11!

The twins are 11 already! My how the years fly by! They are fifth graders now. They are both killing it at school. They’ve both taken up the cello this year. She’s still into dance and started at a new dance school last summer. She’s trying out for the school musical this year. He is still into soccer as his sport of choice but is also getting interested in basketball. We had fun watching the World Cup. He’s also really into history and gaming. They both like to join clubs at school.

They are getting so tall and grown up. I don’t think I was nearly this grown up at their age. We had some fun trips this year. NYC to visit my sister as always and then summer back to NY and coastal New England. We are headed to Mexico for NYE and early January. I haven’t been in years and it's the first time for the kids and DH. Yay for new countries!

I just published a post I wrote earlier this year about getting another colonoscopy. I did this partly because I now have an old friend (we started our first jobs out of college on the same day, and later became roommates in Chicago) who is fighting stage three colon cancer at 45. She has a son the twins' age and has been having an unusually hard time with her treatment (surgery, chemo, radiation, etc.). She lives in Canada, but spent the first two plus years of the pandemic semi-stuck in Bali, where she obviously wasn't getting good care, as she had symptoms and nobody did a colonoscopy for years. It makes me angry for her.

And on the cancer front, because that's always a running theme, we lost my uncle Gary earlier this month to lung cancer. His wife, Laura, died of recurrent breast cancer back in 2013, and now their two kids are orphans in their 30s. He's the third of my father's siblings, and first of the four to pass away.

Taking Care

Written in early 2022…

Well I survived colonscopy #3 (in five years) recently with a clean bill of health. Man those preps suck.  This is the new routine since I found out several years ago that I carry a genetic marker that gives me a higher risk of colon cancer, which killed my maternal grandmother, though not until she was 94. With the threat of Covid (and worse yet, long Covid) hanging over someone who has already dealt with long mono for over half my life (especially since they just found that EBV is one of the top drivers of getting long Covid, FML), I'm trying to take better care of myself. 

I treated myself to a food sensitivity test recently and boy were the results a surprise. My top problem foods include coffee, almond, and vanilla (weird), but also cow's milk, pineapple, and orange, so the breakfast routine got a bit of an overhaul. If you haven't tried organic oat milk, which I hadn't, it is amazing. It's also cheap at Costco. Score! I never really liked drinking milk, except in coffee, but I'm a cereal girl, so it's kind of part of the deal. Thank goodness I can still have other dairy products, like cheese and yogurt. Let's not get crazy, I am from Wisconsin. I had to give up caffeine many years ago since it makes me feel like I'm having a heart attack, but man I like the taste of coffee. Trying to make a go with decaf earl grey...

Since the whole family was finally fully vaxxed before Christmas (yay!), we decided to take advantage of the extra long break to get out of dodge. A new year's snow storm almost set us back, but we all got on a plane for the first time in two years and went to Florida to get some sun and be able to eat and be outside. We were very lucky and the weather was perfect, though as someone who spent some summers in Florida growing up, I know it's not always the case. I honestly have no idea how/why anyone lives there year round. Unlike everyone we know, we managed not to catch Covid (double yay!!)

Catching Up

So I've totally bombed on the blog this year, like nearly a complete epic fail.  So four months later...  I tried to post about the Hamptons (and separately about their two show houses), but that didn't happen (too many photos and it blew up).  Then we went to Savannah/Hilton Head Island for our tenth anniversary/my 40th, which was hot and amazing.  And I went to Boston for another long weekend, which was cold but great.  The election, and nada... oh well.

My OB/gyne finally managed to talk me into getting my BRCA 1&2 testing done, (since my sister had a young and rare reproductive cancer dx) which I had been putting off, since my other sister was negative.  It ended up only costing me a few hundred bucks, and I'm negative for both, which is obviously fantastic given the prospective treatment plan (double mastectomy-oophorectomy).  Unfortunately for me, they found that I have a different genetic mutation (MUTYH), that triples my risk of developing colon cancer (which is what ultimately killed my grandmother five years ago at 94), which sucks pretty badly.  So in addition to turning 40 and getting another mammogram (which is still awful, but came back fine), I also have to add getting regular colonoscopies (and I already got my first, which thank goodness, was also fine). 

Ironically, much worse than actually turning 40, are the health screeners that will hopefully get me through a few more decades.  Colonoscopies themselves are no biggie, but you have to fast and then slam 32 ounces of what tastes like really bad cough syrup the day before to clean you out, so that's pretty awful.  And how are mammograms still so horrible, like someone somewhere (likely a woman) can't devise something that isn't a torture device?

The kids are doing great and getting huge.  Like I'm going to have two four-foot-tall kindergartners soon enough.  They turn five in five more days. OMG.  So we have... they are in two different schools crazy holidays, parties, birthdays, Christmas, no-break, and up to 40 4-5 year olds for their jumpy house party come January.  And I'm supposed to be starting a new work project, I volunteered and was elected to be VP of his school's PTA, and trying to figure out how we are going to get out of this frozen tundra for a bit.  Thankfully, I put the kibosh on our regular India trip this year.  I just can't deal with being gone for weeks and feeling like death at this time of year on top of everything else.

We finally got around to getting new pics done for holiday cards (better late than never), but we got our first snow storm that day, so we were forced inside his studio.  They are somehow ridiculously more photogenic than either of their parents.

Thankfully, my step father has made it through his chemo, radiation, and now surgery for his cancer as well as can be expected.  Praying for clear scans and as much time as possible for him.

Today

Today I had my first post pg annual exam. I was due in Feb., 12 mos. after my six wk. post partum, or so my office thought per their many reminder letters.  But when I went in then, the NP informed me that they only do Paps every two yrs. now, so she sent me on my way and told me to come back. These are not typically a big deal for me, so I was not expecting today to be any different. They are converting to e-records, so the first 20 mins. was going through everything they had entered into the system with a nurse to make sure it was correct. We talked through my lengthy history, reviewed my family history (which they had up to date), and then I waited to see Dr. Levin, who saw me through the pg w/the twins.

We talked for awhile and she was concerned that my sister had cancer so young (40). Fallopian tube cancer is a rarer, but close relative of ovarian, so she suggested I look into BRCA testing, if my sister hadn't been tested.  But regardless of the outcome, with my risk she doesn't want me ovulating, so she put me back on BCP (low dose). She said it might be a good idea to just have my tubes removed, which is a relatively minor lap procedure. She also noted after the exam that my cervix is wide open, which she couldn't explain but it is not the way it is supposed to be, so even though she loves to talk about "if (we) have another", if I needed confirmation that my body is in no state to ever due such a thing, "there's your sign".

I couldn't remember if my sister had done any genetic testing after her diagnosis/treatment, so I gave my mom a call.  In my defense, my mother kept a lot of what went on (including initially even her diagnosis in early 9/10) because we were simultaneously dealing with our planned first IVF cycle and then the sudden death of my FIL in India.  She said the testing had been raised at the time, but that since my sister's insurance didn't cover it (she is disabled and receives SSI) and since the next recommendation if she tested positive would be a complete double mastectomy, which my mother had decided she would not put her through, she opted not to have it done at all. Well, that was her decision to make for her, but that doesn't really help my sisters and me, so I have a referral to the ovarian center to see what they say about next steps.

I have no idea if they will recommend the testing based on my profile, or if they do if it will be covered by our private insurance. Based on what we find, we'll decide if we want to do it OOP if that is our only option. I didn't know until speaking w/my mom today that I had great aunts on each side who had either ovarian or another "undetermined" reproductive cancer.   Why on earth had this never come up?  Thankfully, there is no history of any breast cancer in my family.   My mother is a (now retired) RN and mother of four daughters for crying out loud. The common link between all three (my sister and great aunts) is that they didn't have any children (two were disabled, the other was a nun), which raises your risk (pg and BFing, like BCP, gives the ovaries a preventative rest).

So it's a lot to digest, but it seems we may be at just the beginning a new venture into the medical abyss. As much as I abhor and avoid drama, life is certainly never boring over here.  I guess the good news is I have a clear baseline mammogram/b ultrasound from 2010 and my lap that year didn't turn up anything out of turn (not that they were looking necessarily) and my exam today was otherwise fine.  I guess I can also look forward to trading up in the boobie dept. if all goes south.  I'll be sure to post what I find out. Any experience you may have is welcome.

My little loves

Marking days (and knowing your risks for PTL)

The kids are 8 1/2 months old (nearly eight adjusted) and have surpassed their time inside, 36w4d, with their time outside, 37w2d, and today is the one year anniversary of the surgery that kept them cooking past 21w4d and saved their lives. 

After losing my mucus plug last 8/19 @ 19w (and then having an OB clear me w/a long and closed cervix as we were heading OOT on vaca) and then six days later discovering my funneling cervix at our anatomy scan (which put me on bed rest), I quickly found an MFM that ordered that I be monitored more closely (and put me back on P4).  After a week of twice weekly checks showed that my cervix was stable and then much improved/normal, the third showed that I was beginning to dilate.  By the time I got into surgery that afternoon, I was already two cm dilated (with four cm being the limit for being able to be sewn shut).  It was one of our very worst and (in the end) best days...

Every day now, I look at the babies and know how lucky we were that my appointment just happened to be on that day and that my body failed so slowly.  We've just passed what would have been the first birthday of our first baby who we lost.  I am a very emotionally resilient person, as is DH, but I'm just not sure that I would have been able to cope very well with birthing three lost babies.  There is a limit to how much you can even imagine bouncing back from...

In an attempt to hopefully save others from a similar situation, I wanted to share the risk factors that I had (and should have put me on a short list for closer monitoring) and all the many others, so you can advocate for yourself and your babies.

According to the March of Dimes, I had all three of the greatest risks of having a preterm birth:

A uterine septum (or other uterine/cervical irregularity) can cause problems, even after removed.  In our attempts to get pg, I'd also had several surgeries (three over the course of 16 months) to address my septum and a polyp, which involved dilating my cervix (any D&C-type procedure increases the risk of having cervical problems or adhesions).  I'd also had a cervical cone biopsy in my 20s after an irregular Pap, which thankfully was benign, but left me with a little piece of my cervix missing, which also weakens it.

Though I was carrying multiples, a major risk factor, just having done IVF and being pg with one baby is sadly also a risk factor for preterm labor.

Since my first pregnancy ended in a spontaneous loss, this also put me at higher risk for another preterm loss (since the root causes, including low P4, were likely the same).  First trimester losses sadly garner little serious attention, so it was not considered a risk at the time.  Though if it had been several weeks later, it would have raised more red flags and I would have been a candidate for a preventative cerclage, rather than needing a rescue cerclage.  How sad is it that you not only have to lose babies to be treated proactively, they must be farther along...

Though I was nearly 35 when all this occurred and age (high or low) is a risk factor, I was very healthy and didn't have any of the other health related risk factors (preeclampsia, high blood pressure, diabetes, under/overweight, clotting disorders, other disease/infections/birth defects, etc.)

All the other/lifestyle risk factors actually ran counter to my situation.  These include race, socioeconomic status, marital status, working status, access to prenatal care, unintended pregnancy, smoking, alcohol/drug use, lack of social support, stress, domestic violence, and exposure to environmental pollutants.

If you are TTC or newly pg, please check out the list of risk factors (there are so many, but some intersect w/those causing IF, like PCOS) and see if any of them apply to you and discuss with your physicians.

And so it is finally September, when we also mark two years since we lost my FIL and my sister was dx w/cancer.  Those were some dark days...  Thankfully, my MIL is bolstered now by having my BIL back in India, a new DIL, and of course new grandbabies (which she'll be back to see in the new year).  And my sister is so far cancer free since her surgery and chemo last year.  Thanks to those who sent her cards and/or added her to your prayers.  We also get to mark another year of marriage (6!) and life (36!), opportunities that we cherish.  We know just how lucky we are and are very thankful, every single day.

If you are going through hell, keep going... -Eleanor Roosevelt

We're growing! (and almost 35w)

I'm not sure why I thought that we were almost done growing, but wow we've had some crazy painful growth spurts in the last few days.  I've gained two more inches around my middle (that's 45" now for those keeping track) and I'm also growing in just about every direction, up, down, to the sides, etc.  My stretch marks, which go from one hip to the other now (under the bump only) are completely out of control.  It seems odd that my beach ball belly has gone untouched, oh well.  Thank goodness.

I've been fighting a head cold for almost a week now, and I don't think I'm winning.  I haven't been sick at all this pregnancy, or for a long time at all for that matter.  Not really what I need as we round to nine months pregnant w/twins.  I already couldn't breathe or sleep before the cold, so you can imagine what it's like now.  It started in my throat last Saturday and has made the rounds to my ears, nose, head and back again.  I feel like crap.  The only saving grace is that it's not the flu (yes, I got the shot) which would have me in the hospital and that I'm getting it out of the way now and not in a few weeks.  Hopefully it will impart some early immunity to the twins.  A girl can hope, right?

We had a super speedy NST this morning, so good I was out in and out in 30 mins.  Then we went up to the Drs. office for our growth scan.  The babies are looking great and growing like crazy.  Baby girl is est. to be 5 lbs. and 13 ozs. and baby boy is est. to be 5 lbs. and 9 ozs., both well above average for singletons.  No wonder I feel huge.  My OB found my cervix to still be closed but still thin.  She said if I have any more bleeding or contractions that take me to the hospital, they will just take out my cerclage, as she'd rather have it out than in at this point.  We are scheduled to get the cerclage out in eight days (next Friday @ 36w) and unless I begin to labor/progress, they will just send me home and then we wait.  Final eviction date via CS (since the babies haven't moved and boy is still breech) is scheduled for Dec. 30th.  We are finally in the home stretch and it feels mighty good... :)

8w3d ultrasound

Well it's been an interesting day or so. Yesterday, I had some discharge and brown spotting, which in itself is not a huge deal, but given it was just a day later than the same day in my last pregnancy that I went from discharge to spotting to a m/c in very short order, I was concerned. DH has been working a lot and worrying about me and the babies. I made it through the night with clean pants, but was awoken by DH very early saying he needed to go to the ER because he was having heart palpitations. These also may not have been a cause for great concern, though having lost his dad to a sudden cardiac event not even nine months ago, we certainly weren't taking any chances. So we started our day in the ER. Good times.

After a few hours of tests, DH got a clean bill of health (for now) and we came home to get ready to go to the OB. We had a great u/s. The babies are both measuring on track now! We got to HEAR their heartbeats, which was AMAZING. Baby A's is 169 BPM and baby B's is 176 BPM. I was starting to worry about baby A as he/she was up to four days behind the last two weeks. They both are getting big and fast, nearly 2cm each. Unfortunately on the u/s pictures, they look like slightly bigger blobs than before. You can tell there is detail that you can't make out, hopefully on our next one we can get them at a different angle. We sit down with the new OB on Friday to discuss everything, which we are both really looking forward to.

Baby A

Baby B

In other good news: It looks like we are going to get a refund for some of our FET (which we paid for OOP from my FSA) from our insurance, as we had some remaining IF coverage from our lifetime limit, but the RE wouldn't bill the insurance since we had less than the total cost, so I filed a claim myself. That will help cover some of the meds that we are on for yet another 6 1/2 weeks.

My sister Sara is finally done with her chemo and is looking forward to getting some of her hair back before the end of the summer.

We finally have new neighbors across the street! The last family moved out over my m/c week and the new folks has been around a few times doing work. We are looking forward to meeting them.

I also have another consulting firm that I'm going to be doing work for now, Stonegate Advisors. 'Cuz I don't yet have enough healthcare in my life... ;)

Without great challenges, there can not be great victories

For anyone following my blog since I started in January (and even for those who have hopped on since), you know it's been quite the challenging year for us, to say the least. So as part of wrapping it up at the end of the year (how did this happen, BTW?), I've paged through my blog to help remind myself of all that we were up to this year. :)

Of course, the main focus of our year (and of this here blog) was the same as the last two. Getting us pregnant. And we did it! (and just in the nick of time). It took a few more surgeries and a few more cycles and few more doctors (and a lot more tests) and more than a few setbacks, but we finally did it. And for this, we are eternally grateful.

I skipped the year-end letter again this year, and we aren't announcing officially until February, but here are some other things we managed to do in 2010, in no particular order...

School:
I finished my executive business program at Notre Dame in February and took an interior design class for fun in the fall. I'm on hold for further classes now, due to my pending work travel schedule.

House:
Not much new this year, just bits here and there, after lots of big projects the last few. Our big feat was waiting patiently for a new exterior paint job (which we got courtesy of the HOA in late summer) and we are still working on our radon issue that we discovered this year. Most mitigation systems actually lower the value of the property, so we are still debating exactly what to do about this. Next project, the nursery. :)

After an unnecessarily long refi process, we closed on a 15 year fixed mortgage at the beginning of the year and have since saved a ton on interest (which will be fun at tax time) and paid off a good chunk of our remaining principle. Five years ago, our plan was for this to be our seven year house, but given the unexpected delays in starting our family and the eroding housing market, we are sitting tight for now. Thankfully, we've got plenty of room to grow. :)

Health:
Not a great year on the health front, as I was on a ridiculous amount of meds and had tons of awful s/e (ironically entirely from my two surgeries, rather than IVF). I had a random health scare in August that led to all sorts of trouble and then the mammogram in Sept. While we ended up okay, it was a tough run. The good news is we've conceived what we plan to be all of our children (before 35!) and don't plan to undergo any further treatments, with a likely FET in late 2012.

Family:
It was a really tough year for us on the family front. We lost S's dad very unexpectedly, which was made all the more tragic that we had all been waiting for a baby for them to come all the way from India to visit us again. My grandma K was dx with terminal cancer and my sister S was dx with stage 1 cancer.

Travel:
This got skimped on this year with all we had going on. We made a work trip for DH into a ski trip in March and did our best at Deer Valley in Utah. We made another work trip for me to NYC into an IF trip to see Dr. David in June. Our only "real" vacation was our week on the Cape and Islands when I was post-op in August, but this was sadly overshadowed by my own and family health issues. What was supposed to be a vacation to India (and the Maldives), was instead a funeral trip. Since I took my LOA from work for IVF unpaid, I was able to roll over the one allowed week of PTO to next year (for a total of 7, so maybe we'll take a mini-vaca before baby?) and have cashed out the other.

Money:
We opened another 529, this time for baby S, paid off the last of my student loans, and stepped up our savings and retirement contributions to the Roth IRA and 401Ks. We've been making double payments on both our new cars for the last year and are on track to have them paid off at the end of 2011, as to rid ourselves on all non-mortgage debt and give us a cushion for me to stay home and spend time with baby.

Charity:
I was nominated and served on the executive committee of one of my fave NPO's board through the end of the summer, which was a huge time commitment, then I opted to take a one year leave of absence from the board starting this fall.

Work:
Through no fault of my own, stagnation is the name of the game on this one (my sales campaign has been pushed back, yet again), which is one of the many reasons why I will be leaving my high paying, but highly unfulfilling and frustrating, job after I cash out on my mat leave next fall.
DH's industry is not doing great in this economy, but despite this he has had some big wins at work (often against his old firm ;)) and is well positioned to have a good 2011.

Now on to the new year when we have few set plans other than to have a hopefully healthy baby (and a newly minted U.S. citizen husband!) and enjoy life! :)

And the hits keep coming...

I've been thinking about putting together a post on India, which I may still do. But I've little time to look backwards given the rate at which things are happening to us right now. S returned home tonight from 20 hours on a plane while I was at class and he's already at urgent care. In addition to his traveler's diarrhea (which thankfully I got antibiotics for, which I used to kick mine), he also has some viral/flu infection (though we've already had our flu shots) and pink eye. The poor guy. And he has to drive 3 1/2 hours each way to and from Iowa tomorrow for work.

I talked to my mom tonight before class, and she let me know that my eldest sister Sara, who is cognitively disabled and lives with her, was found to have fallopian tube cancer (which is extremely rare) when they did her recent hysterectomy. She is only 40, but as she won't be having children and was having lots of pain, the Dr. thought it was time. She will have to have many more tests, and another (this time open rather than lap) surgery. But we are all just hoping that she doesn't need chemo. I can't imagine. My mom waited to tell me because of FIL's sudden death and our trip.

So if I'm supposed to not focus on not being able to have a child, having a sibling diagnosed with a serious disease, losing a parent, and having two terminal grandparents is certainly one way to put things in perspective and at the same time make you question how so many bad things could all happen at once.

IVF meds arrive, mammogram done!

I still have to take the requisite IVF meds photo, but I'll be sure to do that and get it up. In the meantime, my friends over at One Kings Lane have moved the puppy inside for Fall. :)

I had my mammogram this morning and for anyone who has not been so lucky to experience this lovely procedure, it sucks. Though I guess it's better than the alternative. They said everything was fine, that likely the meds I've been on are just causing me to grow new breast tissue, which is why I'm feeling new things that weren't there before. I guess that should be good news for this small busted lady.

It's been a weird and wet day here, so hoping tomorrow is a better one.

Friday

So it's finally Friday... It seems that short weeks always seem the longest. Why is that?

I had my mock transfer on Wednesday, which was easy. Though I'm going to have to figure out how to drink even more water for the real deal (ET) as my bladder was not anywhere near being full enough, even though I felt like I was going to burst. It's pretty wild how the uterus lays down like a dog under a full bladder, nice to know. My ultrasound was a little clearer, but I didn't get a pic. It still looks odd to me, but he measured my remaining septum at 5mm, so well under the 1cm he said he wanted to be able to proceed without going back in again for surgery. I had finally stopped spotting (5 weeks post-op), but there was a blob in the middle of my ute that he said would also likely come out at some point. Thanks for giving me something exciting to look forward to... ;)

I'm finishing up my post-mock antibiotics today and waiting for my IVF meds to arrive tomorrow. Also waiting to ovulate, so I can start my Lupron. Thinking Sunday is the day, CD 17 of course, so we'll see if my body cooperates.

As seems to be the trend lately, my idea of taking leave for my IVF is falling apart. I had thought that I could just take unpaid leave, but the geniuses in HR told me to apply for STD (which I am very unlikely to receive). So I get to spend my free time playing phone tag with the good folks at Liberty Mutual (ironically the co. that I wanted to move back to Boston to work for 18 mos ago, but I digress). HR thinks it will be approved, but I talked to my clinic and the RE will only write me out of work for two days, ER and ET. The fall back is personal leave, which is what I thought I would take, but apparently I have to use up all of my PTO (3 wks through the rest of the year) before I would be allowed to take unpaid personal leave. So now I'm thinking I'm going to try to see if I can't just do some kind of modified work schedule, some kind of part-time and work from home combo, but sadly I work for one of the least progressive companies in the world. :(

Good news from the gyne this week, my viral infection is the less serious of the two types and will not require daily treatment, unless of course the stress of life causes it to be unbearable for me to go without it. Yay for fewer meds, as I was on my way to some kind of record.

Still trying to figure out how to balance out my upcoming weekend. Thinking I'm going to have to lift my spending moratorium to make up for what is likely be good ol' time with the boobie vice tomorrow. Wish me luck! :)

Everything at once

I'm trying to revel in what a gorgeous (almost) fall day it is today. I love everything about September! Let me count the ways... I love the weather, back to school, fall clothes, my anniversary, my birthday, the song by Earth, Wind, and Fire.... (he he)

Now for updates:
My (attempted) ultrasound last week was a huge waste of four hours. He couldn't see anything because my lining was too thin to get a contrast. Of course, they told me to come in as soon as I was done bleeding, it was CD7 so my lining was guaranteed to be thin. So tomorrow, I go in for a repeat u/s and my mock transfer. Part of me is petrified that the septum will still be there/be too big and we'll have to push back our IVF yet again, and we'll have to have surgery yet again. I'm still spotting (like I did for the three weeks post-op) and it's CD12 (and five wks post-op), so I'm afraid I'm not healing properly.

My IVF gift box is scheduled to arrive on Saturday (so we can sign for it) as I didn't want it delivered to work. Actually S will be signing for it, as I will be downtown, at yet another dr., getting a mammogram. I still can't believe that those words are even coming out of my mouth, I'm 33 for crying out loud. I recently discovered a new "knot" in my left breast that my gyne thinks is nothing (she doesn't get excited about much). But since it's new, she's sending me to get it checked out.

With both of my septum surgeries, I've been on high dose estrogen to help with healing and over those six weeks (in February and August), I've taken the equivalent of two years of hormone replacement therapy. You know the stuff they don't reco anymore bc it causes higher cancer rates. :( I don't think I have cancer, I'm just so tired of dealing with health issues. I used to be a really healthy person, really.

I'm also thinking of getting on medication to deal with my latest health "situation" (see: Cape fun). I got a call that my test results were in from my gyne, but will have to wait until tomorrow when she is back in the office to get them.

I am so hoping that some time off of work will get me to a better place physically and mentally, as I will either need to be ready in six weeks to be pregnant or be prepared to deal with not being pregnant post-IVF, and going back to work either way. I wish I knew things were going to get better before they get worse...

FML

I wrote out a super long post discussing the clusterfuck that was our vacation, but I can't even deal. The Cape and Islands were lovely and we actually had a nice time considering. But I naively forgot to leave myself, my life, and my luck at home.

In brief, the week began with an urgent trip to an unknown clinic. We then got to wait all week for test results and get an Rx at $9/pill ($180 total). At the end of the week, their/our worst fears were confirmed. I have a lifelong chronic illness (that came out of nowhere) that could impact future pregnancies, that I now get to add to the mix.

I then heard midweek via my sister that our beloved g-ma K (who recently moved to WI to rehab from knee surgery) has terminal lymphoma after getting sick one night after dinner and undergoing weeks in the hospital for exhaustive tests. She is 93, and without this, would likely live a long long time. She is opting not to have chemo (which would only likely give her a few extra months, but make her sick from the start), and let it run its course. She has been given just a few months to live.

And for good measure, I fell on an divot in the parking lot as we were returning our condo keys. On my knees, my hands, and wait for it... my face.

Where does one go to recover from a vaca like that? Needless to say, I needed to work from home today to try to build up the courage to go back to the office.

Seven pounds

Is what I've lost in the last day or so. That is what food poisoning, or the 24 hour stomach flu or whatever it was, will do to you. I am back at work today and feeling much better, but still weak from not eating or having vomited up what I consumed in the last two days.

So just to recap the last week, I've been treated for a UTI, gotten AF, and whatever that thing was that struck on Monday afternoon. Good times... The only silver lining is the weight loss, while likely mostly water and digestive weight, is a helpful quickstart to my long overdue plan to get down to "normal" weight for me. I'm 5'11", so even weighing 150 pounds is "normal", and this is only the second time in my life (first/last was 1st yr. in college when I was rowing crew) that I've weighed >150 lbs. I have a small frame and have always been naturally thin so I don't particularly like looking like I have three chins.

At my thinnest, when I got mono during the hellish summer before my sr. yr. in college, I was at 125 (a size 2), which is decidedly not healthy. I spent most of my adult life at about 140 (size 6), which is probably where I should be. The suburbs do make you fat though. I never had a problem with weight when I lived/worked in the city or was single. I didn't have a car, I walked. I also went to this amazing gym. I also didn't eat like I do now w/S. IF certainly doesn't help. The depression, the synthetic hormones... So hopefully the good that will come out of this is that I will be able to stay at and maybe continue to move to a lower, healthier weight.