Flamingo Musings » thyroid

Tweet!

admin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Well, now I’ve sailed into uncharted waters: I’ve signed up for Twitter. I’m not sure why, except that it seems like everybody’s doing it. I’m not much of a leader. I wait for everyone else to test the water first, then if it doesn’t look like they’re turning blue, I’ll stick my toe in. I’ll probably use it to give you short updates when I’m away from the computer and can’t write a full post. Hopefully this won’t be another embarrassing episode. So, please feel free to click on the link over there in the sidebar and follow me. Geez – listen to me – I’m begging, now. Go ahead – I promise not to call the cops. I believe you can “tweet” me at @RJFlamingo. This is beginning to sound a little bit dirty.

I’m still resisting Facebook. Especially after what happened to Lettergirl the other day…

In other news, MJ has (mostly) stopped freaking out about the “D-word”. We just don’t say it around here. He’s been pretty good about the diet thing, but he seems to be stuck on fish for lunch. With an occasional break for cottage cheese. Or the couple of times we had to have lunch out and he had steak (what deprivation!). I’ve been trying to get creative with dinner, although dessert has me a bit flummoxed. Thank God for Sugar-Free Fudgsicles and Sugar-Free Jello Pudding. At least I think so. I just hope I’m not trading one sugar for another that’s just as bad. As of today, MJ has been taking the full dosage of the Metformin (generic Glucophage) for one week. He’s also lost like 17 or 18 pounds. (I’ve lost 3, I think. Men.) He’s supposed to have another fasting blood test any day now, so we’ll have some idea if the strategy is working. Cross your fingers.

After my thyroid scan came back normal, I had to go back for another blood test. It still showed elevated levels of something or another, but apparently not quite as high as they had been a couple of weeks before. The quack – er, doctor – we’ve been seeing, thinks I might have been fighting off some kind of infection, but that it might be getting better, so I have to have another blood test in about a month. I think it’s just another excuse to get another $15 out of me to have my blood drawn.

BTW, is this a new standard practice, or is it just this money-grubber – er, doctor – we’re going to? Every time they’ve taken fluids from my body, they charge me extra money besides my insurance co-pay. When I asked what it was for, they told me “It’s for the labs.” I assumed that they were taking the money on behalf of the testing lab. Then I get a bill from the lab, showing what the insurance paid, yada yada yada, and then billing me $19 and change. So I call the yutz’s – er, doctor’s - office and ask why they’re charging me for “labs” and the lab is charging me for “labs”. The response? Well, it turns out that they’re charging me for the “convenience” of taking my fluids in their office, as opposed to making me go to the actual lab!

I’m thinking that maybe if I’d gone to the lab, they wouldn’t have made me 10 years younger. And while I’m flattered and all that, I’m not so sure that maybe that didn’t make some difference in the test results. I mean, do they use a different set of parameters for a 52 year old woman than for a 42 year old woman? I don’t know – I’m not in the medical field. Maybe some lurker out there does know.

Tweet me.

Continuing Adventures – And A Recipe

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:00:00 +0000

First, I want to thank Lettergirl of Not Going Postal for that awesome award you see just to the right, there, in my sidebar. She wrote the sweetest post back on March 26th (my 20th wedding anniversary, coincidentally!) and I didn’t see it until over a week later… I’m such a doof! Mmmwah! You have totally become part of my life’s mosaic, as well – for your perspective, your humor, and your writing (the dogs on Twitter…. shnork!)

In that same spirit, I’m passing it on to two of my other favorite bloggers, Miz Shoes of Girlyshoes (who I don’t think “does” awards, but is getting it anyway) and Michelle of Rambling Woods (who I think has received this before from someone else, but hey, more’s better, right?). Thank you for your broad shoulders and your enterprising spirits. I never fail to learn something from both of you.

Okay. Sap’s over!

In my continuing commitment to lighten up – (Hah! couldn’t fool you, could I? Okay, in light of my new quest to make healthier food choices – there. How’s that?) – I’m working on adapting some old Passover favorites to our present circumstances (see earlier posts). This one works:

WHOLE WHEAT PASSOVER ROLLS

INGREDIENTS
. 1 cup matzo meal
. 1 cup whole wheat matzo meal **
. 1/2 teaspoon salt
. 1/2 teaspoon white sugar or Splenda for Baking (regular Splenda may also be used, but only use 1/4 teaspoon)
. 1 cup water
. 1/2 cup vegetable oil (can’t escape this one, but at least use one of the “healthier” oils, like olive, canola, or even cottonseed)
. 4 eggs or 1 cup liquid egg substitute

DIRECTIONS
. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a cookie sheet with cooking spray, or line a cookie sheet with Reynolds Release foil.
. In a large mixing bowl, combine matzo meal, salt, and sugar. Mix well.
. Bring water and oil to a boil. Pour the boiling water over the matzo meal mixture, and stir until blended. Add eggs and mix well. Let stand 15 minutes.
. Shape the dough into rolls with oiled hands. Arrange rolls on the prepared cookie sheet.
. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 45 minutes.

Makes about 13 – 14 2 ounce rolls. If you’re not counting calories or carbs, you can make them twice the size, if you prefer, but bake them about 50 minutes.

**They’re actually selling this in the stores now – at least for Passover. But if you can’t find it: To make 1 cup whole wheat matzo meal, break 4 whole wheat matzos into small pieces and run through the food processor for several minutes, until the consistency of regular matzo meal. You may have to do this in a couple of batches.

I’m still working on the Sponge Cake.

In other news, my thyroid scan turned up negative. Now the doctor wants another blood test. Yeesh. Give up already, will ya?

Weighing-In

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 09:42:00 +0000

The initial trauma – the shock and awe, if you will – has passed. For now. Thanks, you guys, for your support and commiseration. It helps.

So, I just blew eighty bucks for nothing by replacing the keys on my “old” Powerbook. The Mac gods’ minions turned it on, and it died in their arms. Hard drive failure – DOA. Having just spent around $200 to get the power connection doo-hickey replaced about – what? six weeks ago? – another $300 + to replace the hard drive illuminated the writing on the wall. Back to the Apple Store and time to dive into the wonderful world of Leopard and the MacBook Pro. Thanks, Middle Niece, for lending me your student discount. Every little bit helps.

Fortunately, pretty much everything had been backed up fairly recently (see? I keep telling you people – back up and back up often!). The only thing is that I have to completely reconstruct my contact list/address book and iCal on the new machine. The new operating system won’t read the old ones. Sucks.

MJ takes his meds and waits to see if any of the half-dozen or so possible side-effects are happening to him. We know and are operating on the rationale that weight-loss will ameliorate, and probably cure the kind of diabetes he has. It certainly won’t hurt me any to lose a few pounds, so I’m right there with him.

He keeps threatening to throw out at least half of our nearly 200 cookbooks, because “It’s pointless. I can’t have any of that stuff now.” Which is bullshit. It’s all a matter of portion-control and balance. And Common Sense. Words that I’m going to have tattooed on his forehead if he doesn’t calm down.

But here’s the really traumatic thing for me – we bought a scale. A bathroom scale. Wow. We haven’t had one of those things in the house for probably 10 years. A scale! A warden. An accusing eye. A cold, hard, unflinching judge of failure or success. I put it in MJ’s closet. I don’t want it looking at me.

This Is So F’d Up…

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:34:00 +0000

I have to e-mail this post from work because my laptop refuses to completely boot (it makes it as far as the picture on my desktop, and just spins that little beachball endlessly) and now the repair disc is stuck in the drive because there is no external way to remove it and it won’t eject on its own like its supposed to. I can’t let anybody look at it until the replacement keyboard caps (c, d, spacebar, ctrl) show up in the mail. Don’t ask.

MJ was just diagnosed with high blood pressure and Type 2 Diabetes. I am being tested for Graves Disease (a non-life-threatening thyroid thing). I blame his dead mother and the exponentially increasing stress and all the fast-food-Denny’s crap we wound up eating on the run over these last couple of months for all of it. I hate this doctor, but he’s all we’ve got for
the moment.

We have cancelled Passover. We’re not going to my brother’s for First Seder, and we are definitely not doing the Second Seder at our house (which is way more fun, by the way). Sorry, Miz Shoes. No Mom’s chopped liver (the only kind I’ll eat), this year. Also my apologies to the RLA.

This has been the worst year EVER, so far. I am making progress, though. MJ has stopped calling me “Pollyanna”, and is now calling me “Jiminy Cricket.” I *think* that’s good. Right?