A Good Week

There's definitely some truth to the idea that sometimes the anticipation of something is worse than it actually happening. The first week of being 35 has actually been a pretty good week.

Nothing particularly exciting happened; I've just been in a good mood for some reason. On Monday, a co-worker who is trying to get pregnant brought in a book to show me - Dr. Robert Green's Perfect Hormone Balance for Fertility. And while I've been content to think of a transfer as something far off in the future, the energy to deal with infertility is actually slowly returning.

I ordered the book, because I have his Perfect Balance: Look Younger, Stay Sexy, and Feel Great, and when R and I followed the book's 2-week sample menu for a couple months, the results were amazing. We lost weight, my skin was the clearest it's been since about the 1st grade, R's incredibly sensitive stomach was sensitive no more, and his nails went from being brittle and cracked to totally normal. So I'm interested to see what the fertility book will bring. It didn't look like it has a menu, but my co-worker said it's the best book she's read on fertility so far.

I've also lost just over 20 pounds as of this past week, so I'm happy about that too. Ideally I'd still like to lose another 80 pounds (dream weight), or at least another 60 pounds (very healthy weight), but realistically I'll be lucky if I lose another 40 pounds (still technically "overweight" according to all the charts) between now and whenever we do a transfer. But at least "overweight" is better for a pregnancy than "obese" is, which is still the category I fall into at this point.

My thyroid is still freaking out. Last month's test showed my TSH was 0.005, which is very low. I'm actually quite glad, because at least I'm not going crazy imagining symptoms, they really are happening. I'm supposed to have a thyroid uptake scan this week or next to determine if it really is thyroiditis or if it's regular hyperthyroidism.

My dad is doing ok. I'm probably going to see him again in a few weeks, possibly to accompany him to his next doctor's appointment. His first round of chemo pills last month reduced the cancer cells to 6% of his blood (down from 25%).

However, because he didn't go completely into remission, he's been kicked out of the study he was in. His doctor has given him a couple different options. It sounds like the preferred route is another round of chemo pills, but this time for 17 days instead of 7. Since he's no longer in the study, the pills aren't free, so he's trying to find out if his insurance will cover them. If not, it's about $10,000 for the 17 days, and it's not guaranteed that he won't need additional pills.

The other option is a more aggressive form of chemo taken as a hospital in-patient, but I don't think it's been determined whether insurance will cover that, either, and it's more risky because it could damage his kidneys and start to shut down his organs.

Overall, though, he's handling it with amazingly good spirits, which makes it easier for me to handle, too.

Here's hoping for another happy week this week.