Have a nice fall...

My knees are incredibly sore. Why, you ask? Because I'm a klutz. My goodness am I ever a klutz.

This morning I fell because of a combination of clumsiness and vanity. I was walking into our church through the side door (mistake #1) with Caroline slung over my arm in her infant carrier. There are three steps going down from the side door into our fellowship hall that are covered with that rubbery stuff that makes them skid proof (mistake #2; thanks, church ;) ). I was walking in with some friends and as I took the first step I twisted my head to say something to them (mistake #3) when all of a sudden my heel, which was, admittedly, a tall heel (oh, vanity!) got stuck on the non-skid stuff while my body was still moving forward.

BAM! Straight down on the hard, cold floor, right in front of about three to four other people (I am so thankful this is a low traffic entrance!). Caroline was fine, of course, since she was strapped in her car seat. She didn't make a peep and I don't think she even realized anything out of the ordinary happened. But me? I fell on my knees and hand and my left knee is throbbing. I can barely bend it and have been hobbling around all day like a doofus.

The moral of this story should be to stop wearing such impractical shoes and to stop gabbing. I will probably not do either of these things so I probably deserve to hobble around like an idiot.

Rain Update

The basement seems to have dried up in most spots, thankfully. To put things in perspective, the local middle school is closed because of flooding and numerous local houses that have never experienced water in their basements had trouble during this last storm. These were extreme circumstances.

But, there's more rain in the forecast today, but tomorrow looks sunny so far. And, from what I hear, the violent storms producing the flash flooding and tornados are over. At least for now.

Long term I don't know what we're going to do. The drain tiles and palmer valve should take care of the wetness problem, just apparently not when we get 2.5 inches of rain per hour which is very, very unusual. I suspect we'll start with some regrading and mud-jacking the driveway in some suspicious spots. My answer Saturday night while moving the contents of our basement to higher ground and cleaning up gross messes was just to chuck it all and move. But given the reports I'm hearing of wet basements abounding, I think that's a pretty extreme reaction.

I'm in clean-up mode today. Throwing out old carpet remnants that lined my laundry room floor and washing rugs from the family room. After the basement is cleaned up and normalcy is returned to our chaotic house then we can start mulling over long term solutions.

Some good news: Elisabeth is feeling better. Completely recovered, I'd say. Oh, and we had the most delicious sandwiches ever last night. I'll share the recipe later today. YUM!

UPDATE: This is mere moments from our home. See why I feel thankful the damage wasn't worse?

It's raining, it's pouring, an old man is snoring...

I don't usually like to use my blog for whining, but today I'm going to make an exception.

Last night it rained. Buckets and buckets of rain. So much rain, in fact, that interstates were shut down and basements got much wetter than ours. But oh, our basement. Our formerly fixed and dry basement was soaked. We're talking standing water eeeeeeverywhere. But guess what? It's supposed to keep raining here until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY! And today is Sunday. Then we're going to have a day of reprieve, and then, yep, you guessed it- MORE RAIN!

Then, the frosting on the cake: guess what else happened this morning? Elisabeth is sick! YAY! Yes, throwing up, making messes kind of sick. Only problem is that my washing machine is in-- wait for it-- the basement. The very same basement that I have to wade through to get to my washing machine that I can't use because the laundry sink is alternating as a catchall for wet rugs and pillows at the moment.

I'm sorry for whining. While watching the news it appears others got hit a lot harder than we did, but it's my blog so I'm going to whine about stuff that affects me. At least for today.

Oh, and Big Brown lost yesterday. I was so hoping for a Triple Crown winner. *Sigh*

Doctor and Running Updates

Some of you may still be wondering about my vague post a few months back about the lack of responsiveness of my primary care doctor. The even more observant may have noted my lack of running posts.

OK, the lack of running posts. Last summer I curiously noticed that when I woke in the morning my feet felt weird. When I would step out of bed the bottoms of my feet felt tingly, almost as if many tiny little pins were pricking my feet. But it would go away as I started to move around and I didn't give it too much thought. I'm just getting older, I told myself.

And then I started running last October. At first, as I said, I felt great. I was sore after my runs, but as an inexperienced runner, I felt this was somewhat normal. I can't quite pinpoint when my joints started aching to the point where I was sore in my knees, shoulders and hips when I woke and whenever I would kneel down or walk more than just a few blocks or anything, really. Again, I sort of attributed to aging. Yes, yes, I know I'm quite young, so feeling signs of "aging" at my age sounds absurd, but I really felt fine and couldn't think of another reasonable explanation. I'm also not a person that goes to the doctor often; I go for my annual physicals, but that's about it. And I certainly wasn't about to go with vague symptoms that I wasn't able to describe well. Plus, I never felt that bad and, as I said, I figured it was normal to a degree. And then there was the exhaustion. All parents with young kids are tired, right? So it had to be normal that I felt like I was ready to collapse by 7 p.m. I felt like a failure that, gradually, I just felt too tired to go running at night anymore, which was a really bitter pill to swallow because I really, really enjoyed the time alone. And, as it turned out, I really liked running. But I just couldn't do it, and I felt like a lazy sloth. A lazy sloth who'd started something challenging and quit.

Then in March I had my regular physical. When my doctor asked me how I was feeling I said fine. Yes, honestly. And at 9 a.m., which is when my appointment was, I did feel fine. At least, relatively speaking compared to how I felt at 9 p.m. most days. But my doctor felt something suspicious in my thyroid. I hate the word goiter, but that was the word she used. Later, it would turn out my thyroid numbers from my blood test were abnormal as well. My doctor referred my for a thyroid ultrasound which showed enough suspicious growth that my primary doctor referred me to an endocrinologist who specializes in thyroid issues. Dr. Drobny, the endocrinologist my primary doctor referred me to, took forever to get in to see and, I will say, after castigating Dr. Reeder, my primary care doctor, in my last post, she was dutiful in calling consistently until she was sure I had made an appointment with Dr. Drobny and was following up on my thyroid ultrasound, which Dr. Reeder sounded sufficiently worried about (and thanks to my cousin H for the suggestion of calling Dr Reeder's nurse; I did that and she has been extremely responsive and proactive on my behalf. Great tip, so thanks!).

Anyway, I finally got into see Dr. Drobny a few weeks ago and she is wonderful. She is relaxed and I never once got the impression she was in a hurry, even though I know she's booked beyond belief. But best of all, I could tell she was abreast of current thyroid research (something I stupidly thought all doctors just did; you know, staying abreast of current developments as part of their job).

The growth on my thyroid is small at this point. Dr. Drobny is going to keep an eye on it, and we'll do another ultrasound in a few months, but she doesn't want to biopsy it yet. If it is thyroid cancer, which she doesn't think it is, it's completely treatable when found early and she felt completely comfortable waiting six months to see if it was even necessary to biopsy it. In the meantime, she ran a bunch of blood tests and it appears, based on the results that came back, that I have Hashimoto's disease, which is an autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid and prevents the thyroid from producing the hormones it's supposed to produce which, in turn, manage and regulate many of your body's regular functions.

The bottom line is this: I received, and filled, a prescription for Synthroid, a synthetic thyroid hormone, and I feel fantastic again. Actually, I probably just feel normal, but after months of feeling absurdly tired and sore, it feels fantastic to just feel normal. I spent the weekend gardening, which would have killed me a month ago, but Saturday evening I just felt the plain ol' amount of tired someone would feel after a day in the sun digging and lifting and pulling and things. Most of all I feel so, so thankful. Good health is nothing to grow complacent about, and I know I never will again. I was making decisions about social activities based on how exhausted I thought it might make me feel which, at my age, is so beyond ridiculous that I feel absurd even typing it. But no more. Now I feel like every other young other with small, exuberant children: tired, but nothing a cup of coffee can't cure.

So, thankfully, that is it. Other than more frequent doctor visits and taking medication, that should be the end of the story and, hopefully, clear up any lingering questions readers might have had.

The Christmas Countdown

Did you know there are only four days until Christmas?

I'm actually not as anxiety ridden as I thought I might be, but that's because I haven't been blogging and instead have been wrapping, baking, shopping and baking some more.

I remember last year at this time I was washing sheets and cleaning up my children's vomit as one after the other fell sick, all they way up until Christmas Eve almost and... oh wait, I'm doing that this year too. So there's another good reason I haven't been blogging. Pre-Christmas and stomach bugs; they're synonymous at my house.

Never fear though, they all appear to be on the mend and I promise a germ-free home to those participating in Christmas festivities here with us.

And, to the rest of you, I hope to blog between now and Christmas but, if I don't get the chance, have a very merry Christmas!

August Recap

What a bad, bad blogger I've been. Excuses? I have none. I'll be better now. I promise.

Following is a quick recap of this past month's highlights.

August 3: Madeleine's "friend" birthday party at Pump-it-Up. They call themselves the "inflatable party zone" and, really, I can' t think of a better way to describe it. Envision a huge gym with multiple things to jump on, slide on, etc. Madeleine has been begging to have her party there for two loooooong years. Finally, we consented. Lucky girl.


August 4: Madeleine's family party. Our "small" family parties have now grown to an attendance level of just under twenty. Madeleine requested BBQ ribs and sweet corn. I was happy to oblige, and hungry family was happy to eat.


August 5: The beginning of the bubonic plague. Uh, I mean, strep throat.

August 9: All three kids go down to Dad and Diana's house, antibiotics in hand. I spend the next day and a half filling up Dad's Land Rover (I still prefer the Volvo XC90) with unused books, toys and clothes, supplying Goodwill's merchandise for the next eight months, at least.

Yes, this is an actual, blog-able event. The kids' bedrooms and the basement are clean and organized. Definitely a notable event.

August 11: Superdad and I head up to St. Paul, Minnesota to see a dear family friend get married. The weekend was perfect in every possible way. We got to see my brother and good friends we'd not seen recently. The bride was lovely, as was the reception and a wonderful, relaxing time was had.


So that's it. Any and all exciting news. Regular, uneventful blogging will resume again shortly. I'll just bet you can't wait.

Sick

If you're wondering why I haven't been frequently posting, yet again, I have two words for you: strep throat. And no, no, it's not just me, it has infected Madeleine and Elisabeth too.

I had all these grand plans of sharing birthday stories and pictures and having Madeleine finish her thank-you notes, but about all I can cope with right now is comforting Elisabeth after she takes her amoxicillin and she realizes that one teaspoon is all she's going to get (what's in the infant amoxicillin anyway; is it laced with sugar? My kids loooove it).

So anyway. Bah. Humbug.

Back later.

Over-the-Counter Cold and Cough Medicines Can Kill Babies, CDC Says

I'll admit it, this really scared me.

ATLANTA — More than 1,500 toddlers and babies wound up in emergency rooms over a two-year period and three died because of bad reactions to cold or cough medicine, federal health officials reported Thursday.

The U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned parents not to give common over-the-counter cold remedies to children under 2 years old without consulting a doctor.

Thankfully Elisabeth has a regular check-up soon so I can query her doctor more about this development. Yikes!