I'm Back!

Well, the surgery is over and done with! I have a one-inch scar on my neck. My neck is swollen and it feels like I have a huge lump in it. My actual pain is pretty minimal, but I feel lots of stretching and pulling in my neck muscles. You also don't realize how much you use your neck muscles until something is actually done to them. I can't drive right now, since I am unable to turn my neck enough for me to drive safely. Right now I'm having some residual side effects from the surgery - my fingers and toes are all "tingly" and I woke up this morning with a serious muscle cramp in my left leg. They are still working on why that's happening. They are going to do another blood test to see if maybe it's my magnesium level?? I'll find that out this afternoon. My calcium and parathyroid hormones are all back to normal, though. So, that at least, is good. I should be fully recovered in a few weeks. Yeah!!

I will be home now just hanging out the next few days, since I can't do anything - no driving, no lifting, no nothing... Can we say "BORED!!"

Also, a big "Thank You" to my mom for taking care of me the past few days. It was such a huge help to have you around - especially for that last-minute run to the hospital last night. I love you!

Parathyroid Surgery is tomorrow

Well, tomorrow I go under the knife to have my parathyroid gland removed. I'm a bit nervous - just not knowing how I'm going to feel afterwards. During my pre-op appointment, the nurse went over the procedure and told me all the possible things that can go wrong. It's a bit scary.

I will have about a 1 inch scar on my neck. My voice to begin with is going to be very hoarse. I may feel like I have a huge lump in my throat - kind of like having strep throat. I won't be able to turn my neck - so I can't see to drive. They don't want me lifting more than 10 pounds - I probably won't have the strength anyways. My calcium level may drop causing me to get a tingling sensation in my lips, toes, fingers where I will need to take a Tums to bring my level up again.

I have to be at the hospital at 10:45 am. At 11:45 am, I go in for nuclear medicine where they inject me with a radioactive dye. Then, at 1:30 pm, I go in for surgery. The surgery is about 1.5 hours and I'll be in recovery about 1.5 hours. Then, when I'm strong enough to walk again, I can finally go home!

Robert and I went grocery shopping so we at least have food for tonight and tomorrow. My mom is coming in on Tuesday morning to take over for Robert in taking care of me. It's going to be great to have her here helping out.

Happy Moon Festival!

Today marks the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival in China. The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the two most important holidays in the Chinese calendar (the other being the Chinese Lunar New Year). Farmers celebrate the end of the summer harvesting season on this date. Traditionally, on this day, Chinese family members and friends will gather to admire the bright mid-autumn harvest moon, and eat moon cakes and pomeloes together. Accompanying the celebration, there are additional cultural or regional customs, such as:
* Eating moon cakes outside under the moon
* Putting pomelo rinds on one's head
* Carrying brightly lit lanterns, lighting lanterns on towers, floating sky lanterns
* Burning incense in reverence to deities including Chang'e
* Planting Mid-Autumn trees
* Collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them evenly among family members
* Fire Dragon Dances

Referrals Came Out While We Were Away...

Here's the latest happenings while we were away enjoying ourselves in Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Teton National Park. I'll post about our trip later after we've settled in, done laundry, gone grocery shopping and uploaded photos.

Looks like the CCAA placed children from February 1 - 9, 2006. Getting ever closer, but not quite close enough... Only 155 days worth of LIDs to go...

Love Without Boundaries

This month's donation from my CafePress stores went to Love Without Boundaries - a wonderful charity that helps the lives of thousands of Chinese children in orpahnages through foster care, medical, education, and nutrition programs.

I also learned another valuable tip - if you enter Amazon.com through the Love Without Boundaries website, they receive 4% of the sale! If only I had known about that earlier...

Happy Birthday Robert!

I cannot tell a lie - it's Robert's birthday today. He spent the morning with his mom going to a scale model fly-in airshow and then the three of us went out for burgers for lunch. Here's a nice photo of my sweetie with one of the planes he takes his flying lessons on.

Milwaukee Zoo outing

This past Thursday I went into Milwaukee for the day to see my sister, brother-in-law and my 2 nephews who were in town from Minneapolis to visit my parents (grandma and grandpa). Highlights for me were seeing Tommy and Billy (of course!) and watching Tommy overcome his fear of animals to actually take a pony ride at the Milwaukee Zoo - and he had a great time!! Look how proud he looks on the pony. He is such a love!!


Here's the whole gang - minus me, of course, the photographer.

Sun Prairie Corn Festival

Well, I'm a bit behind these days on my posting, so I'm going to try to play a game of catch-up now. Last weekend we had our friends Eric, Susan and future son-in-law Evan in town to go to the Sun Prairie Corn Festival. They've been wanting to come up and see it for years and now finally were able to. We had a great time with them and ate LOTS of corn. You pay $6 for all the corn you can pile into the tote. Afterwards, we bought some corn to take home. Here's a few pix from the day.

Happy 19th Birthday!

Well, "Highness" (as we like to call her) turns the grand 19 years old today. She rules this house with a strict paw. We are merely here to serve her kitty needs - which includes treats, pets, brushes and lazing about on our back deck soaking up the afternoon sun. Being half Siamese, she is a very vocal little kitty and is always very clear as to what she wants and will continue to meow or stare us down until we give her what she wants. And we, being the softies that we are, give in!

She has started to show the signs of aging and has slowed down a lot in the past year. We just enjoy every minute of every day that we have with her. She is such a sweet and loving kitty (at least to us).

Hyperparathyroidism Diagnosis

Please forgive this very long post. I just hope that if this can help one person, then I'm glad.

A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with hyperparathyroidism. I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around this and learning all I can about this under-diagnosed condition. It was found by one of my doctors when I had a high calcium level in my blood. Further blood work found that I also had high parathyroid hormone levels, meaning that I have primary hyperparathyroidism. I will be having surgery on September 15th to have the offending parathyroid gland removed and regain my life again.

Now, for a little lesson: We all have 4 parathyroid glands (no, they are NOT the same as a thyroid gland. In the picture at left, they are the small yellow objects over the thyroid and have 2 on each side of the trachea.). The ONLY purpose of the parathyroid glands is to regulate the calcium level in our body so that the nervous and muscular systems can function properly. This is all they do. They measure the amount of calcium in the blood every minute of every day... and if the calcium levels go down a little bit, the parathyroid glands recognize it and make parathyroid hormone (PTH) which goes to the bones and takes some calcium out and puts it into the blood. When the calcium in the blood is high enough, then the parathyroids shut down and stop making PTH.

The most common cause of hyperparathyroidism is the development of a benign tumor in one of the parathyroid glands. This enlargement of one parathyroid gland is called a parathyroid adenoma which accounts for about 94% of all patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (this is what I have). This “naughty” parathyroid gland is slowly causing damage to my body because it puts out an abnormally high level of calcium in the blood which can slowly destroy a number of tissues. Parathyroid adenomas can range in size from an olive to a walnut. The normal parathyroid gland is about the size of a grain of rice... but one cell inside this normal parathyroid gland went out of control and started reproducing itself until a large tumor developed (naughty thing!). This tumor will almost always continue to grow until it is removed (which is why I have scheduled my surgery to remove it on Sept 15th). As it grows, it makes more hormone and will make you feel worse. This tumor is constantly making parathyroid hormone which is what takes the calcium out of your bones and makes the calcium in your blood too high. This is exactly what I don’t want!

Some Symptoms of Parathyroid Disease

• Loss of energy. Don't feel like doing much. Tired all the time.
• Just don't feel well; don't quite feel normal. Hard to explain but just feel kind of bad.
• Feel old. Don't have the interest in things that you used to.
• Can't concentrate, or can't keep your concentration like in the past.
• Depression.
• Osteoporosis and Osteopenia.
• Bones hurt; typically it's bones in the legs and arms but can be most bones.
• Don't sleep like you used to. Wake up in middle of night. Trouble getting to sleep.
• Tired during the day and frequently feel like you want a nap.
• Spouse claims you are more irritable and harder to get along with (cranky, bitchy).
• Forget simple things that you used to remember very easily.
• Gastric acid reflux; heartburn; GERD.
• Decrease in sex drive.
• Thinning hair (predominately in older females).
• Kidney Stones.
• High Blood Pressure (sometimes mild, sometimes quite severe; up and down a lot).
• Recurrent Headaches (usually patients under the age of 40).
• Heart Palpitations (arrhythmias). Typically atrial arrhythmias.

Most people with hyperparathyroidism will have 4 - 6 of these symptoms. Thankfully, I have very few of them. In general, the longer you have hyperparathyroidism, the more symptoms you will develop.

Side note: this diagnosis also carries with it one nasty little secret – an 85% miscarriage rate, of which I’ve had 7 of them.