Don’t EVER try this

Well it seemed like a great idea at the time. My husband would be free from his job for a whole month. Why not schedule all those annoying appointments with my daughter’s specialists when he is at home and can watch my son so that I don’t have to drag BOTH children along to the various doctors? Soon I was on a roll. How about all those appointments the rest of the family needs? What about all those errands that we have been neglecting? Soon I had my whole calendar jam packed with stuff I would finally accomplish. Finally I would find a new endocrinologist since our old one is great but is relocating to God knows where? I would schedule a whole bunch of routine follow ups that are due for my daughter and get them over with all at once. I would finally get myself tested for that BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes (breast cancer genes) that my docs have been nagging me for years to look into.

I get like this. Very motivated. I was so gung ho. Even my hubby caught the fever. He was going to order yards of topsoil and finally level out the lumpy backyard. He was going to break up some of the concrete back there too and put up a new fence and help out an elderly neighbor with some electrical problems she was having in her home.

Well, nothing went smoothly at all! In fact we are about to crack up. (Well, actually more me than him. He is pretty easy going, thank God.)

Everything went awry. The endocrinologist I found was very lovely and well meaning but an absolute quack. He is very into supplements and natural stuff and as any of you who know me, know I am not into that stuff at all. My daughter’s TSH is elevated (and it hasn’t been for over a year and a half) and he doesn’t want to increase the synthroid dosage. “Lets wait and see what happens in 3 months.” Needless, to say I have an appointment with another endocrinologist this thursday to get this squared away before the low functioning thyroid affects her brain function.  I also have be CERTAIN her thyroid levels are optimal because on top of everything else, she is due to have cardiac surgery this summer.  (She has an ASD that must finally be repaired.) Anyway, some other “natural stuff” he recommended for her low GI motility has completely messed up her regularity so we are going to a gastroenterologist tomorrow just to make sure the way I had ORIGINALLY been managing it (with great success)  is fine. (You know, I am a nurse and shouldn’t of been so keen to try some of the stuff he suggested and stuck to my guns, but it is so hard when it is your own child. I also must say, the doc is very genuine and means well, but nothing he recommended made too much sense to me. Since I am in the medical field I was able to ask the opinions of other colleagues and other docs my daughter sees and confirm my hunches were correct. Anyway it is all getting squared away but there has been an appointment EVERY single day for days now.

To top it off, Murphy’s law is in effect all during this difficult time for me. Past insurance denials, that I thought were resolved resurfaced again and I must appeal again etc. Work has been asolutely INSANE. I mean there is the usual stress that I am accustomed to and I must say the hospital I work in is one of the more decent ones, but the last two shifts I had were horrendous.

I am hoping things will get better soon. So, I just wanted to warn all of you: Don’t overbook all your appointments into a small time frame!  I thought it would give me a little breather to have everything done at once and instead I am even busier than I ever thought I could be. I am up to my eyeballs in insurance paperwork and appointments and my yard is full of topsoil which is now mud because of the incessant rain we have been having.

Traveling Afghan project update

It seems that the folks running the traveling afghan project (see blog post below) have changed their website. The latest info I have is that this is the correct website:
http://www.thet21travelingafghanproject.com