Tired with a chance of confusion.

Yup, back here again.  

Ugh.  I thought I was doing pretty well too.  As of last night, I feel like the cat in the picture again.  

Forecast is showing mostly exhausted with patches of energy between noon and four pm.  Afternoon cup of coffee might hold off the clouds of exhaustion til late evening.  Brain functioning quality may seem fine by outward appearances, but expect limited utility when it comes to remembering things or holding basic conversations.  Conditions should last until the front containing the next TSH checkup passes through.  Conditions are also ripe for swift changes in emotional state, confusion and arguing.  Hungry horrors likely.  

Ow!

Long week already!  I actually think I fell asleep this afternoon while sitting at my desk trying to plow through the massive pile of essays on my desk.  I seem to be able to get through the day fine, and then every other day, crash by dinner time.  Today, I got some help from my favorite friend, DD. Iced hazelnut with cream--as a result, I'm a little wired at 10:07pm.  Dumb move, but it got me through the rest of the afternoon.

Highlight of the day was my hair appointment--cut and color every 6-8 weeks or so.  Last time I went, I was scared by how puffy I looked.  That has improved.  A little.  Tracy, my wonderful hair stylist/therapist, did her usual thing (no big changes needed at the moment).  She put the color in, made me look horrendous, put a plastic bag on my hair (not over my head!) and put me under the hair dryer.  I pulled out my pile of essays and got to work thanks to the coffee.  Within minutes, I felt like this:

AAAAGGGGHHHH!  I yelled over to Tracy who told me to quickly get my head out from under the hood...she told me not to go back under and hope that the gray would still take up the color....I sat for a little bit longer than I would have had I been under the heat.  Seems to be ok at the moment, but my head burned for about another hour--felt like I had a sunburn on my scalp.  I wonder if the RAI has anything to do with this?  I've never had that kind of a reaction before.  Funny thing though--when I sat down and Tracy touched my face, she told me I was really hot.  Strange since I had been sipping on iced coffee and had the air conditioning on in the car just before I went in.  I didn't feel any hot flashes....my system is so out of whack!  Mr. Wonderful thinks I should just let myself go gray since it would be more "natural".  Hellooooo--not feeling old enough to do that!!  Gray on a guy tends to look "distinguished".  Right now, on me, it would look like "frumpy schoolmarm".  Don't ever plan to go there thank you!

Breakfast with the AP kids tomorrow--tortilla espanola!  I got some chorizo, cheese and Maria cookies.  Hopefully someone else will bring donuts.  One of the kids who went to Spain last year asked me today if I knew  how to make a tortilla, and I stupidly said "Sí."  Then he asked if I would make one....so I did.

Mmmmmmm...of course once I told Sis that I was making one, she wanted to know if made her one too.  Turns out that I have enough to make another one later this week in case she's reading this!  

We are pretty much done for the year.  All I have to do (ha!) is finish the massive pile of essays.  I'd love to have them done and have my grades done for the weekend....one can hope.  

Off to bed if the caffeine will let me sleep....

Surgeon check-up

Had my check-up today with the surgeon!  It was the fastest  doctor visit ever and probably lasted a minute and a half. Literally, a minute and a half.  She made eye contact this time!  My scar looks fine ("Keep putting sunblock on it please"), it felt fine (to her, not to me--eww!), and she said I should expect to feel strange things there until the one year anniversary.  Usually I feel some weird tugging or suddenly become aware of swallowing, but she said that was normal.  She'll help out if Dr. N is out of town and I have meds issues, and she said that I don't have to go back to see her until next March.  Unless I can feel any lumps or bumps.  Which I hope I don't.  Ever.
It was a quick exam,  a quicker conversation and I was out of there.  I think my appointment was for 4:20--they took me a little early and I was in my car at 4:21.

Good news #2:  the metallic taste has finally left!  We had spicy Indian food last Thursday, and I swear that fixed it.  The metallic taste has gradually lessened since then, and I can taste things.  The glazed cruellers--delicious.

Bad news:  my nose hurts since the inside of it is still way too dry.  I'm hoping that will eventually go away as well--maybe I should go breathe in some curry?

Happy Bunker Hill Day!  Day off tomorrow for Bunker Hill Day....no complaints for me except it would have been fine with me to go to school and not have to go in on Monday the 28th.  Technically, we lost the battle anyway....

"Don't fire til you see the whites of their eyes..." 

"Irish Winter" in the Final 40!

Here's my photo that made the Final 40 in boston.com's RAW Landscapes photo contest!  

http://www.boston.com/community/photos/raw/2010/05/monthly_contest/landscapes_final40/#/29

I guess I did something right! Not a very original title, but that's the first thing that came to mind.  This is somewhere between Armagh and Omagh in Northern Ireland, taken as we drove from Newry to Donegal.  There was a diversion (detour to an American) from the main road, and we ended up on back roads for a couple of hours.  It was eerily beautiful that morning--everything, and I mean everything, was encased in ice.  It was foggy, misty, and only shades of white and gray for miles.  I had never seen anything like it.  You could even hear the ice crackling in the trees.  I was driving, and it was probably a good thing I was, because I would have been yelling at Mr. Wonderful to stop the car every few feet.  However, it was really difficult to find places to pull over, especially since the fog was so heavy.  I didn't want to get slammed by a lorry (truck)  while looking for the perfect shot!  I finally pulled into a lane and walked around happily clicking, listening to invisible cows bellowing in the fields I couldn't really see.   Mr. Wonderful stayed in the car, probably mumbling to himself that I was nuts and thinking about possible busses lurking around every corner.  The sun started to come out just after I took this one, and by noon most of the ice was gone and the stunning greens were reappearing everywhere.  We didn't have another morning like that one for the rest of the trip.  

This month's contest is "Lines and Curves".  I'm having a little more trouble finding shots with this theme...

Maybe I should turn this into next year's Christmas card?  

UPDATE:  Boston.com posted the Top Ten out of the Final 40...it didn't make the cut, but that's ok.  I was pysched to make it to the final 40!  The Top Ten gallery is now on the RAW section of boston.com.  

I'm (not) leavin' on a jet plane....

Fun:  being stuck at the Philly airport at 11pm waiting for a flight that is delayed an hour.  We should have left 45 minutes ago.  However, our plane is not here.  To quote the gate guy, "It's a weather situation."  There were thunderstorms here this afternoon, and I assume the East coast is messed up.
I drank a cup of coffee, so I'll be up til 3am or so.  Sigh.
We came to PA for the weekend for my brother-in-law's 50th birthday party and had a great time.  Good food and conversation, and the weather held up pretty well. Sis-in-law seems to have survived what she calls "TMF", or "Too much family time".  It's a family joke since at some point someone is being made fun of for various reasons.  Mother-in-law was happy to have all her chicks under one roof.
We had a good flight down, so I guess we're paying for it now on the return.
Can you explain to me why you have to pay $25 to check your bag at the check-in, but if you hold on to it until the gate and can't cram it on, you don't have to pay?  And you get the benefit of picking it up at the jetway?  That's not very fair, is it?
So we're waiting.
At least the Celtics won.
Finally boarding.  Flight is full.

UPDATE: Flight finally took off around 12:30am.  We managed to get home, as in in the condo, around 2:30.  After giving necessary attention to O'Malley and Mookie and figuring out what to wear for the later on, fell into bed around 3am.  *&^%$ alarm went off at 5:30, and here I am, back in school.  I'm so tired that everything hurts.  This will be a multiple cup of coffee day, especially since graduation is at 5pm.
Oh--the roof of my mouth is sore, and my nose is still killing me. Can I say freak show?  Add that to my lovely glasses I have to wear this morning since my eyes are too dry from lack of sleep to wear contacts, and I must look wonderful.   RAI, the gift that keeps on giving.  Shoot me now.

Bake at 450 for 185 days

Not trying to complain here, but I'm so done you should just put a fork in me, take me out of the oven and call it a day.

Yes, they really are little dictators.  Dictators of what I want to eat, dictators of my mood after I realize nothing tastes quite like it should...my tastebuds are still non-existent.  They have a very metallic taste and everything I eat or drink tastes, well, dull and flat.  I turned down a bowl of ice cream yesterday at our last mass faculty meeting, figuring what was the point to consuming calories if I couldn't actually enjoy them?  Maybe this will be a side benefit to the RAI and Hypo Hell.  Food is so unappetizing that eating seems pointless, so I won't gain weight?  Forget about going out to a restaurant!  That sensory pleasure is gone, and it had better be temporary.  If nothing else, I really like to enjoy food and play with recipes.  Last night I made rice and beans with chicken and chorizo, and I could barely taste the chorizo.  Chorizo is one of my ways to get a Spain fix. Didn't work so much last night. I loaded the pan up with cumin and adobo seasoning and garlic--I should make my sister taste it to see how bad it really is!   Also, my tongue feels like it's burnt, like I ate too many hot pieces of really cheesy pizza.  Not sure which sensation is worse.  My mouth feels a little dryer than usual too, but the water tastes like a piece of aluminum.  Or at least how I think a piece of aluminum would taste if I had to drink it.  Eww.

I don't see "aluminum foil" on there anywhere....

My eyes are dryer than normal--not a good combination with contact lenses. They feel as if I had fallen asleep for a few hours and left them in.  And really weird--the inside of my nose actually hurts.  TMI, I know, but it does!  It hurts on the inside if I touch it on the outside. Picture that one if you will!   If you live in New England, there's a point in the winter where the air is so dry sometimes from low humidity and high indoor heat  that it can feel like everything is dried out.  That's how my nose feels, but more intense and slightly painful.

I'm picturing everything above my neck just fried from the RAI.  I'm waiting for my salivary glands to block themselves up, but that could take a few more months.  Some people report  having issues 7-8 months AFTER the RAI--comes on with no warning.  Now I'm panicking, worrying that I didn't do everything "right" after the RAI.  What if that's the case and I could have prevented some of this?  What if it's impossible to prevent it all, and this is just how it has to be?   How many brain cells have been fried?

We're off to PA this weekend for my brother-in-law's 50th birthday.  I would really like to be able to taste some cake!

I think this rant is coming from my morning.  I woke up late.  Mookie wanted more attention than I could give him.  I left my lunch bag in school yesterday, so I had to improvise.  The Dunkin' Donuts parking lot was packed and I had to wait for a parking space. Despite my non-existent taste buds, I got a glazed crueller because they looked really good, and it was--really gooey, still warm, tasted like aluminum foil. I really should have skipped it, but since the day was already off to a shaky start, I figured I had nothing else to lose.  I forgot to put my coffee cup in the cupholder, and it tipped over as I went around a corner, spilling on the shoulder strap of my school bag and the floor of the car.  Most of metro Boston must have slept in due to the Celtics late finish last night (first 5 minutes of the game were fantastic), so there seemed to be a ton of traffic.  I got to school with 3 minutes to get to the main office to sign in and was almost late.  I am wearing a white sweater, so I couldn't use the shoulder strap on my bag with the coffee on it, and the bag is really heavy.  When we're late, we have to sign a different colored sheet of paper on the secretary's desk that seems to scream at you "YOU ARE LATE"--makes you feel like a kid again.  My homeroom is checked out even though finals start next week.  My first period class was the "Mute Group"--ever try to have a class discussion with a group of passive mutes who refuse to engage in anything???  Nothing, and I mean nothing,  interests/impresses/excites them--I showed a movie to all 4 sections of my Spanish 4 classes where a main character is tragically killed, and three of the sections were sobbing by the end.  I had to keep the lights off and hand out kleenex.  The Mute Group?  No response.  No reaction.  Other classes respond to my goofy jokes, will ask questions and will talk about stuff.  I hate starting my day off with the Mute Group.  I don't understand how they can be so passive.
Mute swans, I love.  Mute teenagers, not so much.  I swear I could dance across the front of the room naked wearing a sombrero and playing flaming maracas, and the Mute Group wouldn't bat an eyelash.  And I can assure you, it would not be a pretty scene!

Olé to you too.  

Sigh.  At least I'm not as puffy as I was a couple of weeks ago.
I think I hear a buzzer going off somewhere--order up!!

O'Malley. In the dryer.

Whew. What a week.

Made it through in one piece!  I'm a little tired, but not too bad, and much better than the first week back after the TT. I still have a metallic taste in my mouth, so when I eat something, the taste of it is dulled.  It's like I can barely taste things--so disappointing!  I had a few days right after the RAI where my tastebuds seemed fine, but not now.  It feels like my tongue is burned, and at different points during the day, the outer parts in the back tingle.  I've read about this as a side effect, and it sucks.  I've done all the stuff I'm supposed to do to ward off negative after-effects, so I hope this is it and that it passes eventually.

Other weird thing--my ankles were swollen last night!  A little freaky, but I guess being on my feet all week would do that?   I don't think that would be related to the RAI...they seem fine this morning.  I really need to think about getting back to exercising again.  I think I could start either biking or walking a little so that by the end of the month I'd have a routine established...I have been eating a ton of fruits and veg, and even avoided the free donut day at Dunkin's yesterday when I got my coffee.  Actually the glazed cruellers didn't look that good, and nothing else caught my eye.

Kids were back on track pretty quickly, and after a quick read of one group's essays from yesterday, they weren't too bad at first glance.  Not too many quibbles over grades.  Lots of laughable moments too.  I had to remind the AP kids that they had taken the test and could relax a little, that the pace could slow down now...to be honest, keeping my thoughts straight in English can be tough, never mind in Spanish!  We're doing a short story/movie mini unit, so it shouldn't be too bad. A bunch of the AP kids took the SAT II in Spanish and one scored a perfect 800 while 4 others scored in the 700s and 600s....wow!  I'm used to hearing them say they scored between 500 and 600.  The 4H  kids are going over the work they did while I was out.

I missed the senior prom too--too tired last night to get off the big chair and go back out.

Freaky moment from yesterday--as the kids were scribbling away about Lorca and the Generation of '27, I was figuring out senior grades.  I was unable to consistently use the calculator correctly!  I kept confusing the buttons and hitting the wrong ones over and over...the grades aren't due for a couple more days, so I'll have time to check them again.  It was so frustrating and surreal at the same time.  I had to laugh.  And it was one of my sped calculators that I used to use to teach middle school sped math, not a fancy complicated graphing calculator that I see my current kids using.  I don't even know how to turn those on.

Really?  I can't get this thing to work!  

I know it's June, but it doesn't feel like it to me yet.  Probably because the whole month of May was deleted and I'm not nearly as exhausted like I would be at the end of the year.

Happy note on my Dunkin' Donuts mug--it's the same as a medium coffee, but they only charge 99 cents per refill!  It's $1.92 for a medium coffee in a styrofoam bad-for-the-environment cup.  Keeps me from going through the drive through, but any extra exercise at this point is good.

Sad note--one of my former students was killed in a one-car accident the night before last.  She was only 22.  I remember her, and actually have a copy of something with her name on it in my files that she never made up, and it was the last copy of the paper I had.  I just saw it a couple of months ago.  She was a beautiful, sweet kid with some spunk and smarts to her--she would battle with me but could also make me laugh.  I guess school wasn't a good place for her--she dropped out after I left, but got her GED and was working her way into nursing school.  She was by no means stupid, and I remember spending time trying to convince her that she was smart and had so much potential.  She was an only child.  This is bothering me a lot today...hope you are now at peace, Sam.

Off to do some laundry and errands for the day...might take a nap later, we'll see.  Happy Saturday!

Back to life, back to realiteeeeee

I went back to work yesterday.  Been out for four whole weeks!!  I was originally freaked out about missing two weeks after the thyroidectomy, but this was a whole different story since I had no idea how long this whole Hypo Hell/RAI experience would take.

I love Calvin and Hobbes comics about school.  

One problem though--having some issues with insomnia, or just falling asleep at a decent hour so I get enough sleep.  I stopped taking the cytomel after yesterday since that might be it, and Dr. N said to take it for the first week and then stop; just .125 mcg of Levoxyl now.    I stayed up till 12:30 playing with iTunes and putting together prints/photo books on the Kodak gallery--40% off everything!  Yeah.  That didn't seem like a good idea when the alarm went off this morning!   I did ok and made it through the day in one piece.  Kind of tired now and should probably be in bed instead of writing this.

The kids were pretty funny--a couple of them know where I park, and by 7:27 I had kids passing by my room to see if it was true that I was in--that went on all day!  They actually did the work I left behind since the sub kept them quiet and working most of the time.  The class with the most discipline reports however gave me a Dunkin' Donuts gift card with a travel mug--coincidence?  No, they've been telling me that they were going to do that during the two weeks after the surgery but I didn't think they were serious.  Yesterday they handed me a giftbag saying that they all chipped in.   Most asked if everything was ok, and each group clapped when I explained that the cancer came back "undetectable" as of now.

As for the discipline reports, it was amazing to me how horrendous some of the behavior was and how the kids felt it was was justified because they didn't "like" the sub.  Stuff that they wouldn't do with me, like cut class, eat a sandwich, use and then argue over cell phones, yelling out, "I pooped my pants" or "Booty booty booty rockin' it"  and just being plain disruptive.   Disappointed in the entitled little demon children.  They all apologized to me and said they would get back on track.  We'll see....they have an essay on Friday.

Later during the morning the assistant headmaster paged my room looking for two kids and called me by the sub's name--apparently he missed the email and phone call that I was coming back, and he's  in charge of teacher attendance?  Again, I know we're a big school with a huge staff, but it kind of makes you wonder when the next level above you isn't even sure that you are physically in the building doing your job.

But, my colleagues put together a basket of goodies that I got yesterday, so that put a smile on my face.  It had some Spanish wine, a variety of books to read, all kinds of stuff to pamper myself--candles, tea, coffee, Maria cookies, chocolates, spa stuff.  My summer reading is all set, but the wine and chocolate won't last long.  Good wine too--Marques de Caceres!   Someone in Salamanca said that was a good one.  Lots of stuff to play with in there.  Other people have been stopping by my room to say hi and express their surprise since they had no idea I had been out.  It's weird--you get to know people really well one year because either you have similar schedules or are geographically located in the same place in the building.  Then it all changes the following year because you no longer have the same free period or someone's room is relocated.  Doesn't do much for building cohesiveness or collegiality among the faculty.  I can still enjoy my basket though!

And that's where I'm at so far.  The LID food is almost gone--one more meatloaf in the freezer, and one more container of black bean soup.  I even have some stuff that will last in the back of the cabinet until next year's bout with the LID.

Off to bed...