Bad News, Bad Health, Good Movie, Fox

I recently learned that a college friend died this past fall. I just found out that it was cancer that took him. He was 33. I didn't know him super well, but I liked him a lot. The last time I saw him was at a mutual friend's wedding a few years ago. I had meant to e-mail him, and keep in touch a bit since then, but I didn't really. It isn't possible to do that with everyone... but still, I feel like I took his existance for granted.

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I haven't been blogging much lately. I haven't been swimming much lately. I haven't been working much lately.

Something is wrong with my stomach. It started bothering me a lot shortly after I got back from Japan. I've had a bunch of tests, and I've been through a course of antibiotics (to get rid of H pylori, the main cause of ulcers). An endoscopy showed that I have inflammation in my stomach, and a hiatal hernia. I'm supposed to avoid eating and drinking certain things: Coffee, chocolate, alcohol, mint, high fat, citrus, tomatoes... Rather challenging to stick to these restrictions over the entire holiday season... especially since I didn't completely believe that I needed to avoid these things. Through some trial and error, I now believe... but it is still hard for someone who loves food as much as I do. Oh, and I've been having lower back pain a lot lately too. Lucky me!

Enough complaining!

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I went to Slumdog Millionaire last night. It was intense. I liked it a lot! It is about a contestant on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in India, and mixes the game show with flashbacks of his life growing up in the slums of Mumbai. There are some violent/hard to watch moments, but they are important to the plot--not much that you'd call gratuitous. Did I mention I liked it a lot?

On the way home, just as we were turning into our neighborhood, we saw a fox, running down the street ahead of us.

Getting It Together

So, I haven't posted in two months... what's been going on?

Over the late winter and into the spring, I found myself feeling strangely exhausted, sometimes weirdly thirsty at the same time. The exhaustion didn't feel like normal lack of sleep... it was deeper, and lying down to take a nap didn't work all that well. I had difficulty concentrating, and eventually I started feeling vaguely nauseous when I was also feeling tired. All these symptoms were very vague and only gradually got worse, so it took a long time to figure out that I needed to see a doctor. It wasn't until I realized how much trouble I was having getting work done...

...long story short my thyroid has been malfunctioning. I started taking levothyroxine four weeks ago today, and I think I've started to feel better. I'm still feeling tired sometimes, but more often it corresponds to when I'm actually underslept. I have been able to be productive a lot more of the time, my concentration has improved, and I haven't been feeling nauseous anymore.

Now I'm trying to get caught up with everything. Fortunately, my sister came to my rescue for a week and helped me get caught up on data entry for my business (timesheets and such), plus she helped me sort the papers that were starting to pile up. It was awesome to have her help!

I took a lot of pictures during my hiatus, so I'm going to gradually go back in time and add entries in the gap. That means that anything posted between June 3 and this entry has been added later.