another anniversary

(my current view)

in the hubub of these past couple days etc, i totally forgot about another important anniversary. yesterday i (should have) celebrated the 4 year anniversary at my current place of employment. jeez.... and of course i didn't think about it til today, so instead of yesterday my coworkers and i celebrated my annivesary today with chinese. mmm....fried rice. ironically we ordered from the same chinese place that gave another coworker food poisoning last week. but hey, i live on the edge.

my coworkers also had a brilliant idea today... for a little history, i've been plagued with the worst headache of my life the past 2 days. while its not a migraine, i think i'd rather take one of my migraines over this headache....yesterday it was so bad that i couldn't even lay down because the skin at the back of my head hurt too. it was bad. medicine didn't help. sleep didn't help. i went to bed last night worried i had an aneurysm and maybe i should stay up and clean because i wouldn't want anyone to see the current state of my apartment. yes, it was that bad. well, this morning i was chatting with my coworkers and trying to arrange my head just right so it wouldn't fall off my neck, when i mentioned i hadn't had coke or coffee for the past week because of this cold. i didn't see the importance of my statement until marka brilliantly tells me i'm probably suffering from caffeine withdrawal. wow. lightbulb. i immediately had a cup of coffee.

then when i got home i forced myself to drink some coke. (yes, forced...) my headache has amazingly abated. brilliant. and i know you're going to say "why dont you just stay off caffeine, after all, you've gone this long", but i know myself. when i'm feeling 100% again, i'm going to want coffee in the morning. i'm going to want something other than sprite and ginger ale for dinner. i'm going to crave chocolate. and then i'll be back to caffeine addicted again. so yeah. * voice of addiction coming through * but amazingly enough, i'm okay with it. that horrible headache has finally faded to something a lot more manageable.

to celebrate my anniversary and my exceptionally large paycheck (8 days in a row of overtime will help that), i bought myself something at harborfreight.com. i know you're all checking it out now and saying..."hmmm....thats weird. what tools is alicia buying herself?". well, i'm not telling you. its a cool idea i've seen a couple places, and if it doesnt' work out then i dont have to admit failure. well, i'll admit it eventually, but i'd rather try it out first.

i also had another lightbulb moment today. so, the short story is that i have graves disease, which causes hyperthyroidism. when left unchecked (like i did), your body essentially becomes permanently revved up...metabolism, heartrate, thoughts, etc. i had become so used to feeling like that, that when i finally went to the doctor to get it in check, and my really high thyroid levels started lowering, i felt slow. i had a radioactive thyroid uptake treatment in december, which essentially killed off my thyroid, and also the high levels of hormones it was producing. my body is slowly moving towards being hypothyroid. which is the opposite of what i felt. so, just imagine the normal person's energy level being 50. my energy level for years was 100 or more. putting me at a normal level made me feel like i was running at lets say a 30 (even if it was 50/a normal level for anyone else). now that i'm getting to be hypothyroid, i'm running at 40, which really makes me feel like i'm running at 10. does that make sense? my doctor of course is overjoyed because for the first time in the 3 years i've been seeing a doc about this, my levels are normal without the use of meds. of course, now they're falling. and continuing to fall. when they get too low, i'll have to go on meds to bring my levels back to normal. but anyways, this short story is becoming long. so, my lightbulb moment was related to this - perhaps because my thyroid levels are falling is a good contributor to having no energy or motivation. add a simple virus on top and i'm wiped. add no caffeine and i'm surprised i've made it out of bed the past couple days. so simple, but i didn't think of it. weird. and crazy. and hopefully having coffee in the morning will be a temporary fix for awhile. (to answer your unasked question, i'm going back for more blood tests in a week or 2 and every 3 weeks after that til my doc says i need to be on meds. i have a feeling it'll be within a month, just with how i'm feeling etc. )

anyways, whew. long dissertation. still tired, but somehow i feel happier just knowing more of the possibilies why i'm feeling like this. plus, tomorrow is friday. i think i'm dragging my sewing machine out this weekend. dont tell atticus.

"now you're back and you'll do just fine. so dont resign, cause after rainy days the sun will shine." ~ millencolin