The Miracle of the Right Medications

Friends, something just...switched on about a week and a half ago for me.

I think part of it was that my thyroid was finally like "oh hey, these meds are here to help me, and so I should stop making Ryan feel like shit all the time."

I also think the other part was the Zoloft.

I had a physical about a week and a half ago and told my doctor that I needed a more long-term solution for my anxiety than Ativan. Granted, it helped like gangbusters when I needed it, but I don't want to need Ativan. So, she put me on Zoloft.

I know it's just the placebo effect at this point. It takes 4-6 weeks for an SSRI to fully kick in, but let me tell you. In the past week and a half, I've been more productive because I've been less overwhelmed, I've felt MILES better in terms of my mental health, and I feel like things are just...manageable at this point. Even if it is just the placebo effect, I'll take it. I'm not feeling any side effects (which I think is both telling and awesome), and I just feel good!

I thought about the idea of medications when I was back in college. I had been to therapy in college and while it was helpful, I wasn't quite where I wanted or needed to be. I tried meds on and off for a couple of years after college but because I didn't find a good fit (Effexor was a disaster and I would be sick for days with even one glass of wine because Effexor and alcohol don't play nice and my doctor was like "well then just stop drinking that one drink you have every few months - what's the big deal?" - Uh, I shouldn't be that sick is what the big deal is, DOC.), I just gave up the ghost and went back to trying to manage it on my own.

Friends, don't do that. Mental health medications are tricky and for sure not an exact science, but find a good one. Take the time. Be patient. the right medication or combination is out there. If you're experiencing unwanted side effects that don't feel tolerable, speak up and advocate for yourself. If I had done that a few years ago when I was doing the lexapro/effexor/screw-it-then-I'll-try-nothing-and-see-how-that-goes-because-my-doctor-is-terrible dance instead of giving up, I wouldn't be giving myself the kick in the pants that I'm currently giving myself. What I really should have done at that time was get a new doctor instead of giving up on meds, because the more I experience good ones, the more I realize how much she SUCKED. I get mad just thinking about it and then also thankful because my doctor now is so so so good.

Also, I go in for my endocolonoscopy on Monday, so that will be all kinds of weird. Luckily after this point it's only going to be colonoscopies every couple of years (leaving out the endoscopy part), so that's relieving. I'm SUPER DUPER not looking forward to the prep, which has actually already started because as of today I have to cut out all nuts, seeds, and beans. The prep doesn't start in earnest until Sunday afternoon, at which point I predict that I'm going to...be a less than pleasant person to be around for a little while. I'll just be glad to get this first one out of the way so that I know what to expect in the future and I can feel more prepared for it than I do right now. Then after I finish work today, I go and get the rest of the food that I can eat this weekend - jello, broth, and just...clear liquids. All of the clear liquids. I can have a fairly normal diet tomorrow (within reason), so it's really about buying GF pasta and figuring out what I can eat.

Super good times!

I was Due for Something Bonkers.

I am on vacation.

I don't know if it's the break of it all and everything finally all coming to a head and needing some kind of a release, but it probably wasn't that.

It could have been that I tried to see over 20 clients in 3 days. I only had like three cancellations, and then I had people who I couldn't get in at first, but was able to fit them into said cancellations. The last three days have been...we'll say busy because it sounds nicer than "a total chaotic shitshow" at work.

It could be the stress of all of the medical stuff (the thyroid extended biopsy came back benign, so I had much relief-crying to do after that) or the impending medical procedures I'm going to be having over the next six months, starting with an endocolonoscopy in 4 weeks. Maybe it was my way of exerting some kind of control over what's happening to me medically.

It could just be that the last time I took a break it was because my dog died. I really needed a break at that point, but it got eaten by grieving. (I'm also not entirely sure that this break won't be eaten up by the same grief but more manageable, but I'm hopeful that it will be better.)

It could also be pandemic fatigue and having to have Christmas over FaceTime with both of my parents instead of just one because of COVID and feeling really sad about it. Or it could just be this COVID bullshit in general.

It really could be any number of things.

My point is this: Before I tell you what I'm about to tell you, I feel the need to preface with the fact that I've got a lot going on. A lot. Also there's some Stuff that I'm Still Not Ready To Put Out There Because I Have To Get Some Ducks In A Row First But Trust That It's Taking Up All Of My Free Time.

I feel that I also need to preface what I'm about to tell you with the fact that back in August, I got a Very Bad Haircut. The person had not the first clue how to cut curly hair, and she gave me choppy layers. Were my hair straight, these layers probably would have looked great. But they didn't at all. Also, I have a hair appointment today that I frantically made at 6am today to fix what I've done. You see where I'm going with this.

I never, to my knowledge, went through a phase when I was a small child where I cut my own hair. Maybe it was 6-year-old curious Ryan coming out. I could say that I was having some weird Freudian Regressive Temper Tantrum in response to the stress I've been under over the past 6 weeks, but really, I'm 90% sure that with my hair, I just Hit My Limit.

Generally, when I've hit my limit when it comes to my hair, I am patient. I either ride it out and know that this too shall pass, or I make a hair appointment. I had no such patience yesterday. I took one look at my hair, took my damn scissors and I chopped 4 inches off of my hair. I cut off that whole bottom layer. It was dead and gross and I just...couldn't take it for one more second. My biggest mistake, however, was in keeping my hair in a ponytail while I did it. Because then I undid it and had to cut off two more inches.

I laugh at myself for doing that, because it's just about the most impulsive thing I've ever done, ever. I try not to be super impulsive, but as we all know, it's hard to plan being impulsive. There was definitely a build-up, but I could have made a different choice and I didn't. I just went for it.

I suppose there are a couple of lessons here - the first being that I need to take better care of my hair and speak up when I've been given a disastrous haircut. And, that being super impulsive like this doesn't really serve me so great. That's not a lesson that I need to learn, necessarily, but it definitely is something I need to remember. I suppose this is not the worst way for my impulsiveness to show itself - it could have been much more destructive, but when I get that urge to do something impulsive, it would likely be more helpful to tune into it than act on it. I usually do - but I don't know what came over me this time.

Anyway, time for my well-deserved chiding from a hairdresser, which I'm also used to because I don't get my hair cut enough and I don't go in unless my hair is in terrible shape. Because I don't and have never had a regular hairdresser in my adult life (save for my first two years of college), any hairdresser that I go to gives me the reality of my hair unvarnished because they know that I'll never see them again anyway. There's something freeing about it for both of us, and maybe that's why I don't have one. However, in times like this, I kind of wish I did have a regular hairdresser, because I could have called them before I got to this point with my hair and they would have been able to get me in before I cut six inches off of it myself.

Or maybe I need to take my Professional Overthinker Hat off for about five seconds and just laugh at myself because it's ridiculous and that's the reaction that's warranted here and not make anything of it. I'm not, necessarily - it's pretty hilarious and my hair is a total and complete trainwreck - but it's unclear to me why I reached that point without doing anything about it first. I think once I can figure that out, I'll be able to laugh at it for the truly ridiculous act that it was.

But, one could argue that I was due. Not just for a haircut, but for a time to just let loose and do something ridiculous. Maybe this was just what I needed. Snort.

Sweet, Miraculous Ativan

“I had a hunch you’d call after we got the test results from your thyroid biopsy,” said my doctor. 

I never thought my anxiety would get to the point where I’d be panic-sobbing at my doctor’s office because it became so unmanageable that I wasn’t sleeping and I was barely eating, yet there I was.

I’ve had panic attacks before. I know what they feel like. I’ve been able to get through them without meds, understand them for what they were, and ride them out. It’s only happened once or twice, and there was usually a medical trigger.

Then Miles died. Then two days later I had a thyroid biopsy. Then the following Monday (this past week) I got the call from my doctor: Indeterminate. This means that the extra samples that she took during the biopsy get sent to a lab for further testing and there are only two possible results: benign or suspicious. If it’s benign, monitor the nodules every six months. If it’s suspicious, my thyroid is coming out and they’re doing pathology on it and hopefully (and pretty likely - the rate of metastatic thyroid cancer is less than 5% if the cancer originated from nodules - if you think I haven't been researching obsessively since she called with the initial test results, you are sorely mistaken) there will be no further steps from there. I’ll know around Christmas what the next steps are.

I’m seriously considering having it taken out anyway so that I never have to go through this again, ever. It’s an option that is available to me since I have thyroid nodules, and I think that discussion may be worth having. When she and I meet in 3 months, we are absolutely having that conversation if it doesn’t come up before that.

Then a couple of days later, I met with my Lynch person and waited in the most depressing place ever (let me tell you, an oncology office is just...I can’t find the words for the sadness there. The receptionists were overly cheery, I think to try to overcompensate for the general feeling of malaise - and the look that people give you when you look young and walk into an oncology office made me want to scream that I don’t have cancer, I don't think, and even if I do it's not reproductive cancer so STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK PLEASE) to sit with her and have her tell me that the only reasonable treatment for Lynch is to have a full hysterectomy. She went over some alternatives, all of which were painful, invasive, would mean that I’d have to be put under, and would have to happen once a year, and recommended none of them except the hysterectomy. I told her about my thyroid issue and that I have to triage. She totally understood and remarked that that’s a lot of medical stuff to throw at a person all at once. She wasn’t quite prepared, I think, when I started crying.

Luckily I could anticipate this tipping point coming and was already scheduled with my doctor for 7am the next day!

“We really opened a can of worms here, but it was worth opening. If you’re going to have any kind of cancer, thyroid’s the one you want. It’s treatable by surgery, and the recovery and long-term remission rate is 99%," said my doctor. I'm not sure if she intended it to be, but I found it both reassuring and not. I expected "It's probably not cancer", but that's not what I got, and it took me a little time to process that. She also said that in order to stop the panic cycle, we have to reset my sleep schedule. I went drastically from 9-10 hours a night to about 4. I also went from eating two meals a day and some snacks to having to practically force one meal a day down my throat. She gave me a prescription for Ativan.

I was...not entirely wild about this idea. “Ativan is addictive!” I told myself. “Is my anxiety really that bad?” I asked myself as it sat on the shelf in my kitchen (which is a super fun game that people with anxiety play - they catastrophize and then when it gets really bad, they invalidate, lather, rinse, repeat.). If I was going to take it, I was going to wait until the weekend so that I wasn’t a total mess during the week more than I already was. Then Friday night came and I figured, what could it hurt? So I took a half a pill.

From a week and a half of struggling to sleep and getting an average of four or less hours a night (less than that even when I found out the biopsy results), I was out in minutes. I’m not sure if I was asleep or comatose, and I woke up sore because I didn’t move all night. I woke up refreshed in the morning and was productive! I was also awake pretty late, which was strange. I also found my appetite, which was both a blessing and a curse because Doritos. But, I was able to be present, I wasn’t anxious about anything, and I just...was able to get out of my own way for the first time in a while. I got stuff done around my house, I was able to focus, I hardly used my phone at all (it's my go-to coping mechanism when I'm feeling super anxious), and I definitely felt a difference.

I’m having such a strongly positive reaction to these meds that I find myself low-key wondering: have I been in a perpetual state of some kind of panic for a long time and it has just gone unacknowledged?

All signs point to yes. But, that's Later Ryan's problem. The most important part is that now that I have one week of waiting down, I feel like I can manage doing this two or three more times without unabashedly losing my shit, and that ain’t nothing.

Sweet, Sweet Relief.

I love teaching. I absolutely love it.

I also love closing the book on a good semester where all of the students are SUPER engaged and ready to learn and grow, and I get to bear witness to all of it. I just love it. It helps that I'm teaching at the graduate level because that's what happens every semester, and so I feel SO lucky to be doing what I'm doing.

I just closed the book on the fall semester (which is KIND OF an effing miracle with everything I have going on) and I'm off for the next seven weeks or so. Does that come with challenges? Yes. Do I also really need the break? YES. Because of COVID, my teaching schedule has been nothing short of frenzied since January. Breaks are a wonderful thing, and I've been ready for one since about August without the opportunity to get one. Now that it's here, I'm kind of in disbelief that I won't be teaching for seven weeks, and I don't know what to do with myself.

Of course, I know what I WILL be doing with myself.

I'll be going to doctor's appointments, having an endocolonoscopy, and possibly having a surgery (but hopefully not - I'll know more around Christmas). I have a lot going on that I'm not super ready to talk about yet, but after my second Lynch appointment today, I have more answers, and I'm feeling really good about this part of the plan going forward. There's more still to be figured out with other things, but I'll freak out for about four weeks and then I'll have more answers.

I've also decided that it's time. I've contacted my doctor and I have an appointment at 7am tomorrow to talk about getting back on anti-anxiety meds. I've tried to function for a long time without them and done fairly well with it, but with all of this health stuff that has come at me like a tsunami lately and some major changes that I'm going to be making in my life, I need some support. I'm going back to therapy too, but I know in my guts that it's not going to be enough. I feel pretty relieved about it, if I'm telling the truth, because I'm finally giving myself the support that I need and not trying to tough it out. Trying to tough out anxiety is like trying to tough out a sinus infection - it's really painful and annoying, and it will go away with time, but it would take a lot less if I just went on a damn antibiotic and got rid of it. I'm just...ready to feel better. It doesn't have to be perfect, just better.

I also know that my new doctor is a good one because I tried to make an appointment for tomorrow and she was like "I'm fully booked but willing to come in at 7 to see you." While 7 isn't my ideal time for an appointment, that she'd be willing to do that for me is pretty remarkable. She also can handle Real Talk about mental health stuff, of that I'm sure, so I'm going to just make the active choice to lay it out there and see where it goes. I know what I need, and I feel like she trusts that I know what I need, and so I'm hoping she'll meet me there.

But for now, I go crochet and toast with seltzer to the close of another successful semester and get ready to tuck into wintertime.

And probably decorate the Christmas tree. We bought it over the weekend and it's just sitting undecorated in our living room, making it nice and fragrant in here. Thank goodness the only thing our puppy is doing to it is sniffing it and drinking the water. We'll see how she does with ornaments and presents underneath it. (I actually kind of can't wait because I know it will be adorable even if it's a huge pain, and I have a hunch that I'll be re-wrapping some presents, but that's ok!)

Intentionality

Hello, Friends. 

I'm going to talk about something that I struggle with a lot, and that's being intentional about how I spend my time. Because I've spent so much of my life with the perception that things just happen to me instead of feeling like I have a say (and let me tell you, I've done some MAJOR work on this over the past 10 or so years, but I still definitely have a long way to go), intentionality ain't my strong suit. I was doing well for about a month recently by spending my time putting self-care at the forefront. Yoga was the way I did this, and it felt great, and I was able to generalize it to other areas of my life with some majorly positive results.

Then I found out about the genetic disorder and was totally overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I'd have to do in the beginning to manage it.

Then a family member had major surgery, which was related to this genetic disorder.

Then like 6 of my clients went into crisis and had to start being seen multiple times a week temporarily.

Then I made some Big Professional Decisions That I Can't Talk About Yet That Also Don't Feel Like They're Real Yet.

Then I realized that my income is going to be cut in more than half for the next two months because I won't be teaching and started unabashedly freaking out even though I know intellectually that we're going to be fine because we've been saving for this time knowing that it's coming.

Then my dog died and had to take the entire week off of work not just for the holiday, but also because I was in no mental place whatsoever to handle the grief AND having to be present with my clients.

Then I had a thyroid biopsy and I have a huge gross bruise on my neck. Thank goodness for scarves, let me tell you.

Yeah, November was a BITCH. Work-wise, every year it is. I'm not sure if it's the holidays, or if people are finally in a groove for the school year and that's when all of the difficulties rear their ugly heads, but regardless of the reason, I was in it. What that means when I'm in it is that I get knocked out of sync with my self-care. I stopped going to yoga. I stopped eating well. I just...stopped. The holidays are also hard for me for a multitude of reasons, and that's not a small piece of the puzzle, especially this year.

This happens from time to time and it costs me a great deal in terms of my mental health in particular. So, I realized what was happening and then I decided to do something different. I got in touch with my therapist to get back into therapy (I always tick up this time of year anyway because holidays), and made a few other intentional decisions, and then I sat down a few minutes ago and looked at the schedule of my yoga studio. I put myself in for five classes this week knowing that the excuses I was making not to go were no longer valid. Not going was keeping me from meeting myself where I was, and it didn't allow me any more space. It wasn't causing me any less stress not to go - if anything, it was making it worse. Regardless of all of that, I was coming up with excuse after excuse after excuse not to go. That all stopped today.

I don't know where it happened (I suspect it started happening before yesterday, but that's when I started noticing it), but something along the way just just...clicked. I was having a really hard time. Like, really hard. Our best friend invited us to go to the park with her son and Ruby and I just...couldn't do it. So I let Rob and Ruby go and sat by myself unraveling a blanket, making a giant yarn ball, and crying. Weird, maybe. But it was what I needed to do for myself at that point in time. I'm doing better today, but I know that things like this are going to happen over the next few weeks. There have been MAJOR ups and downs this week, which will get better with time, and I'm sure are not made any easier by the fact that my thyroid medication changed and it's wreaking all kinds of havoc, to the point where I might call my doctor. I want to ride it out and see if it gets any better and give it a little time and see if my body is able to even out, but we'll see.

Sigh. What I've come to realize (and this was a long time ago that the realization came, I just am not consistent about doing anything about it) is that the chaos in my life will be no less unless I make it so. Sometimes I just have to get out of my own way - if I want less chaos, that's what's got to happen. There's literally no other way than making the choice and realizing that not making the choice is also making a choice.

This post deserves a hashtag. Here it is.

#shitisaytomyclientsallthetimebutdonteverfollowmyself

An Ode to my Beloved Pet

Today, we had to put Miles, the first dog I've ever owned, to sleep. His decline started on Thursday - he was sluggish, lethargic, and struggled to eat. "Maybe he ate something bad while countersurfing", we thought, and felt affirmed on Friday when he appeared to rebound, waking up and immediately wanting to play with Ruby. He was eating, he was doing great. Then Saturday, same thing. I breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday, thinking we were out of the woods.

We very much weren't, I realized, on Saturday night. We went out to do some Christmas shopping and when we returned, he was again sluggish. He had to be coaxed to eat. He was Officially Not Himself. "Let's give it the night," I told myself. "He'll wake up in the morning better just like he did on Friday. This is a passing thing." I think we were both trying to convince ourselves that this was not him telling us that it was time.

He woke me up around 2am, pacing and whining quietly. He tried to lay down, but was up again after a little while, would pace and drink water, rinse and repeat for about 6 hours. Ruby had training class this morning, so Rob agreed to take him to the emergency vet and I would meet them there after class was done. Before he left, we had to have the conversation: If it was really bad or it was going to take something really invasive and drastic to make it ok, would we take those measures? For both of us, it was a resounding no - his quality of life forever being our North Star, we couldn't do that to him. To have tried to prolong his life at the expense of his quality of life would have only benefited us, and after all he has given us in his 9 and a half years, we just couldn't do that. If it was something small that could easily be fixed, absolutely. Fix it. Get him back to his old self. I think at this point we both knew in our hearts and our guts that this wasn't the case. I checked in after we finished and they still hadn't taken him in, but by the time I got there they had and they had an answer: Massive internal bleeding probably from cancer somewhere in his abdomen, or potentially a ruptured spleen. Either way, there was nothing we could do, so we had to let him go.

We got the news and I just...sobbed. And sobbed. I wondered how this could have happened because he got two pristine bloodworks - one in July and one before his dental surgery in September. And then we learned that only one of us could go in with him. I sobbed harder. Rob and I talked about it, and I offered for him to go in - he was Miles' Person, but Rob, ever the compassionate soul that he is, let me go in. We brought him for a cheeseburger, which I ordered through tears at the McDonald's drive through, and I wondered to myself how many people they had done this for. He he didn't eat it, which I expected. Then we brought him back to the vet, Rob said his final goodbyes, we brought him in, I petted him and whispered in his ear that he was the best boy, kissed him one last time between the eyes, which was my favorite place to kiss him, and then let him go.

I don't think I've ever been more anxious about an animal as I was Miles' entire life. I mean, literally from the moment I picked him up from work (I was working at the SPCA at the time) on that March 31 in 2011. We were kindred spirits, he and I, because he was so anxious that we had literally JUST had an appointment with our vet about putting him on drugs like a week ago. A week ago yesterday. The prozac is waiting at CVS right now to be picked up, even. He bonded with both of us right away, but because I was around him more (because I could bring him to work with me at the time), he bonded with me quickly. He bonded with Rob more slowly, but theirs was a love that was so deep and plentiful that I just loved watching them together. I often found myself envious of their bond.

I'm not sure if it was the stigma of owning a pit bull that I had unconsciously internalized (though he never had a single bite in his history ever - but he was a Big Dude, and I remember when he was younger but full-sized, there would be times that I would walk him and because he was so reactive, people would cross the street to the other side, and to top it off, he was a smiler - when he got excited, he'd show you his teeth, which tended to scare people until we explained), or if it was just First Dog Jitters, or a combination of the two. But I was constantly wracked with anxiety the entire nine and a half years that we had him in our lives. My worst nightmare, today, was on my mind all the time, especially in the last year or two. It was with me when he had kennel cough and then a secondary infection, during which he had a chronic cough for a year and a half and there were times I was sure we were going to lose him. It was with me whenever we passed another person or a dog and he got reactive. It was with me when he got into my Jolly Joes when he was six months old. It was with me whenever we had visitors. It was always with me. 100% of the time. There was no reason for it and if I had been able to let it go, the quality of relationship that I had with him may have been better, but the love we had and still have for this dog is a long-burning one. I can say with 100% certainty that we did the right thing today. I can say with 100% certainty that we did our best to make sure that we spoiled him rotten, as he deserved. And he responded in kind by making me feel more loved by a dog than I could have ever dreamed of. What could we do in that unconditional, unabashed, and constantly present love we were being shown? We did everything we could to do right by Miles and show him the love that he has so unconditionally shown us, and that included listening to him when he told us it was time.

Do I grieve? Of course I do. But I'm also filled with this overwhelming sense of relief that we did the right thing and that we gave him the best life possible. I don't know what to do now that he's gone, and there's this sadness and grief that has descended on our house that will dissipate eventually, but his absence is BIG. His absence is felt not only in the not barking at every passer by, or when my neighbors across the street deign to get in their car and drive away or at the mailman or the UPS guy, but also because that anxiety I felt was a huge weight that I now no longer carry, I don't know what to do with that not being present anymore. I'll miss his butt wiggles and him greeting me at the door. I'll miss him licking my feet when I do yoga. I'll miss him wrestling with Ruby and showing her how to dog. I'll miss him just coming and chilling out in my office when we're both in the middle of a work day and my clients cooing at him because he was just SO DAMN CUTE with that FACE. I'll miss his tap dancing whenever he sees us. I'll miss coming downstairs from a session or five in a row to him just chilling on the couch. I'll miss how excited he'd get when we brought out the toys or treats. There are about 15,000 other things that I will carry with me as a result of having him with us, and I have so much gratitude for each of those things that I might burst. But I also know that having those little things with me comes at a cost. Love this big comes with grief in equal measure, so I'm in for it over the next few days and weeks as I adjust to his absence. I've only sobbed randomly once, and so I have hope that this weight will get easier to carry, having no expectation that it's ever going to go away, nor do I want it to because it means that I loved him, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Miles, you're the best first dog a girl could ask for. Thank you, endlessly, for the lessons and the love.

01/31/2011-11/22/2020
(He's also pretending to sleep in this picture which he did VERY
often whenever I tried to take pictures of him.
He absolutely hated having his picture taken.)

This is a bonkers idea. Is this a bonkers idea? This is a bonkers idea.

 Let me tell you what happens when I go off of my thyroid meds because I am absolutely terrible at two things:

1. Taking my medications/supplements regularly

2. Refilling my medications when they run out

I ran out of thyroid meds a week and a half ago. If there is anything that I should take, it's this medication. I've had normal numbers until about a year and a half ago, but various doctors over the years have been like, "you should take it." and then, "Nah, you don't need it. You can stop." and then, "You should take it." and then my naturopath was like "You should definitely take it AND here's a higher dosage."

The difference that I felt after I started taking that higher dosage was nothing short of remarkable. I was less anxious (and that's fun, because depression and anxiety are symptoms of hypothyroid), I slept better, I woke up more refreshed, and I had a clearer head, literally overnight. I was rolling along, taking it (basically) consistently, but having hiccups here and there, and really struggling to take it whenever my routine got thrown off, like on the weekends. That's one that will be a perpetual struggle, I think.

But, running out of medications. Right. So, I ran out a week and a half ago. "No big deal," I thought. "I'll just pick it up in the next few days."

And then I didn't. And then I didn't again. And then I started to feel sluggish. And angry. And just...heated. The only way that I can describe it was that it felt like someone had turned up my internal stove (except I was cold all the time) and I was just...not great. I was foggy, I was anxious, and I just was a pretty hard person to be around. I had been feeling like I'd been fighting something for a few days, and lo and behold, it was my thyroid. AND YET, I sat there the WHOLE DAMN TIME wondering why I was feeling that way, and pinning it to my Election Week Diet, which was terrible. I ate macaroni and cheese four nights in a row, that kind of terrible. I figured if I could fix my diet and get myself back to a place of balance in what I was putting in my body, then I'd feel better.

And then I didn't. At that same time, I also realized that I hadn't taken my thyroid meds in a week and a half. I just hadn't made the connection. Unbelievable. (I ALSO TRIED AND FAILED YOGA TWICE THIS WEEK AND COULDN'T FRIGGING FIGURE OUT WHY.)

I hopped back on the thyroid medication train this morning and I feel a world of difference already. I'm clearer, I'm feeling better, and I have energy to move around and stuff instead of just shuffling myself from one thing to the next, hoping that I'd be able to go to bed soon, please, or maybe I'll just nap in my work chair because I'm so overwhelmed that I feel like that's all I can do.

Right. On to my bonkers idea.

I was feeling a lot of internal noise all of a sudden earlier today and thought, "Oh good, my body is finally awaking from this damn stupor." On a break I had been reading Ask A Manager, one of my favorite blogs. The advice she gives is spot on, and I just love reading it.

And then my brain just...barfed something out that totally stunned me. I literally felt like I had been jolted by something.

Write an advice column about ethics for counselors. Start a blog, advertise to my social media groups, have people write in with their hypothetical counseling ethical conundrums, and take it from there, with eventually monetizing it. I need to tease it out from a liability standpoint to make sure I don't get sued, and I need to make sure that I cover myself as entirely as possible, but I think I'm going to do it.

I have some other irons in the fire that I'm trying to work out in the coming weeks, but that's what happens when your thyroid counts normalize; you can actually think and plan and, you know, do things you like because you actually like them and not because you feel like you have to or that it's a chore because everything's a chore when you don't feel well for reasons you can't pinpoint.

And go to your thyroid doctor, even if you know that it will probably end in a biopsy because you're three years late for the one you have to get every 10 years. Oops.