June 16, 2007

I just found this old journal entry I wrote on June 16, 2007. I am LAUGHING at it myself now because I realize this was the beginning of the transformation of "don't care how I look Jennifer" to "I can wear a dress just because I want to Jennifer." And today .. Man I feel like a Woman!

****'

Those of you that know me in person know that I am NOT into making myself look Glamorous. I couldn't care less if I was wearing sweatpants to meet the Queen of England herself. I couldn't care less if I was wearing work out clothes to meet Marty Casey (okay maybe I could care about that one). I am NOT that person. I did not have someone special "Do" my hair for my wedding. I did not have someone special "Do" my make up it either. I threw it up in a bun like any other day and ran with it!

So WHY am I going NUTS over a stupid banquet? I feel like one of those high maintenance chicks that goes nuts over hair and make up. Do these shoes go with this dress? Could I wear this ring with that watch? I spent TWO HOURS straightening my hair. How many of you think that anyone will notice? AND now I'm worried about a handbag. Here is is with almost an hour to go and I'm just now thinking ..my purse won't match.

I can thank my parents for sending me to Barbizon because if I want I CAN actually do my make up.

I don't know if I'm hearing "Glamorous" in my head or "Man I feel like a Woman" by Shania Twain. And you guys know that I despise country music. Fortunately for all of you, you won't see me look like this! I feel like an impersonator of someone else. I don't feel like Jennifer! I feel like ... (insert anyone you know that wears a lot of make up and dresses up high maintenance).


***

Here it is three years later and I no longer feel like an impersonator, but I still refuse to wear make-up (on most occasions). I can't believe I spent two hours straightening my hair though. Though it was quite long at that time so quite possibly it did take two hours.

5 nights 1st time

I did 4 nights of 1mg LDN. I was a little encouraged by my lab work so I decided to push the limits of my body again by doing 4 nights in a row of the 1mg. I had only a small remnant of a headache yesterday and decided it was worth the risk to take it the 4th night. Depending on how I feel today will depend on if tonight if only a 1/2 OR the first ever 5th night in a row.

And yes this means I did get the results to my blood tests back. I can't exactly explain them. I feel like I should be an expert in Lymph Enumeration by now (all those numbers CD4, CD19, CD56, etc.), but I am very much a novice. I wish I knew which ones held which job in my body and why some of them raised "300" points since last time and others either stayed the same or raised only a slight bit. However, I'm under the impression that we want those numbers to rise and most of them did. So I'm pleased as punch over that.

** decided to go ahead and take that 5th night of LDN**

SO long 4 nights

My headache has continued so last night I skipped the LDN. I will go back to the LDN rate where it didn't give me a headache which was 3 days at 1mg and 1 day at .5mg and then try again with the 4 days. This is per instructions given to me at my LLMD the last time I was there. Keep pushing it up until my body tells me to stop (which is the beasty headache I have had for the last 48 hours). I don't even know how I functioned yesterday at work. Today the plan is to rest as much as possible as tomorrow I have a very exciting baby shower to go to.

Speaking of baby showers. A coworker had her baby a little over 3 weeks early. Mom & Baby are doing well. It means I will get some hours at work at least for next week so I'm excited about the money aspect, but a little scared in how I'll be able to function. I know I will be just fine though. Always am able to do what I have to do when I have to do it until I stop, then I collapse. (which is what is happening today. I did what I had to do last week and then finally stopped)

Four Nights

I made it Four Nights of 1mg of LDN. I had a headache all today though so back to 1/2 mg tonight. It's the longest I've ever taken LDN back to back at 1mg. I'm hoping next time after night 4 that I won't have the headache and I can move up to night 5. It's moving slowly, but I've come so far from the 1/2 mg every other night.

Relief and Laughter

Relief: Got my blood work done today and it went well. She listened and it only took one stick. There were only two small vials that were needed.

Laughter: So I got this letter today in the mail.




Don't see the part I about peed myself laughing? Allow me to show you ....




I mean I know sometimes I feel 65, but I had no idea I was "turning 65" anytime soon.

Mom did you know you had a 65 year old daughter? Great feat being that you're not even that old!

Decisions and Frustrations

First things first:

I decided to go to WCU for Homecoming instead of my HS reunion. There were several factors involved .. including a pro-con list (I'm so OCD sometimes).

Frustrations.

The words you never want to see on the blood work is:

Specimen clotted, unable to perform test(s).

In laymen's terms ... I have to get stuck again. I did get results for my Iron and Vitamin D levels though. Both are significantly improved. One is in normal range while the Iron is way above normal. I'll find out what that means at the end of August. I'll go tomorrow to get the rest of my blood retested.

What a dilemma

Wish I could do a poll on this thing.

Oh what's to say I can't?

Western Carolina University Homecoming OR 15 High School Reunion?

I've been looking forward to both, but they are on the same day.

I know which one I'm leaning towards, but what do you guys think?

LDN Update

So at the end of May, I began the LDN. It was when I had begun 1 mg. Once I had taken 3 days of 1mg LDN I had a horrible headache. Since the first few days of June, I have been gradually increasing my doses from .5mg every other day until I was able to take .5mg every day. In the last week or so I have been able to take 1mg every other day and then the past two doses, I took 1mg two days in a row and then .5mg of LDN. Well tonight will be the first time I've taken 3 days of 1mg LDN since I began my regiment. I have no lightheadedness or headaches tonight so I'm hoping I'll be good to go tomorrow.

This is a very slow process, but I'm actually going a bit faster than I thought originally. I never went up to get my lab results. I think I'll stop by one day this upcoming week to see how my NK cells are doing. I'm feeling "okay." I've been a bit fatigued, but that's really been my only big symptom in the last week or two. I had a couple of days of jaw pain and leg pain, but it went away fairly quickly after onset.

Ever wonder what this LDN looks like? Well every compounding pharmacy makes it look different, but this is what 1mg from my particular pharmacy for me looks like:




In order for me to take it, I must open up the capsule and put it in something I can eat.



There ya go. 1mg LDN in a spoonful of Applesauce. If I want to take .5mg then I open up the capsule and figure out 1/2 of it. It's not precise, but it's the best I can do. I just took my 3rd night in a row of LDN and now it's time to hit the bed. I typically take it around 7:50 and hit hte bed by 8. Tonight I took it a bit later and I can already tell the difference.

My heart is racing, but shortly I should be asleep and won't notice it.

Still alive

Having major writer's block, but know that I'm alright and still living!

Raw(e) Lamps

Straight out of the camera from Sailor & Company is always fun. I never edit my photos anyways so it's easy for me. This week's theme is LAMPS.

This was from the Dunes Village in Myrtle Beach. Want to join in on the Raw(e) Lamp fun? Join Sailor & Company. :)

Yah Slick

"Slick" drew my blood in one stick. Glad they didn't need a lot of blood though because after four vials my vein decided it didn't want to release any more. Hopefully they got enough for my blood work.

Lots on the mind

I have a lot going on in my mind. It's been very difficult to think clearly when my mind is so full of many things. Some are fun things to look forward to and some are not so fun things that bring about worry.

I'm going for blood work tomorrow. I'm thinking about how much I've done in the last two months to improve my numbers. I wonder if it worked. I worry about things that I have no control over so I am trying to let it go until there are answers.

One of my best friends from Middle School is having a baby. I'll be seeing her for the first time in years at the end of the month. I'm excited about that. So I'm trying to focus on getting to that moment through this month where lots of things are happening.

My poor dog is hurting. I don't know what is causing it because he is yelping doing different things. Got an appointment with the vet after my blood work tomorrow to see if they can give me answers.

Answers. Questions. Questions. Answers.

I just have lots on the mind.

Channeling my Inner Cowgirl

On Monday, we have a theme for dressing up. Sometimes we're asked to wear a specific color or wear clothes of our favorite teams, but on Monday we have something that I was either going to be silly about or not participate in. However, we found out that our big Vice President was coming to the school so we are all required to dress in Western Wear ~ aka come in wearing Cow Girl Clothes.

Well, I'm not one to do things 1/2 way. So we went to Good Will and found this awesome hideous shirt & vest. Then they had a pretty awesome hideous belt and shoes. In all, it was about 13 dollars for a pretty good cow girl outfit. Well, we decided to hit up Wally World to see if we could find a pretty decent cow girl hat and bandanna. Well, we did and when I got home I found my best pair of jeans country western pants. I put it all together and channeled my inner cowgirl. :) All in all, it cost 24 dollars to channel my inner country western look. How did I do?

Beauty from the Ashes

Today my hubby took some photos of me that I will share later, but when going through them I found something that I had not looked at before. The morning of my Grandfather's funeral I took my time and put on my duds. My husband put on his duds and I thought that even though it was a painful day for my heart that we should take a photo together because honestly I have rarely felt more beautiful than I did on that day. I knew that my Grandfather would think that I was such a beauty and though it was hard ... we set up the camera and took a photo. I haven't had the heart to go through those photos and forgot they were there. When I was scanning through the photos we took today, I found them.

If you look close at my waist, you'll see that my husband held me up that day. He did so every day from the moment we knew it was close and held me up the day of the funeral. I just wanted to share.

Wow

So last night, I went out on a limb and took my 8th in a row dose of LDN. I decided to go out on a further limb and take a 1mg instead of .5mg. Oh wowzer, I remember what LDN *really* does to me! I dreamt all night long, but at least they were good dreams last night. They were wedding dreams, but really bizarre wedding dreams.

I dreamt that my bouquet showed up and was as long as I am tall. So I tore a bit away to make it better. Then it kept growing in my hands as I was walking down the aisle. For some reason, my folks were there, but my Dad didn't walk me down the aisle. This person I haven't seen in over a decade did and when we got to the end of the aisle, this person kidnapped me from my own wedding. But he just took me to another location saying that it would be prettier than where we had chosen. We met up with my husband there and the bouquet continued to grow while I continued to tear pieces away from it.

Then we were running and got onto these huge pieces of equipment. The further we got to the bottom ofthe equipment, the bigger they got so that we couldn't actually get off the equipment even though we tried! It was crazy! Then some of my college friends joined us on this ride along with elementary school friends I haven't seen in over 20 years! The equipment started making this really loud noise when I realized my alarm was going off.

Crazy LDN dreams! They are really vivid

Six (er make that 7 )Days of LDN

I'm almost at the 7 days in a row of 1/2 cap of LDN! I was supposed to do 5 days in a row, but last night I still was feeling okay symptom wise so I decided to go ahead and do the 6th day. I typically do 2 or 3 rounds before moving on, but if I do well with the 6 days after skipping tonight I'll go ahead and move onto the 7 days in a row which means in the next week or two I'll be taking my first full 1mg dose since the headache debacle.

If I didn't have a small headache and I wasn't getting home late tonight (late for me is anytime after 8 and I'll be getting home around 9), I would go ahead and dose LDN tonight. If I'm home by 8:45, I may just do that.

I can't believe it's taken so long to get to where I could take 1mg, but it's the tortoise that wins the race.

** edited **

I did take my LDN last night! So I made it to seven days in a row! Yippee.

RAW(e) 2(6)

This week's RAW(e) contest over at Sailor's & Co is all about the number 26.

Go to your 2nd photo folder and pick the 6th photo there.



Check out Sailor & Company's for more Raw (e) (unedited) pictures.

Hello Strangers

Six full days since my last post. What have I been doing? There is nothing much to report. My hubby began a 42 day crazy diet (from here on out referred to as CD) given to him by my crazy doctor. I hope it works. He's only the 13th patient to start this CD with my doctor, but he's seen it work and knows that we will try the extreme to help Lyme so why not give this a try. I don't want to get into the specifics of the medical aspect of this CD because I don't want anyone to give it a try on their own.

But in addition to some specific medications that were prescribed by my crazy doctor, my husband is going to be having 2 days of crazy fat foods. He's to eat burgers, cheeses, carbs, ice cream, and whatever else he desires that has high fat content. THEN, for 40 days he can only consume 500 calories a day along with these prescribed things that I don't want to get into. It surely will be interesting. My doc's first patient is someone that works in his office. He's completed the 42 day CD and he's been in the maintenance phase for a while too and he's still within 2 pounds of the last day of his diet.

Anyways, we're kind of excited about it. (He's very excited about it, but I'm a little worried. Probably because I wasn't actually at the appointment to hear all about it from the medical doctor). So wish us luck. Him for committing to it and me for ... having to deal with him committing to it. ;)

My cold is *almost* finished. The only thing that's still bothering me is the cough. So I still say Yeah for IV Vitamin C! I was supposed to get blood work next week, but have postponed it one full week due to circumstances out of my control. One thing they are testing for is Iron and well .. as all you ladies know .. there is something that happens once a month that depletes a bit of Iron so I want to get that all out of the way before they test my Iron. The other thing was that my boss forgot I needed the morning off and scheduled me to work. So instead of having her to rearrange the work schedule, I just rearranged my blood work. It was so much easier and they had availability so that made me happy on both ends.

This coming up week has the potential to break my immune system. Two afterwork events. One is CPR training (which means I'll be in a small room with a lot of people; more than likely other people that I'm not around all day either which increases my chance to get sick). So to help me with this potential illness catcher, I'll probably do one week of magical drops to help. I'm not sure if it will or not, but I'd rather do something and try to prevent it than to have to get another IV after I've caught it.

Alright have a good week. You may or may not hear from me again with the exception of the RAW(e) post should I have a photo to post.

RAW(e) Mirrors

What is a mirror? To me, a mirror is something that shows a reflection. When I saw this week's RAW(e) challenge was mirrors, I knew exactly what I wanted to share. I knew I could dig out the camera and create a new image, but this one is stuck in my head. So here ya go.



What is a RAW(e) challenge? Well to find out more: Check out Sailor & Company's blogspot.

Link up one of your own untouched photos to her page. :)

SYTYCD

I didn't feel up to writing a review on the last two weeks of SYTYCD. I will probably write up a little something this weekend on my favorite performances over the last two episodes. I will say that I am so upset for both Alex & Ashley. They were most always in my top three dancers so it's so sad that both were injured and couldn't return. I'm excited though that there is a possibility that Alex will come back next season.