Important Nerdy Happenings

By now, you should know that things like this keep me going in life.

See the date on that poster?? 23 November 2013. THAT IS IN TWO DAYS. This is a huge episode because it marks the 50 year anniversary from the very first episode of Doctor Who. It will be broadcast simultaneously in 80 different countries!

Madelyn has had it marked on our calendar for months.

The TARDIS stationed at Buckingham Palace....

 The royals threw a DW party (four of the Doctors were in attendance).  I am beside myself with excitement. The Day of the Doctor going to have my two favorite Doctors on screen together! And Rose! (And you find out what really happened during the Time War, and who John Hurt's Doctor is, etc.) Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

We may or may not be traveling a few hundred miles to be with my sister Megan for the event. She has cable and we don't, and therefore we are going. (To be fair, we had been wanting to go up and see her anyway, and go to IKEA, etc. Just happened to fall on that day.)

Here is a trailer!

 Also, there's only three weeks left till the second Hobbit movie comes out. (*Squeeeeeeee*) It has been a long year waiting for it. I am currently rereading the book and even though I already know what's going to happen, it is going to be so much more exciting fleshed out in movie form. I don't even have a problem with the changes Peter Jackson has made.

A summation of the plot:

We get to meet the elvenking Thranduil (on top--Legolas' father), Thorin puts his sassy pants back on, Gandalf goes in search of the Necromancer and Bilbo saves the dwarves' behinds over and over again. Plus there will be the dragon Smaug (motion capture acting and voice done by Benedict Cumberbatch) and Bard the Bowman and Beorn and giant spiders and IT WILL JUST BE EPIC. Advance tickets are now on sale. I sincerely wish we lived somewhere where we could see it in IMAX.

And lastly, this week USPS released a set of Harry Potter stamps! I went to the post office yesterday and asked for some, and the lady looked at me like I was crazy. She'd "never heard of there being any Harry Potter stamps....maybe next year...." and I told her they had been released on Tuesday and she still didn't believe me. (Inwardly screaming)

Anyway, they ARE real, and you can buy them here from usps.com.

Have a great weekend.

POTS and IST

These pictures have nothing to do with this post. We just got several new fish on Saturday and since they each look different, we named them. Madelyn came up with Thorin, Fili, Kili, and Bombur (someone is obsessed with The Hobbit...) and we also have a Petri III, Fungus III, Gandalf and Speedy Gonzales. We already had a Gollum (our giant algae eater) and some other nondescript fish. They are the best pets! We've had fish the whole time we've been married.

Anyhoo, I have been meaning to post but last week was sort of awful and I had nothing to post about. I do have some news about my heart, though. Ready for a long ramble??

On last Friday morning, I was scheduled to go in at 8:55 am for a stress echocardiogram at the hospital. I had been DREADING it and was so nervous that I wasn't going to have the energy to do it. And so of course the night before I threw up and couldn't get any sleep. (The throwing up was because I'm still nauseous 50% of the time at night.) So, off to a swimming start!

I had to wait for a half an hour but they finally brought me back to radiology and hooked me up to about 12 different wires all over my chest and neck, and then took an echocardiogram (ultrasound) of my heart. My cardiologist Dr. Manchanda and a couple members of his team were right there in the room with me and he was able to tell me right away that my heart is physically fine and that there's no arrhythmia or valve prolapse going on. (Not surprising, since my echo from 2009 showed the same thing.)

My heart was going pretty fast, though, and my blood pressure was low. It's amusing that every time his nurses have checked me, they'd remark about that, and I'd say, "I know....that's why I'm here...." Hah.

Next, I was supposed to run on a treadmill for six minutes. This is the part I was dreading so much because I have NEVER been able to run very well. Even when I was a ballerina dancing 3 hours a day, I could never handle running or as much jumpy stuff as the other dancers. It always made me feel like collapsing. And since I've become pregnant, my physical tolerance for exercise has gone down to zero.

So I stood up to get ready to run, and after a few seconds, my blood pressure dropped so much that I got a little dizzy (I didn't say anything, just blinked hard a few times.). They had me lie down again and Dr. Manchanda came and felt my pulse in my wrist. They took my blood pressure while I was lying down, then had me stand up and took it again, while the doctor was still feeling my pulse. My blood pressure went from 110/50 to 100/60 (or something) and since I was still hooked up to the wires, they could see my heart rate jump up to about 120 at the same time. I also almost blacked out from the sudden drop in blood pressure. They seemed alarmed, but I told them that it happens to me every day and always has (which is true) and that it stabilizes within a few seconds and then I'm fine.

After all that, Dr. Manchanda said he wasn't comfortable with me running on the treadmill, and I was like, "Yay! I have always had trouble running." and he said, "Well, no wonder..." He said from what he had seen, he didn't need me to run anyway because my diagnosis was clear. I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS).

He had me get dressed and come down to his office, where he sat and looked over my heart monitor readings from the past two weeks and also talked about POTS and our treatment options. Basically, the fludrocortizone drug he might have put me on to help my kidneys retain more salt is not pregnancy approved, so I have to start taking salt pills. 

YUM!

Better than eating actual salt, I guess. I don't like salty foods so now I just have to swallow about 6 of these a day. It should increase my blood pressure and volume. I couldn't find them anywhere in town, so I'm waiting for a delivery from Amazon before I can start taking them.

I am still trying to figure out exactly what POTS is, and from my first visit with Dr. Manchanda, it sounds like I also have overlapping symptoms of Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia (IST), hypotension and hypovolemia. So here's the gist:

hypotension: low blood pressure

hypovolemia: low blood volume

IST: Elevated heart rate not related to postural changes or activities. Might explain why my heart rate shoots up to 120-150 when doing mundane things like sorting laundry, showering, or even just sitting on the couch or at church. Right now, I've just been parked here at the computer for quite a while and my heart rate is 112. Symptoms include palpitations, lightheadedness, dizziness, flushing, sweating, and shortness of breath.

POTS: Falls in blood pressure accompanied by increased heart rate when standing or eating. Symptoms are the same as IST, including my favorite: darkening of the visual field (blacking out), but also might include fatigue, gastrointestinal problems, nausea, early satiety, bloating, and constipation.

I have had all of the symptoms I just listed, but since I'm pregnant, a lot of the digestive woes and fatigue come with that territory, too. So either way, I'm hoping for some relief soon, either from the salt pills working miracles or from my hormones leveling out since I'm finally in the 2nd trimester.

I know I have had these heart issues since I was a teenager, but pregnancy hormones have made everything exponentially worse. That is apparently common, and once I deliver (have I mentioned that this is our last baby?? I can't go through all this crap again.) my condition should improve. 

I went through a heart monitor, echocardiogram and the whole 9 yards while I was pregnant with Luke, too, but my cardiologist then was a moron and just blew it all off as nothing. I'm so glad to have a wonderful doctor now who took the time to get a proper diagnosis.

...................................................................................................................................................................

In other news: we had our house appraised last Monday (managed to get the house and yard spotless--it nearly killed me but it got done) and......it appraised just a tad too low. UGH. It is basically worth what we paid for it (could be worse) but since we have done so much work on the property, we were hoping for a little more. But I have faith in our mortgage broker that he's still going to make the refinance work. Because otherwise we are doomed and still have to pay $450 for the appraisal.

Also: last week got news of the $3,500 in doctor bills we now owe, not including the heart monitor or echocardiogram I just had. And Christmas is coming. And Madelyn's birthday. And our anniversary. *hoo heee hooo hee* (practicing labor breathing, serenity now.......)

Pray for us.

Health update. And the TARDIS!

So! Another week has come and gone. I am *somewhat* feeling better and getting more energy. I have been able to go run errands a few times this week  (although I still get really tired and sometimes nauseous afterwards). A couple mornings ago, Mark said to me, "It's so nice to have you back from the dead! You don't know how hard this first trimester has been on me!"

.................oh really.

But anyway, I have some new developments to add. On Halloween morning, I went to see a cardiologist in town to try and sort out why my heart seems to race for no reason. We pretty much are agreed that I have tachycardia and hypotension (low blood pressure), but until he knows exactly why, we can't go forward with any treatment. I do have a family history--most everyone in my immediate family has heart racing issues and my sister Meg had to have surgery this year to fix hers.

 

So I'm back on a heart monitor for 30 days (hopefully less). Although I wore one for 3 weeks while I was pregnant with Luke, the monitor wasn't as good and would only record events if I pressed a button, and none of the actual readings are on file anymore. And furthermore, the cardiologist from St. George who reviewed the data and had me do an EKG in his office back then was described as being a "jerk" by BOTH the nurse practicioner and my new doctor (and by me, and by my OB--he totally was a jerk). He said he doesn't want that guy touching my case with a 50 foot pole.

Anyhoo, this new monitor records everything 24/7, with actual people keeping an eye on the readings up in northern Utah somewhere. It is more of a hassle because I have to sleep with it on, and make sure to change the batteries twice a day, and keep the phone transmitter thing charged, and it has to always be within 10 feet at me or it freaks out. And the electrodes hurt like a mother when you have to peel them off and change them every day. Oh, and for the first 4 days, one of the wires wasn't even working properly, so I had to go get a new monitor once the clinic finally reopened on Monday. I'm going to be peeved if all that data goes to waste from those first few days!

But unless I have an actual arrhythmia (which I don't think I do, my heart beats regularly, just fast), there won't be anything they can do about it. The doctor said that sometimes an otherwise healthy heart will accelerate "inappropriately". You would expect your heart to get over 100 beats per minute if you were exercising, but not to get to 100-140 just by eating breakfast, or taking a shower, or sorting laundry, or just plain sitting around, like it does to me.

I also have the problem of low blood pressure, which I've always had. Not really sure why either, but he said it could be because I don't have enough sodium in my blood. Which might be treatable, but since I'm pregnant he doesn't want to try to raise my blood pressure because then it might lead to preeclampsia and all that garbage. So in the meantime, eat more salt? I guess it's worth a try.

Loving the uncertainty!

Next Friday I have to go do a stress echocardiogram while I run on a treadmill, which sounds like a death knell to me. I've never been able to run worth a darn--cue flashbacks to middle and high school PE--turns out it's because I have a heart problem! Hello...

Also (sorry this is really longwinded) on Halloween morning I had to go get 7 vials of my blood drawn, which I'd totally been dreading because I usually black out or dry heave when that's done. But I laid down and it actually went pretty well! Of course, it being Halloween, I still had like 8 more hours of stuff I had to do, and it was a very tiring, long day. I was a blob for the rest of the weekend.

My blood work (routine pregnancy screenings) all came back normal, good news. My urine culture came back and said I have a UTI. Bad news! I haven't had any symptoms other than some cloudiness, which has been going on for weeks and weeks. Sheesh! So now I'm on antibiotics.

Then I went to the dentist yesterday. I'm so excited to be getting all these medical bills in the mail.

My friend Anya, who is way too nice to me, surprised me with this in the mail yesterday:

ISN'T IT BRILLIANT!!?!??

She said she was going to wait till Christmas, but since I've been feeling so lousy as of late, she finished it early because thought it should be keeping me company "as you lay half-dead on the couch" (which I still spend a lot of time doing). THANK YOU ANYA! Ahh, so nice to have caring friends! She's had heart issues and has been through pregnancy twice as many times as me, so she KNOWS, man. I converted her to Doctor Who, so it's kind of our thing now. In fact, before I even opened the package, I thought, "I hope it's a TARDIS blanket!" :) She crocheted me this mini TARDIS and 10th Doctor for my birthday, so I'm like forever in her debt now.

I'll post more if I find anything out from all this testing!

P.S. We are in the process of refinancing, and got a horrifying call this afternoon saying our house appraisal is going to be happening MONDAY MORNING. I haven't had a clean house in two months, y'all. Wish me luck this weekend.

Halloweeny

So, Halloween!! It seems to get crazier every year, am I right?? The kids sure had fun, though.

Madelyn dressed up four different times. Luckily she has a lot of dress up outfits in her closet...

 

 She was a mermaid for her friend Kamryn's party (bought this costume 2 years ago and it was way too big, finally she got to wear it)

She was a pirate at her gymnastics party

And a witch at school!

 Luke decided to be a skeleton for his preschool party. Not the first year we've used jammies as a costume. (See him as Superman here.)

His preschool class got to go trick-or-treating at the businesses in their strip mall. So cute!

 

 On Tuesday, we finally got around to carving pumpkins.

Mark and Luke were quite pleased with their Pac-Man and Pac-Man ghost.

For their "real" Halloween costumes, I had ordered them back in July. They were going to be Aragorn and Arwen, my favorite Lord of the Rings characters! You know...

 

 

  

I didn't realize that the original sword that I ordered was a Ringwraith sword and it was ridiculously huge. Luke still loves it, though.

 

 So I ordered a child size Aragorn "Strider" sword, and it was a much better size. And so good at stabbing air cushions!

 But then I found it broken a few days before Halloween! Enter plastic cement and duct tape. It blended right in, so, whatever.

Madelyn's dress was a little plain...

 

I searched around stores until I found some flexible sequin braid and added it to the neckline with a needle and filament (and a couple hours of hand sewing). It's not much, but it added a lot of sparkle.

 Then, the night before Halloween, I tried my hand at making a circle skirt out of white tricot using this tutorial and made a long underskirt for her costume. And a shorter one for kicks.

And I had to hem Luke's cloak by 7 inches, and his tunic sleeves by 2 inches. I'm telling you, it was a Halloween miracle that I was able to do any of this, because I was feeling really cruddy and tired all week. The things I do for my kids!!

Madelyn looked absolutely beautiful as Lady Arwen, though! We got her Evenstar pendant and head chain from Amazon. She had a thermal shirt of mine on underneath, thick tights, and her white underskirt, because it was only around 55° outside at the trunk-or-treat. We also sprayed silver glitter hairspray in her hair.

 

 I am just really happy that Luke wore his costume at all! He is not really into dressing up and he hadn't tried on his Aragorn costume until right before we left the house. He had just come down with a nasty cold the night before and was tired and not feeling well. He was crying while Mark was getting him dressed and freaking out that he was putting a "dress" on him (the tunic). Haha, poor kid.

His LOTR Elven leaf brooch was also from Amazon.

This makes me happy. :) I love LOTR, and the kids love the movies (at least Madelyn does) and it's good to see another generation enjoying them. Their grandma Yoder, who is 75, just finished rereading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. So we gotta keep it in the family!

No one seemed to know who they were dressed up as, but that's ok. This was done to please ME.

 

 The stake trunk-or-treat was fun.

 This is our friend Jack, as Nacho Libre. His little sister was dressed as Sister Encarnacion, but I didn't manage to get her in the picture. Love it!

We were done in 40 minutes (aka ran out of candy) and the kids got quite the haul!

 Paul, Nikki and Cove came to visit and bring us cookies.

  

 Then, Mark and the kids went back out to canvas the neighborhood. Good grief! The kids have soo much candy!

 We finally wrapped up the night playing with the rest of the dry ice, watching The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special, eating candy, and getting Madelyn cleaned up and in bed since it was a school night.

PHEW!!!!!!

This is really happening

I am currently incubating another baby. I KNOW.

We always knew we wanted at least one more, but it was really hard to take the plunge. Things were good with just Luke and Madelyn. Our lives were predictable and comfortable. I don't have to buy diapers all the time. I get sleep. I even get a few hours to myself when Luke is at preschool! But I realized that if we didn't hurry and get pregnant, I'd probably talk myself out of it forever. As it is, Luke and the baby will be 4 3/4 years apart, just like he and Madelyn are (which is actually a great age gap, if you ask me). But still, once I did get pregnant, I panicked. WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING?!?! Pregnancy is the worst! We don't have enough room for another kid! We're going to be stuck with paying for every single bill ourselves! (Lousy insurance.)

But it's too late now! Haha.



I am really grateful that we are able to have another one, and know that he or she will be loved to pieces.

But, y'all.

For the past 6 weeks I have had to struggle with not feeling good and not being able to tell anybody, and keep up appearances of still being a functioning human being. Showing up for stuff, completing assignments. Driving the kids everywhere. Getting dressed. (If you ask Mark or the kids, though, all attempts at cooking, cleaning and parental responsibility at home have pretty much ceased on my part and we are living in squalor. Which is true...)

I haven't had quite as much nausea as with the other two. Madelyn's pregnancy was unspeakably horrible and I had hyperemesis gravidarum. I still threw up a couple dozen times with Luke and was super tired. This time has been markedly better in some ways, but I've still been dealing with a lot of crap. I'm going to record it now for posterity's sake, and because I have weeks worth of venting to do. Ready???

I felt fine for the first 5 weeks or so. Then I started to get tired really easily--just in time for Luke's birthday and our family pictures!

Then I became lactose intolerant (?!?), which I have never been in my life! I was starving all the time and hypoglycemic...I couldn't keep my blood sugar stable. But every time I ate anything with milk products in it, it felt like a lead weight in my stomach. I had similar problems with Madelyn's pregnancy, and it was NOT COOL. Finally after two weeks of that nonsense, I hauled myself over to my allergist in St. George who does NAET and had him treat me for milk/calcium/various other digestive enzymes. He was like, "You can just avoid milk products..." NO I CANNOT. I CAN'T LIVE THIS WAY. (Milk, cheese, cream cheese, sour cream, yogurt, chocolate, hello....)

Anyway, after that I was okay eating that stuff again, but still struggled with being starving all the time but not being able to find anything appealing to eat. And when I would finally decide on something, I could only have like, four bites. And everything turns into gas. The few times I've thrown up have been because of a big burp that was not forthcoming. Fun huh. Oh and then I had the biggest breakout of my life all over my face, which lasted for a few weeks. Stupid hormones.

Have you ever had a really bad case of the flu before? And when you finally decide to cross back over into the land of the living, you have absolutely no energy left? I have spent so much time napping and just lying around, it it ridiculous. I can't get enough sleep. Even if I sleep all day, I'm exhausted. And what is truly telling is that stuff that drives me nuts at any other time, i.e. dirty house, not being able to do projects/crafts, going whole days without getting out of my pajamas, not cooking, I have honestly not cared about it one iota. I'm just TOO TIRED! I had to abruptly stop my nightly walks and my Pilates classes, because by about 6:00 pm I can no longer do anything but lie down. When I overdo it during the day, I usually end up nauseous at night. I've been going through a lot of Phenergan gel.

I have been feeling better in the mornings, and sometimes get up and go places. I can usually manage to get a couple errands done if I need to, but then I have to rest for the remainder of the day. Two days ago, I had to get up and go do visiting teaching at 9:30 am (after a long night of Luke constantly coming into our bed), and was doing that and other errands for a few hours. I came home and ate lunch and then had to spend the next SEVEN HOURS lying down recovering, and then just went to bed. It is so frustrating!

I find myself watching a lot more TV, and I lie there and scrutinize everyone I see: "They don't look sick. They probably feel great. Lucky &*^@(%#@(^#s." Yesterday, I was getting lapped by old people at Walmart. That did not help.



We went and saw Dr. Sanders (who delivered my other two, love him) last Thursday, and to our surprise, we got to have an ultrasound! He has the latest 3D machine that does color and it is so cool.

 It was a HUGE relief to see that there really was a baby in there, and that I wasn't being crabby and exhausted and hormonal for no reason, haha. The baby was measuring two days ahead of schedule, but he kept my due date at May 19th 2014.

We finally told the kids about their new baby brother or sister that day when we had the photos. Luke pretty much took it in stride, "Okay!" He has talked to my belly and given it some kisses.

Madelyn, who has been really worried about me and keeps making me get well cards, had just come home from school when we told her, and her eyes went really wide and (between shoving huge bites of banana in her mouth) said, "HOLY CRAP!" And "That is so weird." Hahahahhahahaha. But now she is just excited and hoping that it's a little sister.

Everything is looking great so far with the baby, and Dr. Sanders said I should be feeling better pretty soon. But my heart issues have come back. Remember how I had to wear a heart monitor for a month while I was pregnant with Luke? I was diagnosed with tachycardia back then, and we initially thought it was just pregnancy related, but it's not. It's something I've had for at least 15 years or so, and it just gets worse with pregnancy. My heart races really fast and it's really uncomfortable. It gets as high as 140 beats per minute when I come out of a hot shower. But even just sitting and eating breakfast, sometimes it's up to 120.

I'm going to a cardiologist tomorrow to see if I need to get put back on a beta blocker, which should help slow my heart down. BUT, it will also lower my blood pressure, which is low to begin with, so then we start with the dizziness and lightheadedness. It's either that or feel like I'm having a heart attack five times a day. I don't know which is worse.

So here I am at 11 weeks! Nothing to show yet, which means I can still sleep on my stomach. Ahhh. I actually lost 3 lbs this past month. I'll be happy to get a belly in exchange for the ability to eat again.

My follow up pregnancy posts should hopefully be a little less whiny!

And a HUGE thank you to my dear husband, who has been incredibly patient, long suffering and helpful and willing to get takeout, and has not batted an eye when he comes home for lunch to find me still in my jammies and the house still a mess, as he is about to do right now.

Now, on to Halloween! If I can just manage to get the kid's costumes ready today. Wish me luck.