Life goes on

I'm a little more calm now about the stupid doctors office. I'm still firing them, but I'm not totally livid anymore!

I finally got a phone call back from the lady who will be proctoring my midterm for my class (the class that is due on 2/3) saying that they received my exam, and when would I like to take it? They aren't open on Friday, and I decided that tomorrow was too soon, and Monday would be rough since I wouldn't be studying on Sunday... so Tuesday it is! I'll be taking my midterm on Tuesday afternoon and then as soon as BYU has received my test I can start submitting my next few assignments. It's also probably time to just pay the $20 to extend my class, then I'll have til 5/3 to finish it. Since most of my lessons remaining are quick speedback lessons (meaning I just have to take a short online quiz at the end of the lesson rather than submitting a paper or worksheet to my teacher) I can finish by 5/3. Ideally by 4/1. It's nice to have a date for my midterm now, it pushes me to really take the time now to sit and study for it.

And then Wednesday I'm seeing my peeps, the ones I have hardly seen since I got pregnant, and before I got pregnant they were all pregnant in their first trimesters, and before that Chris was sick, so really... I haven't hung out with them since May. Oh man am I looking forward to spending some time with my peeps! I guess I did see them all once in December when we went out to breakfast right before one had a baby, but still... that wasn't quite the same.

And then Thursday I'm going visiting teaching, assuming that I can actually get appointments set for that day... it's the day we're aiming for.

And then Friday I'll go back to the Endo.

It's time to get my butt back in gear to finish this class, and then I can take a break from school for a while, because I'm not going to be dumb and order a new class a month before I'm having a baby! It is one of my goals for 2013 to finish this dang thing! I thought I was going to love this class and I've really not loved any of it so far.

major rant

I am firing my endocrinologist.

I know that sounds extreme, but I am so not happy with her office right now. I was supposed to have an appointment with her this morning at 9:00. Her office is downtown, so I had to leave my house at 7:55 because traffic is always awful in the morning. The only reason I had an early morning appointment was because it was the only appointment she had available even remotely close to when I was supposed to have my follow up. My follow up was supposed to be LAST Wednesday but a month ago when they went to schedule it they were booked.

I left home (way too early for sleep deprived me... but that's another story) and got there at about 8:30. Perfect. I'm supposed to arrive 15 minutes early or else I risk getting charged a no-show fee, and I know it takes them FOREVER to check in patients. I sign in and the lady says to me "Oh, I just tried to call you but your phone is not able to take calls. Your doctor isn't in today so we need to reschedule your appointment." I looked at her like she was an idiot. I know my phone receives calls, my phone rang a few minutes ago when someone else called me. I asked her what number she had and she reads me some phone number. DEFINITELY not my phone number, not even remotely close to my phone number. Wrong area code, and not even the local 210. I told her that was not my number She told me I must have given them the wrong number then because that was what she had on file. Then she read me the address and asked if it was my address, and it wasn't. Then she realized she had pulled THE WRONG FILE. She called some other patient to cancel my appointment 30 minutes before it started. So she went to the back to pull my file (which was a sign that she never had my correct file anyway) and said "oh, I called this number too" to save some face. So I asked her what happened when she called that number and she said "it says this number can't receive calls". So I told her to call it again, on speakerphone so I could hear it for myself, because if thats what it said then my phone had issues and I needed to take care of it. What do you know, when she called it... my phone RANG and I answered it and was able to talk to her.

She rescheduled my appointment (the soonest available is 2 weeks from now) and asked if I wanted to talk to the nurse about anything. I asked if I could get the results from my labwork, since I hadn't been called with them yet even though I got my bloodwork drawn 2 weeks ago. She said a nurse would come call my name in a minute. About 5 minutes later a lady comes out and calls my name, pulls me into a back hallway and rudely says "What do you want?" I just looked at her, and then calmly told her that I was told she could go over my bloodwork with me. She told me that she isn't a doctor and she can't tell me the results. I told her that the only reason she was talking to me was to give me the results, so if she didn't have them she needed to tell me so I could leave and stop wasting my time. She said she didn't even have access to my results yet because my dr hadn't looked at them, and until the dr pulls them and looks at them they aren't available to anyone else. This just pissed me off. At my last appointment I was told I would get a phone call immediately after they recevied my results because we needed to take care of any problems right away or else it could harm my baby. Apparently immediately at that office means more than 2 weeks later? She told me that when the doctor comes in tomorrow that she'll have the doctor pull my results, go over them, and then have a nurse call me with the results.

Once I get those results, if things are still really close to normal I will cancel my future appointment with the endo, and just go back to my pcp about this. She can order blood tests just fine and the endocrinologist said she wouldn't even think about starting any treatment unless my levels dropped to a certain point, and now I know what that point is. The endo didn't seem too concerned about my thyroid levels, so I probably don't have much to worry about. I am going to make sure that my pcp knows what a horrible nightmare my whole experience with this office has been though so that she can stop sending people there... we had a similar experience when trying to get in to see a neurologist with Chris this summer so the pcp stopped referring to that doctor. Have I mentioned lately that I LOVE our pcps? AND my ob? Yes, I love my pcp and my ob. They are both amazing.

And now I want to just change back into my pajamas and climb back in bed, but this whole ordeal took almost 2 hours and I don't think I could fall back asleep. I think I'm too unhappy. So instead I'll sit on the couch, eat some more breakfast (I'm hungry again now) and watch a movie or something and listen to the rain. And then after I'm not angry anymore I'll call the lady who is supposed to proctor my midterm and find out if she has received it yet, because I REALLY need to take that test. And I need to buy the extension for my class. Wow, this day did not go as planned.

BUT the good news is, we're having yummy sweet and sour turkey meatballs for dinner tonight and I am REALLY excited about that, because i LOVE sweet and sour meatballs.

Quick Thought on a New Year

I love the beginning of the year. I always take the time to go through everything online and get rid of a ton of stuff I don't need. Bookmarks to recipes that I marked months ago and don't know what I was even thinking. Deleting links to blogs that I don't really read. Deleting Facebook friends who I don't interact with or care to interact with. Unliking pages on Facebook so they don't creep up on my newsfeed all the time. Unsubscribing from lots of newsletter emails so that my inbox is clean. Deleting accounts on various websites so I don't waste so much time there. This year in particular is that true because I entered a ton of contests to win sweet prizes, and most of the time to enter those contests you have to "like" or "follow" a website, and sometimes I don't care about those websites, I'm just in it for the prizes. I figure if I get rid of all of those unnecessary things I won't waste as much time at my computer because I won't be sifting through things I don't care about, it will take me about 3 seconds to see what blogs have been updated, and about 1 minute to go through my Facebook newsfeed to see if there is anything new to read.

I love a good fresh start. That's also why I changed the blog around a bit. I'm still looking for a different picture for the top, but most of my pictures are on our Macbook, and I need Chris to go back to work so I'll have easier access to the Macbook.

And with that, I must go make a quadruple batch of Buttermilk Waffles from ATK because we've got some friends coming over for a Waffle and Wii party!

Someday...

I promise I'll start blogging again soon! Chris is still off work for Christmas and we're taking the time to get big projects done. In the last two weeks we've celebrated Christmas and New Years, had our big ultrasound (it's a GIRL!!), reorganized every closet in our house to make room for the baby, had pest control come out for our ant problem, filled in cracks/gaps in our house so ants will stop coming in, bought and out together nightstands (finally!! We found some that match our dresser and we love them!), went to babies r us to start looking at cribs, car seats, strollers and all things baby... We've enjoyed playing the new wii games that we got for Christmas and watched a few new movies! We spent a day doing yardwork and have been doing some other organizational stuff.

I'm getting ready to take my midterm for my class as soon as my proctor calls to say she has it. And I've been working on the lessons that will be due after I take my midterm.

The last two weeks have been super busy, but once things settle down a little next week I'll blog more about some of those things I listed above! You need to know all about the rad slippers and waffle maker I got for Christmas :) stuff like that! My morning sickness is gone, haven't thrown up in about 4 weeks now! And next week I go back to the endocrinologist.

New Year's Resolutions

Last year I set a ton of New Year's Resolutions. I don't think I actually accomplished any of them... whoops! I'm trying not to set my standards too high for 2013. I would like to...

• Finish my BYU class by April 1st (after I order an extension it will be due on May 3rd)
• Go to the doctor about the warts on my foot and get them removed
• Read The Book of Mormon
• Pick a pediatrician
• Have a baby
• Survive

Four of those six things will be done by June 1st. The class, the warts, the pediatrician, and having the baby (unless the baby is more than 2 weeks late or they change my due date). I potentially could finish The Book of Mormon by then as well... then from June 1st on all I'd have to do is survive. I think I should be able to handle these goals. And really, surviving is probably going to be more difficult than it sounds. 

2012 in review.

2012 was kind of crazy, and I don't really want to go relive all of 2012 to make a "Year in Review" post like I've done in the past. Instead I'll do a bullet list, sort of things we've learned/experienced, in no particular order:

• the national spelling bee is the coolest show you will ever see on tv.
• we bought bowling shoes at the beginning of this year and went bowling several times. we were improving when we went often, but then once chris got sick we kind of stopped. we've gone a few times since, but not often enough to improve my mad skills.
• activity days is amazing, and working with the 8-11 year old girls is so much fun! you just have to make sure to remember that they aren't grown ups and don't have the attention span and same skills that adults do, so it's important to simplify crafts and games.
• jury duty is quite the experience. i got summoned, but didn't get put on a jury. chris got summoned a few months later (right after he got better) and he DID get put on a jury. 
• it's scary when you are sick for 1 month without knowing what you even have
• some home teachers make really good curry
• girls absolutely can learn to mow the lawn, and sometimes they do a really good job, and even enjoy it a little bit
• medical insurance is really important, and a HUGE blessing (we'd be in a LOT of debt if it weren't for good insurance)
• it's scary when you get a call from your dr saying "your blood work came back, we want you to go get an MRI of your brain" and then the MRI place calls you about 5 minutes later and says "we got a referral from your doctor. we can squeeze you in in an hour and a half" you really get afraid when someone is willing to see you so quickly.
• it isn't fun to have conversations like "if I die, you should try to go back and finish school on campus at BYU" or "if I am permanently ill, we should probably move to Utah so you can finish school and work. I could be the stay at home dad" --these are so not conversations you want to be having when you haven't even been married for 2 years
• it's important to be pushy with Dr's offices. Get to know the office manager, they are way more helpful than the receptionist/scheduler at a lot of places, especially at the ENT's office. You can get what you want and need a lot faster that way
• it's great to have a scanner at home so you don't have to go anywhere to scan and then send documents to insurance companies, disability leave providers, and doctors offices
• it's really important for a wife to have a girls night to look forward to when she's been dealing with her husband being ill for so long. even if that girls night is doing something dumb like watching the bachelorette. the important thing was the company.
• you can only watch so much tv/movies at a time
• audiobooks are awesome, but you get sick of sitting there
• it's tricky to plan meals and cook when you get a huge list of foods to avoid
• it's really awesome to have a brother-in-law who is a PA, so you can call him and get an opinion on whether or not it's worth it to go to the ER at 10pm
• CVS and Walgreen's have a great selection of canes (if you ever need one)
• going to your pcp every other week is a great way to develop AWESOME relationships with every single person who works there. it also helps when you drop by a few times in between appointments to pick up/drop off paperwork. 
• we picked freaking awesome pcps when we moved here. honestly, i only picked them because we could walk to their office from our first apartment, and there was a male and female doctor in the office. i have referred SEVERAL friends to them since then. i love them both. and every single person there. i know them all! cynthia, ashanti, genielle, katie, valerie and the two doctors. they all ROCK. especially cynthia, because she put certain candies out the days she knew we had an appointment.
• it was smart of me to not take a pregnancy test earlier in the day the day that I found out I am pregnant. that morning i went to playgroup and someone who had recently moved out of the ward said "did i hear that you're pregnant?" and i could honestly say "woah! nope!" i was highly suspicious, and confirmed that suspicion about 20 minutes after i got home, but i didn't have to lie to her.
• morning sickness is a bad name. it should be called "whatever time of day it feels like it" sickness. 
• throwing up gets really old when you do it a couple times a day for a few weeks.
• it wasn't really all that bad when my throwing up happened on a set schedule-11:00am came and I KNEW it was time to run into the bathroom or I was going to have a mess on my hands. once it became more random it was a lot harder to plan my day. i just didn't leave the house for a few weeks in fear of being somewhere and needing a toilet.
• there are a lot of crazy pregnant ladies online that are willing to share every detail of their pregnancy and all their words of "wisdom". they also will cause you to panic if you let them. when in doubt, call the nurse don't google.
• pregnancy dreams are CRAZY. lets just hope mine don't come true, or this baby is going to be a crocodile. and it will be a hermaphrodite. also, i better avoid zoos or else monkeys are going to jump on me and rub their poopy bums all over my face. YIKES. 
• it is not smart to watch extreme makeover: home edition while pregnant. that show had me in tears for hours at a time.
• Our Best Bites and America's Test Kitchen are the best sources (besides that home teachers curry) for recipes. 
• it's ok if the world ends on December 21st because BYU football season ends on December 20th when they play in their bowl game.
• you can buy bosco sticks at sam's club. but be warned, you will want to eat the whole box really quickly. 
• it's hard to find a good office chair for a husband with back problems. he needs something really specific. the one time we thought we found a good one, it was delivered broken. can't really sit on a chair that is missing one of its five wheels. 
• getting an ultrasound of your throat (thyroid) feels really funny. but don't laugh, because it doesn't help the tech get good pictures.
• just dance is a perfectly acceptable form of exercise, especially once the temperature drops and it's only 50 degrees in the mornings. 
• it sucks when your favorite pajamas (my moose pajama pants that my mom made for me in 2005 for our family reunion at yellowstone) start wearing out because you literally live in them about 16 hours a day. but you still wear them because they are the most comfortable pants ever. and they have moosen and bears on them.
• jr bacon cheeseburgers from wendy's are the most delicious thing you can order through a drive-thru. but they don't cost 99 cents like they used to. they're like $1.49 or $1.69 now which is crazy because the patties are smaller than they used to be. the bacon is a little better though... 
• sonic's tater tots are a close second. while you are there you might as well pick up a cranberry limeade. you know you want one. 
• it's hard to shop for your husband for christmas when you share a credit card and follow the same deal sites. i was excited to surprise him with some cheap xbox live subscription cards, but a few minutes after i ordered them he said "woah! did you see this awesome deal on slickdeals for xbox live cards?" and then the next day he saw that a charge showed up on our credit card... what else would i have bought from dell? yeah. so much for a surprise. also, he may be a tiny bit surprised when he sees what box of chocolates he has from See's... because I didn't get the one I would like better (the assortment of peppermint patties) I got him a box of just dark chocolate ones. 
• it takes me approximately 2 minutes to completely empty my pantry when we notice there are ants in it. it then takes about 7 to completely reorganize and put things back after the ants are dead, wiped out, and any visible holes/cracks are filled in. how do i know this? i've had to do it at least 3 times this year, most recently on the night before thanksgiving.
• byu needs to thank their defense for their win against sdsu at the poinsettia bowl. they really need to thank kyle van noy. because he was amazing.
• water is delicious. but sometimes you need to add a little fresh lemon or lime to it, otherwise it gets kind of boring.
• at the beginning of the year i set a goal to read the complete standard works this year. based on everything that happened since may i got waaay behind. instead i am okay with only having read The Old Testament, New Testament, and Pearl of Great Price. 

I could've thought of a lot more, but I think this post is already plenty long. If you read this whole thing, you get extra points. :)

My favorite

This is probably my favorite Mormon Message right now. I just think it has a great message. I've watched it probably about 10 times in the last two weeks. What a sweet reminder of the true Christmas Spirit.

Also, I know you're waiting for a pic of my hair. We're finally coloring it tonight, and then you'll get a pic :)

hair

Today I got the most expensive haircut that I've paid for. I know that the salon I went to sometimes growing up cost more, but it didn't come out of my money, so I don't count my Annette haircuts. How much did I pay? Including tip it was just $23. Since we moved here I've been taking advantage of the coupons on the back of my grocery receipts... a new Great Clips opened up right by the grocery store and at first they were $4.99 haircuts. Then it was $6.99. Last time I used one they were up to $9.99. But I was ready for something different. My hair needed some change. Pretty hardcore change.

A friend in my ward is a stylist. Until she got pregnant last year she was working at a salon, and after she started not feeling so great she decided to just do cuts out of her home. Chris has gotten his hair cut by her a few times and we've LOVED what she has done for his hair. She took the time to actually look through his hair and not mess up the spot that sticks up a little funny in the back.

I decided it was time to get her to cut my hair. I had to wait for her to start working again, since she stopped for about 2 months after giving birth. I was her last haircut before she goes out of town tomorrow for Christmas. And holy crap, I LOVE what she did. When I got ther she asked what I had in mind, I explained the general idea of what I wanted but then asked her for some advice. I knew I wanted about chin length hair, that's all I knew. Was it better to make it all one length? Or to have the back a little shorter? Or just what? And at that length are layers even a smart option? She took the time to look through my hair to see my growth patterns and to figure out where I already have layers and such. She explained to me what she thought was best, and it explained it well enough that I could make my own decision! So... My hair is chin length, with the back a little shorter, and a few soft layers. She even took the time to dry it with a blow dryer and round brush so it's styled and looks like it got straightened. PLUS we actually had all sorts of things we could talk about while she cut it, no small talk like you get at the hairdresser.

It's my favorite haircut I think I've ever gotten. The one time I've walked out of a haircut and immediately liked it.

After she cut it we talked color. Growing up I colored my hair occasionally (always at sleepovers with my friends) and I only stopped because I was broke in college and that $10 needed to go towards groceries instead of my hair. Since  she had her baby she hasn't started doing coloring yet, but said that after they get back in town she'll see how her little guy is doing and see if she is ready to start doing color yet. She said she could order me some professional dye, but I wouldn't get it til she got back, so beginning of January. I decided to just go to Walmart and pick a box myself. I used to be pretty good at picking color, and after reading some of the boxes I figured out what type I wanted. I was even able to find the color that eventually fades over time, since I wasn't sure I was really ready to commit to the maintenance of coloring your hair with permanent dye. Chris is excited about this (I wouldn't have done it if he wasn't into the idea) but we'll see what he thinks when my hair is a different color. I think depending on how this goes I'll at least have her order me color next time... although it would be cool to get my hair pro-colored sometime too.

Chris is going to help me color my hair sometime this week, then I'll post a picture. It will be a lot better to get a picture when someone else can take the picture. I'm excited.

Endo

I saw my Endocrinologist today who looked at all my lab work (all 3 tests) and my thyroid ultrasound and basically said that yes, my number was a little bit low, but so close to normal that she wouldn't medicate me yet at least because my number is so normal. I guess my TSH number is .2 and normal is .3 and she doesn't normally medicate unless you're at or below .01 and she said I was far far away from that. She didn't seem too worried, but is sending me for lab work in 3 weeks and I have an appointment in about a month!

What it sounds like is that my HCG hormone is just interfering with my thyroid hormone a little and messing things up, but that is common in pregnancy. She also said that since I have been dealing with morning sickness my HCG level is probably higher than average which would definitely mess with my TSH more than the average person.

So pretty much I've been anxious and worrying about this for what appears to be no big reason at all! I'm super excited about that!

Thoughts.

I was kind of waiting til after my doctor appointments this week to blog, but it's not like I can't blog before then! Today I see my OB and tomorrow I see my Endocrinologist. I'm really anxious for that appointment because it's a new doctor (for me) and hopefully they'll have answers to my questions and that the meds they likely will put me on will help me to feel better.

My morning sickness came back, although it's not an every day thing anymore. Honestly, that kind of makes it more annoying though. I used to be able to predict exactly how my morning would pan out, but now I never know if it's going to be a "good" day or a "not so good" day. I just learned to not plan anything before noon, but that if it ends up being a good morning I can go do errands before then.

We put our AWESOME 2-foot tall, pre-lit, pre-decorated Christmas tree up a few days ago! This is the tree that Chris's parents sent him while he was on his mission, then sent to us for our first Christmas when our apartment had no room for a tree. We still don't have much room for a bigger tree, unless I moved my piano into the second bedroom, but I don't want to move my piano, because then I won't see it as often and I won't play it. So we just make do with our 2 foot tall tree. It's fabulous! Once the tree went up it lonely, so I went ahead and wrapped a few gifts for Chris. His eyes lit up when he got home from work and saw them, started shaking them and now shakes them often to see if he can guess what is in the packages. I'm smart though and have put everything into boxes no matter what the shape is so that it makes it harder... and then I fill the boxes either with extra fabric scraps (from Activity Days) or the bubble wrap stuff that Amazon uses to fill boxes. He shakes them and doesn't hear a thing! He even has a gift from the baby!

Oh! That reminds me! As we were doing some Black Friday shopping (on Amazon) Chris found a collection of some Berenstein Bear books that was like $5 for 6 books. I ordered it. It's the one thing the baby is getting from us for Christmas from us! I've been trying not to go crazy buying books because there currently is a Book Shower in the talks and I don'tk want lots of duplicates... but Costco has some awesome stuff... an 8 pack of Sandra Boynton books, an 8 pack of The Complete Barnyard Collection (Click Clack Moo, Cows that Type + the follow up books to that), and a 6 pack of Fun with Mouse and Friends (if you give a mouse a cookie, a moose a muffin, a pig a party, etc). It was a good thing that Chris and I went to Costco together, and that HE had the Costco card so that I couldn't buy any of them. Oh, they also had 3 different 4 packs of Dr. Seuss books. Books were the first thing I started thinking about when I saw that pregnancy test. I got on Amazon and started a wish list just of books. That's been fun since we don't know the gender. Also, I want the hugest collection of books ever for my kids! Gosh I love books. Especially kid books.

And that's what's going on here. Oh, that and research, research, research. There are a lot of big things to buy and we want to make sure we're getting good stuff-crib, car seat, stroller, etc. Thanks, Mom & Dad for the subscription to Consumer Reports, that makes the research a lot easier :)