Health-related update, with preamble.

PREAMBLE

Hey, friends. I decided I have way too many updates for one blog post.  If I were a more skilled, or more patient, blogger, I'd take the time to interweave the threads and leave you, at the end, feeling satisfied that you'd just read a coherent piece, created by one of the best writers you know.

However, it's Sunday, and I am spending the day with Jim and Sara, so I have to be careful not to blog the day away.  Also, I'm afraid my skill level - which is obscenely high, of course - might just drive you away if you were forced to perceive it.

So, I'm just going to do a few updates, I think, with different kinds of information in them.  As you can see from my descriptive title (right?  Mad skills, eh?) this is a health-related update.

HEALTH-RELATED UPDATES

My calcium levels are still trending toilet-ward.  I take many calcium supplements on a daily basis, and when I forget, the tingling in my limbs begins.  The last time I was tested, the level was still "critically low."  My parathyroid, however, *is* trying.  My PTH hormone levels are also low, but low-low-normal, so there's something going on in there.  Time will tell if I ever get my calcium-absorbing talents back, but at least they make sugar-free TUMS that taste like baby aspirin in the meantime.  My endocrinologist wants to see me in a couple of weeks about these results, and I assume at that point he'll check out my (lack of) thyroid and make sure there's no garbage growing there.

However, my thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level, apparently, is starting to regulate, and just in time, because I found out when I finally stepped on the scale for the first time since my surgery, that I'd gained MUCH weight.  While I understand that weight gain happens when one doesn't watch what one consumes, the amount of weight I've put on seems excessive, and not in line with what I've been eating, as far as I can tell.  I'm so pleased, though, that this weight gain is just in time for the summer, for my wedding in the fall, etc.  Yay for weight gain at great times.  Yay.

In other health-related news, I haven't been able to do Pilates because of some herniated disc stuff in my neck.  I've started physical therapy for the related nerve issues, however, and it seems to be helping.

Finally, I have to have a biopsy tomorrow for another finding (not thyroid-related).  It's endless. Wish me luck.  The doctor who did the ultrasound said she was 99 percent sure it wasn't cancerous and I said, well, I've heard that before, but I'll take your word for it.  I'm taking her word for it.

Stop with the excessive gifts. I promise I'll update my bog.

Okay, folks, please stop sending me candy-grams and flowers and cards in an effort to get me to update my blog. I can't handle the volume of gifts with my small apartment.  If you want to send me gifts in exchange for blog updates, please make them cash gifts.

*Whew.* Glad I finally said that.