Not much to tell but..

Here is what I know so far! I have a "quite large" nodule on the left side of my thyroid.  Also my Iodine levels were high. My thyroid was taking more of the iodine that it probably should have.  So quite frankly, we don't know much more. My doctor should be calling me on Tuesday with more info after he reviews my test, but until then, we are going to enjoy our long weekend!

Nuclear Medicine...

That is where I will be going tomorrow for my test.  I've been on the Iodine deficient diet for almost a week now. Tonight at midnight, I have to begin to fast.  At 11 AM, I will be given a tablet that has radioactive iodine in it. I will go back at 3 to have my thyroid scanned and again at 1 PM the next day and have it scanned again. They will be looking for a couple of things.  Part of this test is to look at my thyroid size, how many and how big any nodules are, and how quickly and efficiently my thyroid uses the iodine to make the hormones my body needs. The will look and see if some of the thyroid is working more than others and if anything look possibly cancerous.  Did you know that nuclear medicine is very expensive? Oh yeah, thank goodness for insurance. Otherwise, we would be moving in with parents. I'll post any and all updates that I get from the test on here. The most annoying thing so far, (besides the diet) is that my thyroid has swollen pretty big and you can now see it pushing out of my neck. It is really weird! Try not to stare! Ha ha!
But, life goes on and we do have some fun things to look forward to! My sister, Nicole is coming up today from Arizona for the weekend and we've got all the Memorial Day celebrations to look forward to! I love holidays!

Matt's Day Off

When your husband works 50 hours a week, his day off is a big deal.  It seems like every week we end up saying "On your day off" for pretty much everything that falls out of the usual housework load.  So his day off usually ends up full of lots of things to do. But yesterday we actually got lots done.
Because of my Iodine diet, I decided to make my own bread. I was a little bit nervous because I had never actually made a regular loaf of bread from scratch. I've done cinnamon rolls and banana bread, but this seemed a lot different. I pulled my Betty Crocker cookbook out and followed the directions the best I could. If you are wondering how I can make my own bread without salt, I can't. I can use Iodine free salt, which was extremely cheap and easy to find at Wal-Mart. I was glad for that.  It seems like everything turned out because by the end of the day, my loaf of bread looked like this...

After I pulled the bread out of the oven, we decided to go to the park. I figured that would be some good quality time together and that we would have lots of fun. Matt wasn't so excited at first, but then he decided that he would like to go.  We started at the swings...

She was really brave and seemed to like it quite a bit. I actually got her going pretty good and she just gave out little squeals. It was pretty cute. She had never been on a swing before, except her little infant swing.  But over at my mom's house, she had been down her slide more than a couple times. She loved going down them. But over at the park, she was not so excited about the slide. In fact, she got more and more nervous the more we went down the slide. 

After that, we decided that maybe the playground was not her forte. We decided we would just walk around and look at the ducks. Now that was something she liked! 

Matt and I got some exercise and Keldrie got to interact with the wild life.  It was a good afternoon. After that, we went to Matt's parent's house for just a few minutes while Matt took some pictures of some old stuff he is going to sell on the Internet. Then it was back home to make dinner.  With my diet, the meat I don't have to really limit is pork chops. So that is what we had.  Matt is being a sweetheart about the whole diet thing.  We both love Ice cream, but with the diet, I can't have any dairy.  So he has been eating the ice cream in secret. He makes me laugh! 

We are all doing well and can't wait for summer to actually get here! 

Latest Thyroid Info

I had an appointment with the NP yesterday about my thyroid. My sweet husband came with me, which was really great, because he asked all the right questions and confirmed the symptoms I've been having with my NP. David Winmill is the NP's name. He felt my thyroid and confirmed what I had already knew, my thyroid has gotten bigger. I can feel it a lot of the time now when I swallow.  I'm having a lot of the symptoms that the NP asked me about the first time and at that time I could say no to all of them.  Heart palpitations every once in a while, trouble sleeping, tiredness, dry skin, difficulty swallowing, and a few other minor complaints.  The NP is still not sure what to actually diagnose me as. He says all my symptoms were that of something called Hashimoto's disease. But when he tested for the antibodies that should have been there, it came back negative. We are all very confused.
So, what we decided on is one more blood draw, and then one of two tests. Iodine uptake and scan, or ultrasound. The latter is pretty understandable, but the uptake and scan is where I go on an iodine free diet for at least a week and then I will be given a tablet that is pretty much straight iodine, but is also slightly radioactive, so they can scan past my thyroid and see if my thyroid is absorbing the iodine and if one part of the thyroid is more active than others. The reason we are doing this is because I have at least one nodule growing on top of my thyroid.
Well, I just got the call and my levels have gotten worse. So now we are going to be doing the uptake and scan.  This means that I will have to avoid all food that has regular or sea salt in it. I will be getting a call tomorrow to schedule my appointment for the scan and then I will know just how long I do actually have to be on the diet. I hope not over Memorial Day! I don't know about the rest of you, but the food is the best part of that holiday.  In fact, I think the food is the best part of most holidays. Could be why I'm in the physical state I am. Anyway, I digress. Now we have a way to move forward.
It is good to actually have my blood work reflect the problems I have been feeling.  I don't think that the NP really believed how bad my symptoms had gotten since the one time I had a blood draw between my first appointment and yesterday's appointment my levels had actually improved. It was so nice to have Matt their to back up that I haven't been myself.
Luckily for us, we have a great family who is there to help us. I am so glad that Elaine, my awesome mother-in-law, was able to watch Keldrie while Matt and I went together. I know that everything will turn out all right. The good news for us is that this is the worse of our problems right now. Matt and Keldrie are both very healthy and my symptoms are not bad enough yet to keep me from being able to do those things I need and want to. We are overall very fortunate. I am going to miss my salt though.

A little lady

    

When these little babies come to us, we are told that they are helpless organisms who can do nothing on their own.  I don't know how much of that I believe, but I do know one thing, Keldrie is a person all her own.  This last week has been full of fun surprises and I realize just how much she is learning and growing as a person.  The first thing that happened was me just sitting in the chair and her playing with toys and suddenly she folded her arms, squeezed her eyes shut and mumbled some gibberish very quickly. It was just like a perfect baby prayer. So, so cute and made me proud that we pray around her enough that she is capable of imitating it. I also laughed out loud at her.
A few weeks ago, when I got sick of Keldrie constantly tearing my purse apart, I got into my storage of stuff I have no use for but don't want to get rid of, and pulled out a small little purse I had bought in Hawaii a few year ago as a scripture case. I put some old makeup things in it and a long beaded necklace.  This is the outcome of those few items....

She is so much a girl. It is very fun to watch her turn into a little girl, much as I hate how fast the time is flying by. She is also becoming increasingly attached to her baby doll. She wraps her up in blankets, pushes her in the stroller, but mostly she carries her around and hugs her. Sometimes she gives the baby to other people so they can hug and kiss baby too.  Her name is Baby.  I'm not sure why I didn't give her an actual name, but it's too late now. If I ask her where Baby is, she will go running off to find her. Perhaps she will give her a name later down the road. 

With the weather getting better, we have also been able to go outside and Baby came with us.  If the weather is not good enough to go outside, make sure you either say it quietly or say o-u-t, because she knows what it means and a meltdown will ensue if she hears it and then can't go. Luckily though, we have been able to spend some time outside. I, myself, want it to get much warmer before we spend lots of time out there. 

Other than that, here a few other random pictures of what Keldrie has been up to. And yes, in the next picture, that is her picking out a Jell-o Pudding cup out of the fridge. 

A Busy Weekend

This weekend was really busy for us. On Friday, one of my best friends got married. She has been in love with her new husband since we were like 16 years old.  She had a crush on him in the 9th grade and everything just grew from there.  Andrew came home from his mission in December and they got engaged over Valentine's weekend.  I was so happy to be there while they were sealed for time and all eternity. The sealer was the President of the Bountiful Temple and he gave them some beautiful and insightful advice about being sweet to each other and about being happy and righteous parents as well.  Elaine watched Keldrie for us so we were able to just worry about Sara. Or rather I was, and Matt was suppose to worry about me.  I was so emotional and physically anxious about the whole thing. Being in charge of everything in the temple was very nerve racking. But everything went off without a hitch and she was able to get married to her high school sweetheart.  I am so happy for the two of them and I wish them all the happiness in the world.
After the sealing, pictures, and the luncheon, we went back to Elaine's and picked up Keldrie. Elaine said she was a good girl for her, but from the look of the family room, it might have been because she got to tear apart the whole place. But I am grateful for Elaine watching her.  We got home, took a 45 minute nap, and by then it was time to head back to the ring ceremony.  We didn't know just how far a drive it was and got there 15 minutes late, but luckily they were running about 16 minutes late. We got to  sit down just in time for everything to start and after talking to Sara and Andrew and a few other people, we had to ditch really early, mostly because of this...

Sunday, of course, was mother's day.  Matt surprised me with a bouquet of daisies on Saturday night.  Besides that, I got a set of 16 new glasses, which was perfect because Keldrie broke the 2nd to last one we had the day before.  We had some coffee mugs, but besides that we had two plastic glasses and one glass one left. I also got some new scrap booking supplies. I am now officially a scrapbook-er. So anyone who wants to get together and have a scrap booking party, just let me know! 

In order to be able to talk to Matt's brother, Greg, who is on his mission, we went to my mom's sacrament meeting and then went over to Elaine and Steve's during our own sacrament meeting.  It was awesome to talk to Greg. I actually knew Greg a little bit in high school through some mutual friends. I just think it is funny that I never knew Matt, but I did know Greg. Of course, Greg is closer to my own age than Matt is. But anyway, it was good to talk to him about how the mission is going.  We also talked about the flooding they have been having and to hear that the area he is in didn't really get hit, but the temple has some flood damage and the mission president's house does too. For anyone who doesn't know, he is serving in Tennessee. After talking to Greg, we headed back to our ward building to teach our primary class. The kids were a little wiggly, but overall okay.  Then we went back to my mom's house for a family party.  As I sit here, I can practically taste the roast beef sandwiches we had. They were so yummy. We got to see some of my cousins and my aunts and uncles and Keldrie got to play with a few of her second cousins.  We finished up back at the Smith's with all the cousins and some fantastic strawberry cheesecake. 

In other news, we are trying to get Keldrie off the bottle and as of today, she only gets a bottle a night.  Putting her down for her morning nap was a little difficult, but she is sleeping now. Thank goodness! Wish me luck on this transition. 

Embarrassing!

I always knew Keldrie would do a few things that would embarrass me. I didn't know, however, that one of these things would be my daughter biting almost through my mother's upper lip and leaving a very noticeable scab, once it stopped bleeding. AH!

Not much new...

I really don't have much to report lately except that we finally got internet at our apartment. That means that I don't have to go to my mom's to post a blog or check my email. I'm very excited about it. Matt is excited too.
Keldrie is growing and learning everyday. Somethings are really fun to watch her learn, others complicate my life. One such example is that Keldrie has learned how to open most of the drawers in my kitchen now. That means that she goes in there and pulls everything out and on the floor. Other things are a little more encouraging that she has learned. She has learned to say "all done!" when she wants down from her high chair after she is done eating. She is a good girl.

A few weeks ago, we were loving going outside and playing in the sunshine. But then the weather turned and we haven't been able to go out much since. I'm hoping that the good weekend the weather man has promised me will in fact come to pass. Keldrie has thrown a few tantrums by being denied a trip outside.  I really don't blame her. I've been quite upset about the weather as well.
Here is looking forward to a good May!

There is nothing new as far as my thyroid is involved.  I still don't know what is going to come of all this, but I don't have any incredibly awful symptoms. I am tired and swallow loudly, but that is about it.  I am excited for mother's day this Sunday. I like that I get to see my family and Matt's family. I am really grateful that my in-laws are all so nice and that we all get along so well. I think that is something that everyone worries about when they start to talk marriage.  But I have some wonderful sisters-in-law who I enjoy talking with and my parents-in-law are near perfect in their concern for us, but not getting involved too much either. It is nice. I like my brothers-in-law too, but I never really worried about that. I am so glad that Keldrie has some cousins to play with and that as she gets older, we can have all the girl cousins over for sleepovers and stuff like that.  We might be a really young family who have a tight budget, but we do have everything we need and lots of love.