouldn't explain why this weekend I didn't get more than four hours of sleep at night, each night, either. This is my ninth day of sleep deprivation. Dragging. Rump.
My body's acting funny again. Enough said on that.
I actually thought about picking my flute up this weekend. I didn't, but I thought long and hard about it. That's a bonus.
Posted by Kelli Little at 12:04 PM | Comments (1)
May 10, 2005
The Temporary End of the Doc Foo
All of my test results are back, and my last appointment for six months is officially completed (as of yesterday afternoon, that is.)
There were a few things that I am now medicating for, and a few things we're watching.
1. Hormones: My testasterone levels were normal, but my estrogen and my progesterone levels were abnormally low. Because of the symptoms I've been having (exhaustion and lethargy, difficulty in weight loss, mild mood swings, and so forth) the doctor has concluded that my pituitary gland is not producing the correct chemicals to support my hypothalamus and thyroid in the production of estrogen and progesterone. I am now taking "stuff" (note: not an official term) for it.
2. Kidneys: The tests came back with very high protein readings (there's a specific name, but I cannot remember) that indicates either one of a few things: there is something wrong with my kidneys, I didn't drink enough water that day, I ate a lot of proteins that day, or I worked out hard the day before and the body just dumped proteins (I think into my kidneys, but I'm not certain). I don't really recall what I was doing the day before my blood work. I do know that there isn't a day that goes by that I don't drink at the very minimum a gallon of water, so water deficiency is out. I cannot support a protein-rich diet because of my hypoglycemia (and I wouldn't) so that is out. But it is definitely possible I worked out hard the day before. Given that I didn't have any other red flag symptoms, when I go back in 6 months we'll do another bloodwork, and if it comes back high again, then we'll look into it.
3. Gall Bladder: I don't remember what she said about how she knew something was up with my gall bladder, but it was just one of the many results we went over. She said that the signs were either that I had stones or gall bladder sludge. She also said that most people have this in their lives, and that it wasn't really something to stress over. It could be that it occured because my body's been freaking out, but this is something we're checking in six months, too.
4. Food Allergies: I received a neat book that has all the information I could ever want on cycling foods and food allergies. Whereas I initially thought I would be cutting the foods out for life, some of these foods apparantly I can start to reinstate. Essentially, I go 1-2 months without any of them, and then slowly I try to reincorporate the +1s back into my diet. But, I can't have the +1s more than once a week. Which means, for instance, I can only have one portion of a +1 food one week, but I can't have the same food the week after, and I can't have any other +1s that week.
She did say that my body was hypersensitive, that the test I took didn't incorporate all foods and that it is possible I'm allergic to more. She said anyone with 8 food allergies would give her pause, but since I have 27, there's a large possibility my body won't recover without therapy. And there's a large possibility that my body will become worse with foods (more allergic) and the environment unless therapy occurs. Everything I read online concurs.
Therapy is basically to get the body to start recognizing what is good for it and what is bad for it. They take some blood, mix it with different foods I'm allergic to, and then feed it back to me for a while. Therapy is also $450, but something I won't have to consider until 6 months down the road. It doesn't mean I won't be saving up for it now, though.
5. The Rest: We didn't do the regular blood test today. She wants to wait until 6 months from now, after all the different meds and food extractions have been done and my body has had time to recuperate. So, pretty much I have to wait to find out about my rouleau, infections, etc. This is ok, since I'm still on stuff for it anyways. My liver results from the blood work came back perfectly sound, so no worries about that. Apparently it was just a side effect from all the muck.
Things I (re-)learned:
A. Stress can cause the shortage of chemicals to properly support the production of hormones. Even if I am not currently stressed, a previous episode of severe stress can damage your body in a way that it can no longer function at normal levels. There is a great possibility that this occured, and after a few months of supporting the functions, there is an equal possibility that my body will return to normal and I will no longer have to take these medical supplements.
B. My follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) was extremely low, which is something that creates estrogen, which in turn creates progesterone. Estrogen is also created from testasterone, but because my testasterone levels were normal and the other two abnormally low, the Doc could pinpoint the problem further up the scale.
Posted by Kelli Little at 07:32 AM | Comments (3)
May 06, 2005
Swedes are Fucked Up
I'm sorry.
Here we see a woman breastfeeding a tiger.
I don't understand the text. I don't want to. Ever.
Nic, it's YOUR country. WTF?
Posted by Kelli Little at 05:36 PM | Comments (4)
May 04, 2005
Why the stress, folks?
For as relaxed a place it is, there are certainly a lot of people here who can be exceptionally high strung. I say exceptionally, because sometimes under stress I can be high strung, but it appears there are people that go above and beyond my mere low-lying stress levels.
My boss is one. She called me over to her desk today to outline a couple of ‘catastrophes’ that landed in her lap. One of them she can handle with a simple phone call to postpone an early arrival of an annually-appearing man to discuss This, That, and The Other Thing. No sore feelings, nothing. And the other was planning, of all things, a special event that I’m not supposed to talk about to anyone. We order the Stuff and Things, and wah lah – complete.
Really, not that stressful.
The other person who seems exceptionally high strung that I work closely with is the man that’s in charge of this silly little ‘survey’ thing I am doing for eight weeks, three days a week, four times a day. Ultimately, it takes 3 hours out of my day, which on a normal day wouldn’t be so bad. However, given that I’m over my head in a special project in the company as it is, there legitimately isn’t the time available to do the ‘survey thing’ and still be able to do everything else. Not and take my breaks and my lunch, and I’m sorry – I came to this place of business partly because I was guaranteed a lunch and two breaks. Anyhow, given that I’m on a time crunch since the Project of Impending Doom has now fallen into full-swing, my boss asked that any one of the eight backups at least take two of my survey runs a day.
And he threw a HUGE fit. Huge. We’re talking, my boss actually backed down, and folks, my boss never backs down when she’s protecting her cubs. She’s going through other channels now, and we haven’t had time to discuss it all, but this should prove interesting.
So. High strung people in a low-stress environment over minor things. I think they’ve forgotten what it was like to work at a shitty place. If I ever forget, someone please whap me on the head so I remember.
Posted by Kelli Little at 08:50 AM | Comments (2)