It's been a long year ;)

I'll condense it though ;)

I've had a lot of health ups and downs since my Hypothyroidism diagnosis in October of 2016.  In July 2017, I also was diagnosed with Hashimoto's.  Both times, my diagnosing numbers were astronomical - My doctor actually said I set records for the office -- go me!  The TPO antibodies used to diagnose the Hashi's shouldn't have been over 39 . . . . . I was over 2,200.  Go me :)  

I take medicine, have made some diet changes and am not as sick/symptomatic as my numbers would indicate.  After a year, my frozen shoulder is resolved and I'm beginning to understand more about this auto-immune disease and how it affects me.  Still, fatigue, joint pain and brain fog are my top symptoms.  And when my numbers are off, my fingertips crack and bleed again.

The other big change in my life, I started working part-time for another church.  I had several promising interviews last year but none panned out.  After the last one, I was a little discouraged that I hadn't followed up on a newspaper ad that I'd seen 6 months earlier.  Wouldn't you know it?  It showed back up the  next day.  I took my resume and hand-delivered it, speaking for about 45 minutes with a very nice gentleman - who, it turned out, had a connection to one of the congregants at my current church job.  The interview went great and I started the Monday after Thanksgiving.  I work at St. Paul's Episcopal from 9am to noon, and then come out to Bethel Baptist from 1 -5pm.  I still have Monday afternoons off to try to get errands, doctor's appts and housework done.

Unfortunately, for my health, it was a very stressful first week - well, maybe first month ;)  And so my Thyroid  TSH result went up to 16.25 by January.  It's the first time stress has been a component of my thyroid puzzle.  It's back down now, but the TPO antibodies haven't really responded to anything.  Last check had them up over 3,300.  I have a great Integrative doctor in Seymour though, and he is very proactive and educated about trying new and different things -- besides just Synthroid.  I've been Gluten free since last July, it does help with inflammation and pain, but it hasn't been the cure-all that we'd hoped for.  He just started me on B12 in addition to my D (and K and Magnesium) because the B12 results have been very low for the last 6 months or more.  My adrenals were tested last fall and show problems in the noon and early evening hours, so he also has me on a supplement for that, and increased the dosage at my last appointment.

I try to keep up, and I really try to handle it on my own -- I don't want to be that person that everyone knows for saying "Well, it's because of my Hashimoto's", I don't want my life to be all about that, you know.  So I diminish it's effects and try the best I can to get along.  We'll see how that works long term :)