Bloggin' 'Bout Birthdays and Books

Today is my birthday and I feel like bloggin'. Because if I don't, my reader might be disappointed. This could very well be the first birthday I can remember having that I'm not making a whole big thing out of. Remember the year I had everyone comment anonymously and I had to figure out who they were? And then the year I said I wanted as many comments as possible and I got hundreds? That was awesome. This year, I'm a little eh about my big day. Maybe it's cause it's on a Sunday, the first Sunday birthday I've had in 14 years. (Doesn't add up you say? Figure it out.) Or maybe it's because it's been completely overshadowed by the fact that it's tacked on to the end of one of the most emotionally draining weeks I've had in a long time.

This week was impossibly one of the worst weeks and one of the best weeks of my life at the same time, for two completely separate reasons. I won't delve into why it was one of the worst, but I will say why it was one of the best: because after three years and a lifetime of dreaming, I finished my book. That's right, I finished it. I've written a book. A whole book. It doesn't seem real, like something I really did, but I did! I wrote a book. And tomorrow I'm going to send it in to my publisher at which time we will set a release date. Wait, did you hear that? That was me peeing my pants with excitement. You know how people say something feels like a dream, like it can't be real? They're not kidding. This never seems real. I wake up every day thinking at any minute Ashton Kutcher's gonna pop out from behind my couch with a camera and tell me I've been Punk'd. That would be more believable than this.

So you can see how a little thing like a birthday might not be such a big deal in light of other, bigger things happening. Especially a Sunday birthday. Especially a Sunday birthday that I'm turning 32 on. Blech. Not being super over-the-top ridiculously excited about my birthday? I feel like such a grown-up.

All Day She Wrote

I am beyond exhausted and I just need to write something that isn't making my brain hurt.

It's one week till D-Day (Deadline). I can't believe it. The past few months came and went so fast, the last few weeks have gone by in a blur. Each day that passes is one less day I have to finish this book. I've made a ton of progress, thank goodness. But oh, the stress. My headaches have been out of control. I go to bed with one every night and wake up with one every morning, which I've almost never done. Fortunately they go away from mid-morning till the evening, which is when I do almost all my writing, otherwise I don't know what I'd do. Today I went to my chiropractor (aka cousin Marshall) and he couldn't believe how messed up my back and neck were. He said, "You're stressed, huh?" Uh, YEAH! I even had a shoulder out of place. What?? Crazy. I left there feeling like a new woman.

It's amazing how draining sitting in front of a computer all day trying to think of what to write next can be. Seriously, exhausting. Plus, I can't take naps cause it's precious writing time (okay, I still manage to squeeze one in every few days) so I'm that much more tired. Plus, I'm nearing the end (for real this time, not like last time when I just thought I was) and I still have absolutely no idea how it should end. Every angle I take I wind up in a corner somewhere with no way out. In fact, I thought I had it figured out today only to learn that, no, it won't work. Neither did Plan B. Now it's after 10:00 which means it's too late to call my Idea Bouncer Offer, and pointless to email my Help! I Need Advicer because she won't be able to respond till tomorrow.

So I'm blogging. And playing Words With Friends whenever an alert pops up saying it's my turn.

The good news is I got my title back (Emerald City) and I know for a fact the cover is going to be a-mazing. Seriously, whenever I'm having a day like today and I think I'm going to wind up in the hospital for exhaustion or a mental breakdown before Friday comes, I just think of my cover and all the stress and anxiety just floats away. It's not finished yet, but I have an idea of how it will look and you are going to LOVE it. (Yes, all of you.)

So, that's my life right now. My poor kids will be haunted for the rest of their lives by the phrase, "Sorry, kiddo, I have to write." Oh well, maybe by then I'll be rich off of royalty checks and I'll be able to get them the best therapy money can buy.

Oh, and something else making my life soooo much better right now? My freaking awesome friends who are taking turns bringing me dinner three times a week. I can't even tell you how wonderful it is to realize it's 5:30 and not have to play Rock, Paper, Scissors with Bill to see who has to go get McDonald's. My cup runneth over.

Well...I'm out of things to say. I guess that means it's back to writing. My hands are actually swollen, I'm not kidding.

This is my dream coming true, this is my dream coming true, this is my dream coming true...

Still...More Cakes

Okay, so apparently all it takes is for me to be completely, utterly stressed out and avoiding what I really need to be doing to finally get my butt to my desktop and post the rest of my cakes. So here they are, minus my most recent two. They'll come next.

Mother's Day Cake

This was in my Level 1 Wilton class, learning to do buttercream roses (not an easy thing to do, at least not for me). But I have to admit, I was happy with the result. I turned it into a Mother's Day cake (I think I put the apostrophe in the wrong spot, although grammatically it makes more sense to put it after the "s." The day is for all mothers, is it not?) The best part was when I brought it to our Mother's Day dinner with my family, my dad was all disappointed that I brought a store-bought cake. Best. Compliment. Ever.

Clown Cake (aka Blake's Blessing Day Cake)

This was my second Wilton class cake. Buttercream clowns. Yum. I "made it my own" by changing the colors to light blues and greens instead of the obnoxious primary colors they used in the book and turned it into a baby boy cake for my friend Brenda's baby boy, who was blessed the day after I made this. I think my favorite part about making all those cakes (besides decorating them) was working them into any possible reason to celebrate so I could give them away.

Rainbow Cake

First cake ever. Yes, you can totally tell. (Please note I would never have chosen to make a clown cake or a rainbow cake of my own accord.) Not much to say about this one, except that by the time I was done, I never wanted to shoot frosting out of a star tip again. Oh, and it fell on Macy's birthday.

Tomato Cake

This cake also makes me laugh. Because it's a freaking tomato. That's a cake. But when Payson's birthday rolled around, I knew it was what I had to make. (Because the boy eats tomatoes like they're chocolate.) If I were to make this now, I would make it a tad more tomato-shaped and, well, just plain better. But for being my second fondant cake, it was a pretty cute little tomato.

Mario Cake

So my Brenda has been so fortunate as to be the recipient of not one, but two of my cakes. Lucky her. This one, however, gives me the warm fuzzies because she bid on a cake made by me in an online auction to help my aunt who has breast cancer. And she won! And it made my day. She requested a cake that had anything to do with Super Mario Bros. for her son's 6th birthday party. I knew I would never in a million years be able to sculpt a Mario, or any character for that matter, so I bought Nathan a little birthday present and stuck a Mario figurine in the top. Brenda, you can't tell me now that you don't see how lopsided it was!!

That's it for past cakes. Coming up, my two faves to date: treasure chest and Macy's 10th birthday cake!

Blah Blah More Health Crap

Hiya. I'm really really gonna try to make this short.

So...finally, got all the lab test results back. And.....................................a big. fat. SIGH. Sigh because of course it's great news to hear you don't have celiac, and that you don't have the MTHFR gene mutation, along with not having any common food allergies, or any food allergies that anyone knows of, and that everything else checks out fine and dandy with the exception of high blood sugar and the ten kinds of trees that I'm apparently pretty allergic to. Great news, but a big fat sigh cause...now what. That's the $1,000,000 question. Well, this is the "now what" that my doctor and I came up with: diet and exercise to control my blood sugar (these doctors and their radical treatment ideas) and taking an antacid daily for my acid reflux, along with actually avoiding the list of foods I was given four years ago that make my reflux go crazy, which it has been lately, and which I'm thinking is the most likely suspect in this case. As for the trees that don't like me, well, seeing as I don't know an elm from a cottonwood or a birch, it's probably gonna be pretty challenging for me to avoid them. Plus I can guarantee their crap is blowing all over the place in this lovely Pasco wind. But doc and I didn't talk about those, so, that's on the back burner of my treatment right now.

So, besides a few OTC meds, it's diet and exercise. Really? After all the garbage, all the testing, the procedures, the meds, etc. it comes down to diet and exercise. Ohhhh, I get it, like being healthy. Interesting. I guess I'll have to give this "being healthy" thing the old college try. Watch, I'll probably try it and something crazy will happen, like I'll suddenly lose all this weight, or something bizarre like, have energy. Ha! Wouldn't that be something.

So that's my health update as it stands now on this here 4th of April. We'll see how it plays out from here. In the meantime, hopefully I can start blogging about interesting things again.

Spring Break....wake me up when it's over.

Results Show...

So today I got my lab results. And as backwards as it sounds, I am ecstatic because I tested positive for something. Somethings, actually. Let's see if I can remember all this. First my doctor told me that the food allergy panel came back normal, but that I had some serious antibody resistance to several environmental allergens. This was surprising, because that makes me think pollen, hay, pet dander, etc. and I've never had an allergy to anything like that before (that I've known of). Next she told me that all the general stuff that they tested, like anemia, kidney function, liver function, Vitamin E, etc. was all normal. She said, however, that my glucose/blood sugar levels were a tad high. Like, tiptoeing across the line of diabetic. Like, one number below the number where you're insulin dependent. They tested my levels now, which were high, and for the last three years, which were high, and have been steadily increasing. I asked her if this was a result of my diet of 40% carbs, 60% sugar, and she said maybe, but not necessarily, that people who are becoming insulin dependent start to crave carbs and sugar like crazy, so actually that's what could have been making me want nothing but sugar to eat. Yeah, we'll go with that theory. So, she said, we need to watch that. You think?

Then she brought up the one I'd been waiting for: celiac. She said this was what she wanted to talk to me about. Here we go, I thought. We have a winner. She told me I tested the same as I did four years ago (halfway positive) but that I only got tested for part of the celiac panel. Apparently she made a mistake and ordered a "complete" celiac test and not an "extensive" test. Luckily the lab people can still test my blood they already have for those other two things and I should hear back in a day or so. She did make it sound like it's a pretty good possibility that I have it, and depending on what these other tests say, she may want me to have another endoscopy/biopsy. THIS time with gluten in my system.

Then she asked me if I've ever heard of the gene mutation called MTHFR. My jaw literally dropped because my friend Mary Ann, the absolute guru of all things food allergies/digestive issues/etc. had told me about this MTHFR just a few weeks ago, the first time I'd ever heard of it. She said it's a hereditary gene mutation that can cause a lot of the problems I'm experiencing, and often goes hand in hand with celiac. I decided to wait to see what this testing showed before bringing it up to my doctor. So when my doctor (who is actually a PA but I love her) told me I should really consider being tested for it, I just couldn't believe it. Mary Ann, you really should be getting paid for this. Anyway, they can't test my blood that they already have for MTHFR so I have to go in and have more drawn and then she'll get those results back in a day or so. So, we'll see if I have that.

So, no definite answers yet, but finally getting somewhere. I start to get hopeful and excited and then I catch myself and think, "No. Don't. It can't actually be happening. After so many years of feeling like crap I can't actually be getting an answer, I won't suddenly start feeling better due to some simple findings." I just can't believe it. But I guess we'll just have to see. I think I'm pretty due. I've done my time, I'm ready to collect on some reward here.

In the meantime, I get to report for jury duty at eight bloody thirty in the morning tomorrow! So super excited. Except I'm not. At all. Unless by excited you mean completely dreading it and having serious anxiety about being trapped in a courtroom all day, then, yes, I'm out of my mind with excitement.

"So...good news. I saw a doc today."

So I saw my regular physician today. It. Went. Awesome. We were both completely on the same page. She ordered up a lab workup of all the general stuff, just to be sure, (like thyroid, cholesterol, all that good stuff), but she added anemia, Vitamin B, celiac, and..........drumroll......
a whole food allergy panel. They'll test my blood for all the common allergy foods in adults and test them for antibodies or something like that. She said it's incomprehensive, like, if it says that I show positive for one food then I most likely do have an allergy to it, but if it's all negative, then I could still possibly have something. So, hope for positives! She wants to compare the celiac report from four years ago with the new one, and she did tell me it was a possibility that since I was off gluten for a month when I was tested for celiac the first time, the biopsy might not have shown signs of celiac. So I finally got that question answered. Anyway, I practically skipped out of the office I was so thrilled to have got what I wanted and to be so close to getting answers, even if it just eliminates some possibilities. So tomorrow morning I'll go in (after not eating for ten hours) and get poked. Has anyone ever been so excited to have a needle stuck in them? Well, maybe drug addicts, but that's neither here nor there. She said she'd get the results back in about three days and she'll let me know. So...pray that in roughly three days I could have an answer, ANY answer! Even if it all comes back normal, those are things I can cross off my list.

Anyway, that's that for now. I wish I had something funny or interesting to add that's not just about my health problems but I got nothing. Although I do find it hilarious that whenever we're reading scriptures Macy thinks "whore" is said "war" and we never correct her, because...why would we? "No, honey, that word is actually whore. Can you say that? Whhhorrrre." Yeah, not likely. So she teaches us about the war of all the earth and the evil people committing wardoms. The best part is that when Bill and I read, we say the word as it's supposed to be said and she never catches on. Love it. Goodnight y'all.

"I'm Just One Stomach Flu Away From My Goal Weight." -- Emily, The Devil Wears Prada

Thanks to all my wonderful friends and family for your advice and supportive comments. They truly were a ray of light during this dark time. I wanted to answer some of your questions and give a little more insight into my health problems. First, Noelle, I think you hit the nail on the head. I somehow forgot to add anxiety to my list of theories. It should have been close to the top, so to speak. I think there is a very real possibility that switching up my meds at the first of the year caused my anxiety to not only return but to return with such a vengeance that it's actually making me physically sick to my stomach. However, the sickness often comes right after meals, and daily, whether or not I feel anxious at all. I know I could be subconsciously anxious and it's only showing itself through stomachaches, but that scares me because then we've just reached a whole new level of anxiety that I don't know how to deal with. How do I stop anxiety that I'm not even feeling? So...I am going to eliminate the physical stuff first, at least narrow it down. I am going to insist on having an IgG food allergy test done (thank you M-A for enlightening me about that) and discuss my celiac tests from 4.5 years ago. (Wow, has it really been that long?) To review for those who know about this and fill in those who don't, 5 years ago I got the flu and it basically just never went away. From the end of May '07 clear through to October of '07, I was miserable: nauseous, sick to my stomach, dizzy, etc. My dr. tested me for celiac. Shockingly, it came back abnormal (one part showed negative for it, the other positive for it). She said it was a pretty good indication that I had it. So she told me to go off gluten right away and scheduled me for an upper GI. After a few weeks off gluten I felt much better, but then the symptoms came back. However, there were a few glutenous things that slipped in my diet that I didn't realize had gluten. Anyway, when the month passed and I went to a gastroenterologist for the upper GI, he did blood work again. It showed it was still abnormal. Then they did the upper GI (sent a tube with a camera on the end down my throat into my stomach). It showed no signs of celiac, but definite signs of acid reflux. But we wouldn't know for sure until the biopsy results came back. They showed negative as well. Then I get a phone call later from the gastroenterologist's office saying they wanted to test me again, because I'd been off of wheat for a month before the test which could screw up their findings. I was so furious and so not willing to go back to the whole celiac possibility that I said "yeah...no. Not gonna happen." Oddly enough, within the month all my symptoms disappeared. All was well, celiac was dismissed forever.

Fast forward to my stomach issues now. Very similar to that summer of gastro hell. It's been going on for months, no rhyme or reason to it, no explanation, same symptoms. So tomorrow I am going back to my dr. and asking to go over all the paperwork from that whole ordeal, have her walk me through it, and see where I'm at now. I'm sure they'll want to run the blood test again, which is totally fine by me. (M-A, are you just bursting with pride right now? ;) So please, cross your fingers, say a little prayer that this time, for real, once and for all, I'll actually find out what's wrong with me. And if this proves ineffective, I am definitely going to look into the naturopath/reflexologist/bio-energetic route. If NONE of these pans out in any way, then it's off in search of a therapist who actually gives therapy, and back to the psychiatrist for another med adjustment, which I'm actually going to do anyway.

Whew! That was probably way beyond more than you ever wanted to know about my health situation. Thanks to those of you still reading. It's friends like you who make me smile even as I'm curled up in a ball of pain in bed. And that's saying something!