CORRELATION DOES NOT EQUAL CAUSATION.

Yeah, I think it’s funny that cities with low Brady scores seem to have lower violent crime rates.

It’s just an illusion.

Okay, that’s all I wanted to say.

Carry on.

The bloodwork my GP did was completely different than the bloodwork my OB-GYN did.

I’m going to see my gyno on Thursday morning, and I’m taking the new work with me so that he can explain WTF is going on.

My thyroid levels are two different things on the tests, so that’s no help.

My triglycerides went from a totally respectable 107 to a ridiculously high 215.  WTF WTF WTF?!?

Everything else looks okay, as far as I can tell, but there are some indications that my liver might be rebelling from all of the medication.

And also, I still feel like being on birth control isn’t helping me all that much.  Except that I totally skipped my period this month, which is awesome.  Heh.

I’m signing up for a local gym TOMORROW (like, paying for a year and signing up for actual aerobic exercises), and I already have a workout buddy (whom I’ve never met, but she’s a recovering mean girl, and I’m a pretty snarky person, so I think we’ll get along famously), so I can go to my gyno the morning after cardio and be like, “HELP ME CAN’T YOU SEE I’M TRYING TO HELP MYSELF MY GOD MAN PLEEEEEEASE”

Because I am a graceful creature.  With a 40-inch waist.  Possibly a 42-inch waist.  I can wear my 6′6″ husband’s pants, is what I’m saying.

When I got married, I had a 31-inch waist.  Probably a 33-inch waist when I started on birth control.  And it’s all been spectacularly downhill from there.  Stress, hormones, possible thyroid and/or pituitary issue, and a rebelling liver?  Yeah, all of those could be possible.  I have symptoms of fibromyalgia, to be sure.  I also have symptoms of hypothyroidism of the type that’s the result of your pituitary gland NOT picking up the slack.  Which is weird.  I don’t understand it.  Which is why I’m talking to my doctor about it.

I might actually weigh 220 pounds right now.  That’s 60 pounds above my “ideal” weight, given my bone structure.  I mean, holy shit.  That’s scary.

Anyway, I’m fat and unhealthy, I can’t even wear my wedding rings any more, and I don’t want to be the kind of person I usually make fun of.

Yes, I said it.

I have ragged on SO many people for getting married and then getting fat.  Circumstances being what they are, I would be pissed if someone made fun of me, but I’ve probably made comments along the lines of, “how hard is it to eat healthy?  I mean, especially when you don’t have any other bills?”  Yeah.  Go ahead and kick me in the ass.  I’ll post video from my first aerobics class so that you can see me kicking my OWN ass.  Would you like that?

I’m sure someone out there would like to see it.  I’ll probably do a before/after.  If I remember.  Or if I’m alive afterward.  My fingernails are blue and purple, for fuck’s sake.  I doubt my heart’s getting much more blood.

I have two pairs of size 18 pants of the stretchy variety, which means they showcase my lower belly fat marvelously.  I have also invested in quite a few large men’s tee shirts, and am now dressing like the trailer trash I am descended from.  I have arrived.  I am “home.”

Well, “home” can kiss my ass, because I’m tired of not being able to shave behind my knees without executing a move that would make any circus-performing contortionist proud, if not slightly disgusted.

So, anyway.  I’m joining a gym tomorrow, the last term of my college career is looming, and my goal is to be back to my wedding weight (it was 180-ish, I’m pretty sure) by graduation.  Then, by the following fall, I hope to be back to a comfortable 14, or a 12.  A 12 would be nice.

And thus begins the journey of someone with an eating disorder and a seriously warped body image, on the road to trying to be healthy enough for her doctors to take her seriously when she says, “holy shit look at my bloodwork!!  what the FUCK is THAT?”

I went to spend the night at my best friend’s house last Saturday, because her twin girls and husband were at her in-law’s house (MiL, specifically).  We had some drinks, watched some silly movies, and generally had a great time just being around each other.  It’d been MONTHS.

I get home, and people are acting…odd.

Whatever…I put my things away, and then go take a nap, because I was hungover and hadn’t slept well the night before.

So this is Sunday.

Monday, JB confided in me that his parents had alluded that divorcing me wouldn’t be the most shameful thing he could do.

I asked what provoked it, and it’s the same old story – I’ve been getting this attitude from my doctor, too:  I’m not feeling well, they don’t know how to deal with it, and the only way they know how to get rid of an “animal” that’s ill around here is to get rid of it.  Obviously, they can’t take me out back and bludgeon me with a fireplace poker, and they can’t shoot me or throw me in a ditch or give me to a neighbor.  So, to get rid of me, they want to break me and JB up and just have me go back from whence I came.  Or something.

It comes down to the lack of control that MiL feels in the house.  Our room is a MESS because we keep all of our stuff in here.  ALL of it.  We don’t leave things in the living room or kitchen.  I try to put dishes where they’re supposed to go, but I don’t do any extra cleaning, because I know how much it sucks when someone tries to “help” you do something you’ve been doing for years.  You spend the entire time hovering and cleaning up after that person, and just insisting that you do it yourself.  That’s where I am.  That’s where MiL put me.  So what do I do?  I stay in here.  I go to classes.

While I know there’s a hormonal component to my weight gain, there is definitely a stress component, as well.  I feel like I’m back in my grandparents’ house in Clarksville, afraid to leave the room because my grandfather would lurk in his recliner in the living room, just waiting for an opportunity to say something derogatory to me.  I was at the bottom of the totem pole there, and I hated it.  I couldn’t do anything right.  Everyone who has frustration to take out?  They took it out on me.  Grandfather, grandmother, mother.  Everyone.  And I was supposed to just take it, respect my elders, and stay in my room or stay out all night drinking with my friends to avoid the inevitable at-home conflict.

Here, it’s a little different in terms of delivery.  I hear about everything through JB.  His mom thinks I say “fuck” too often, but she won’t ask me to tone it down.  She tells JB that I’m doing it on purpose just to drive her crazy.  Um, if you want me to watch my language, ask me to watch my language.  It’s really simple.  So they’re taking out their frustration with me on JB, and there’s definitely a strain on our marriage, as a result.

We’re currently looking for places to move ASAP.  We unfortunately don’t have a lot of money to start with, but if anyone wants to throw anything my way, I’d be much obliged.  We have a few leads on some houses in this area that are nice and in great shape.  We just have to be able to finagle the first steps.

I’m usually so blunt toward people and how I feel that I’ve gotten used to that behavior from others.  I’m not used to the passive-aggressive warfare I seem to have been unwillingly thrust into for some stupid reason.  This is the reason why I avoid my sister (mother of my nephew) as much as I do.  She’s fun in very small doses, but she’s like a 4-star General in the Passive Aggressive War when she gets going.  She might have a medal somewhere.  When she pulls that shit out, I just leave.  I can’t handle it.

The must upsetting part of this, to me, is that my in-laws have been more parental toward me than my own parents.  For my dad, it was because, well…he was just a shitty dad.  My mom took care of me, but she was more of a buddy.  My MiL is a buddy, but I trusted her with a LOT of stuff, because she seemed to care, and she seemed to empathize (especially with the happy little uterine hell I’m going through).  My FiL is a jolly guy, and I don’t share any deep secrets with him, but I’m friendly with him.  I’m just shocked at how MiL is now using these things I’ve told her in confidence against me, toward my relationship with my husband.

I mean, this is high school bullshit.

So I’m just hiding out in my room tonight.  JB and I will be gone for most of the day tomorrow, then on Sunday I have to write a paper and get things together for classes on Monday, blahblahblah.  I plan to stay busy down at Cluck-n-Neigh, as long as they’ll have me, and I’m considering joining a fitness center to have someplace to go when I’m upset to just work it out.  Also:  I’m fat.  So yeah.  That’s necessary.  The working out can help control the anger I feel toward my MiL right now, and can help the alien food baby I seem to be gestating.

*sigh*

JB’s at the top of the hiring list for the county schools here, so in August, he will have a job.  I’m still filling out paperwork for possible MAT work starting in the Fall, and when I’m done with that, I’ll be able to get a job to help, both with student loans and house stuff.  We’ll be on our own, with our animals, in our own space, and I won’t have to have  conniption over putting a cup in the wrong place.

THAT will be nice.

Until then, I might just “accidentally” drop an Ativan in her morning coffee.  Or hell…drop it in mine.

Found this on Unrelated Captions.

I’m so sorry for those of you with delicate sensibilities.  You might want to skip this post, as I am about to make light of the gruesome death of an allegedly innocent animal.  I lost my delicate sensibilities a loooooong time ago.

___

For the rest of you, OMG WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS RIDICULOUS.

As you know, Cloud (the intrepid explorer) was unwillingly sequestered to the outdoors after peeing (and pooping) on the carpets/floors/furniture of not only his former owners, but my floors, as well.  JB and I brought him out to Covington, he and my mother-in-law have struck up a kind of weird friendship, and he’s doing pretty well.*

Because he’s an outdoor cat, well – we feed him outdoors.  We’re weird like that.

In this part of the country, the Virginia Opossum is one of our biggest pests – literally and figuratively.  They grow upwards of two feet long (with the tail, it can be almost three), and while they are kind of cute, it wears off after you catch them screwing with your stuff so many times.  I feel the same way about most living things, so don’t think I’m hating on the ‘possum – they’re just the most frequent offenders.

Since Cloud’s food is outside, he usually has to share it with animals who are on the lookout for an easy meal.  Cloud’s been raised a house cat – if he can run away from something, he will.  In the case of a ‘possum, I don’t blame him one bit.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was recording Vicious Circle, my father-in-law shot a ‘possum.  (I think it speaks for how well I’ve adjusted to life out here that I didn’t flinch – he had to shoot twice.)  The week before, my mother-in-law had to shoot a ‘possum that was wandering around the yard in broad daylight (when they do that, they’re usually sick, and we’ll be damned if we’re going to let Cloud get rabies, especially from one of them).  I’m not accustomed to such violent means of dealing with pests, but it’s effective, so I guess I’ll deal.  My point in telling you this is to let you know that there are lots of opossums around here, and they’re all unwelcome, but really only a few die; the weather being like it is, I’m not surprised we’ve had so many foragers.

So.  Back to the food:  Tuesday night and Wednesday night, my MiL put Cloud’s food bowl up in a hanging planter, in an attempt to at least partially thwart any nighttime thefts.  Something definitely got it Tuesday – it was completely empty Wednesday morning.  After dark Wednesday, we knew what had done it.  We looked out to see a giant lump of dirty white and grey fur crouched in the planter, munching on the cat food.

I’m not the brightest bulb sometimes, and I had the idea of shooing the ‘possum off with JB’s walking stick.  My father-in-law started giggling and handed me a miniature air horn (they’re sold at dollar stores), so I took it out with me.

Picture me wearing red Scotch plaid pajama pants, a blue/navy men’s raglan tee shirt, and a pair of my father-in-law’s Crocs (which were much too big for me, forcing me into a kind of waddle).  Now picture me in that outfit sneaking up on a ‘possum while holding an air horn and a big, twisted walking stick.

I blew the air horn and watched the show.  The opossum jumped out of the hanging basket and started speed-loping its way across the patio, under the bench, then rounded back toward the house.  I continued to blow the airhorn, driving it away from the back door while waddling along behind it.

Once it reached the side of the house, it stopped and stared at me.  I shuffled closer, blasted the air horn a few more times, and shook the walking stick at it.  It sat stock-still.

I didn’t realize it until later, but I was standing between the opossum and the vent that leads under the house.  There’s no screen on it, so the flap can just be lifted up, and whatever animal manages to lift it has access to the crawl space.  A screen was never put on it because the cats would go under the house to keep warm and/or dry – they seemed to prefer that to anything else.  Unfortunately, other animals have learned that escape route, as well – this ‘possum was one of them.

JB, meanwhile, came out of the house with a fireplace poker and said, “Okay, I’m sorry to have to do this, but I’m going to hit it.”

I told him to go ahead.  As I backed off to let JB by me, I noticed the ‘possum coming closer to me.  It sidled around the light that’s in the bushes and started to make a break for the vent.

Then JB smacked it in the head with the fireplace poker with a solid “THWACK.”

Seriously.  That’s the best onomatopoeia there is for that situation.

After the one smack, I turned around.  My mistake – he wasn’t done, yet.  *THWACK* *THWACK* *THWACK*

Ladies, if you’ve never watched your husband or significant other use a fireplace poker to bash in the head of a marsupial, well…let me just say JB’s lucky I love him, because that was some Christian Bale shit.

After those last three *THWACK*s, I turned around and went into the house through the back door and reported to my in-laws that JB had disposed of the opossum using the fireplace poker.  I kicked off the ill-fitting Crocs, leaned the walking stick back into its corner, and place the now-freezing-from-use air horn back onto the mantel.

A few seconds later, JB re-entered the house after leaning the fireplace poker against the outside stairs, and announced that since the ‘possum hadn’t died, yet, he was going to go get his gun and shoot it to put it out of its misery.

For those of you wondering why he didn’t do this in the first place, think of this from his perspective:  His wife (i.e. me in a stupid moment) was chasing around a very large and possibly rabid opossum with an air horn and a walking stick, while unable to move faster than a slow waddle because of what basically amounted to clown shoes.  We have never seen a ‘possum actually playing dead – mostly, they hiss and act like assholes, or, if they’re smart, they run away.  Since the opossum I was facing hadn’t actually run away, and I was blocking it (again, unknowingly) from escaping the way it wanted to go, AND it had already advanced on me once, JB naturally assumed I was about to get myself infected with some horribly gruesome disease.  Best-case scenario, I was about to lose a toe, or possibly an eye.  So he grabbed the first weapon he could find and came to my rescue.

Anyway, he went into the bedroom to get his shotgun, and I heard him and FiL debating the presence of 12-ga. slugs in the gun safe, since buckshot that close to the house wouldn’t have been a good idea.  With the gun finally loaded, JB comes back out into the living room (scaring the shit out of Angus, who hates guns so much he shakes and shivers and whimpers until it’s been brought back into the house and put away) and left again to shoot what must have been a very ugly and mangled opossum at close range.

Several minutes later, MiL and I are still comforting Angus, holding his ears and trying to get him to calm the hell down, and we STILL haven’t heard a gunshot.

Just as we begin to wonder if the ‘possum got up and wandered away while JB was in the house, the back door opened again.  JB removed his socks (he hadn’t even put shoes on) and went to put the gun away.  We asked him what happened, and he said, “Well, it died.”

Apparently, while he and FiL were discussing where the slugs were, the opossum had just gotten tired of waiting in its misery and had kicked the bucket before anyone else could bludgeon it or desecrate its body.  JB discovered the lifelessness of the animal while trying to get it away from the wall so that he would be less likely to shoot the house.  Because the opossum was severely brain-damaged, I doubt there would have been a lot of struggling involved to move it, so I wondered what his clue had been.

For those who read my Twitter feed regularly, you’ll be amused at this answer:  JB had heard the corpse farting and groaning as the last of its bodily functions ceased.

I felt really badly about it, but so help me, I laughed when I heard that.  I laughed a LOT.

After the gun was put away, JB sat on the couch to finish watching Criminal Minds with the rest of us.  It was at that point that he discovered some blood on his pajama pants (I wasn’t the only one outside in my PJs, but at least I’d bothered to put on shoes).  I kept telling him he needed to burn them, and he kept arguing with me, saying that they were his FAVORITES, and he’d NEVER be able to find another pair EVER, because he gotten THESE pants on clearance, and OMIGOD I’M SUCH A HORRIBLE WIFE, etc.  Okay, he didn’t say that last one, but it was implied, trust me.  He finally convinced me to let him wash them several times, first in cold water, then in hot water, and said he would hide them for a while so my association of them and the bludgeoning death of a marsupial would fade.

The next morning, we were up early to go to the doctor so that I could get blood drawn.**  JB had to dispose of the body, so he went out to grab it with a glove and drag it to the ditch that’s across the road from our driveway.

While he’s trying to pick this dead critter up, he notices something fuzzy on the underside, toward the back.  He became paranoid that he’d killed a mother that had a baby in her pouch, and the fuzziness was the baby, dried out and dead, hanging out.  Naturally, JB grabbed a stick and started poking at the fuzzy lump (SCIENCE!), and discovered that it was not a baby, after all, but the opossum male’s very large and apparently very cotton-boll-like scrotum.

So not only did my husband bludgeon a male Virginia Opossum on Wednesday night, he desecrated the body on Thursday morning by poking it in the balls with a stick.

I think this experience has pretty much cemented my status as a redneck.  A very tacky, sometimes-stupid-but-usually-entertaining redneck.

Life can never be described as being “boring” around here, that’s for damned sure.

___

*Well, he was fine being outside until we had to put Paul Newman (the no-nosed cat who was so old no one knew his age) to sleep because he had cancer eating his face (no, seriously) and because he’d lost so much weight in such a short period of time that he was seriously almost able to walk on the crusty snow this year without his paws breaking through; that’s pretty bad when this cat used to be so hefty as to make you grunt when you tried to lift him.  Cloud’s lonely.  He got in the house on Monday morning when we were helping my father-in-law through the door after knee surgery, and ever since then, he’s made it his mission to try to guilt us into letting him in with us.  Aside from his poor bathroom habits – and the fact that 3 out of 4 of us is really allergic to cats (hint:  not me) – we’d be more than happy to.  Longest footnote EVER – sorry.

**The blood draw happened yesterday, and I got the call today that the results are already in and are being mailed to me.  I should have them either tomorrow or Monday, and yes, I’m totally going to scour them and compare them to my earlier results and scrutinize them, and then post about it here.

First, thanks for the comments.  There weren’t that many, but they meant a lot.

I have an appointment on Thursday morning to have bloodwork drawn.  Apparently my doctor’s office thought that my gynecologist’s office made a mistake on my birthday, but no one bothered to look at the actual DATA to verify that everything was, in fact, correct and within normal range for my age.  They were just all gossiping about how my gyno’s office borked my records, and OMG that’s not normal for them and OMG what could possibly be happening?!?

The receptionist (a guy – he’s hilarious and I enjoy talking to him) listened to me when I said it was the lab company that screwed up, and said, “Jeez, it sounds like you got my luck.”  I’m bringing the lab work in with me when I go, so that I have an “order” for the bloodwork I want run.  While I’m there, I need to get a refill of my Ativan and my Tramadol.

Oh, speaking of the Tramadol, I refill my pillbox every Friday…it’s a weekly box, with AM and PM sections for each of the seven days.  When I refilled my pill box on Friday, I forgot to add the Tramadol.  Akathisia explained…maybe!  I feel like an idiot, but at least I think I know what happened.  I took it tonight, and I feel a bit better, though it could totally be a placebo affect.  I’m going to pretend that it’s the Tramodol.  I think it was the Tramadol.

I also made an appointment with my gyno to discuss both the results of my prior bloodwork, and to discuss the results of the bloodwork I’m going to get on Thursday.  That appointment is on March 18th.

I begin “work” at Cluck-n-Neigh tomorrow morning.

Literally, here’s my job:

• Check to make sure the chickens have food and water.  There are two separate houses right next to each other…one with only hens, and one with hens and two roosters.
• Refill food and water as necessary.
• Collect eggs, making sure to keep the fertilized ones and the unfertilized ones separated (Michael and Claire eat the fertilized ones, since people get squicked out by the thought).
• Make sure horse trough is filled with water – fill as necessary.

I’m going to help with throwing hay into the feeder, but I can’t drive the tractor, so that may or may not happen tomorrow, though JB can drive a tractor, so you never know.  JB is coming with me for moral support and to gossip with Michael about happenings in a church they both used to attend.  Then they’ll probably discuss the fishing in the pond on Michael and Claire’s property.  I expect that we won’t be there longer than an hour.  The hardest thing is filling up the water containers for the chickens and then carrying them to the houses.  It’s not a huge distance, but it’s awkward.  Muck boots and work gloves are required, for sure.  Also, old clothing.  And a willingness to test your balance by herding chickens with your feet while your hands are full of heavy, water container handles.

As I learn more about the farm, I’ll be there more often, and I’ll probably do more.  I’m also going to be keeping Claire company while she re-adjusts to riding Ikon (I think they spell his name Icon, but I like Ikon better, because it fits his personality), a large Belgian draft horse.  If she gets hurt, it’ll be more beneficial to her to have someone out there than not, and I like being around the horses, so everyone wins.

On that note, I’m going to try to get some sleep.  I have a test in my Psychology of Learning class that I need to study for (procrastination?  what’s that?), and obviously I need to have some energy for carrying awkward things tomorrow morning.

Hopefully I’ll have some more good news for y’all soon.  I could do with some, for sure.

_____

In other news, my laptop keyboard is totally worn out, to the point that keys are popping off while I type.  I haven’t had this thing for much more than a year, if that.  I think I bought it in March of ‘09, actually.  That’s really sad.  I know I’m a loud and violent typist (I learned on an old electric typewriter, and if you didn’t bang the shit out of those keys, they wouldn’t work at all), but even my last laptop waited 3 years before the shift key popped off forever.  I hate that laptops are made to be disposable these days.  I don’t have $500 to spend every time something goes wrong because someone decided to cut corners.

The weird anxiety-laden terror-filled pseudo-seizures I had in my limbs last night?  Where I felt like I had to get up when I was lying down, but as soon as I started pacing, I felt like I just needed to go back to bed?  Apparently that’s called Akathisia.

It’s a side-effect of some anti-depressants (mainly SSRIs, from what I understand) and anti-emetics (anti-puke meds).

There are a couple of other things it could be, but that would be such a small margin of possibility that I’m not even going to think about it (serotonin syndrome, among others…you want to talk about a waste of time…).

I’ve looked up a lot of things that it could be, because really?  Akathisia?  That’s like, something CRAZY people get, right?  I mean, like dystonia?  Or tardive dyskinesia?  Side effects from really heavy-duty anti-psychotics?

Funny thing about tardive dyskinesia…  I was looking it up after seeing a commercial where there’s some class-action suit toward the makers of Reglan…I could remember what it WAS (uncontrolled movements, usually of the face and hands), but I couldn’t remember what “tardive” meant (it means “continuing after the initial cause is removed”, approximately).  It was one of those Wikipedia loops that led me to the page about akathisia.  I was just reading to pass time before going to Cluck-n-Neigh to help out with the chickens (seriously – and y’all, I needed that), and I ended up staring open-mouthed at the wiki entry, going, “Wait, that CAN’T be right…”

I web-surfed, used my Google-fu, used my Bing-fu, visited my favorite “crazy people” websites (I’m a psych major…I have approximately 48 of those things bookmarked for easy access while writing papers), and damned if they didn’t all describe what was going on with me last night to a tee.

JB was like, “Yeah, when you were pacing, you were pretty much dead to the world.”  My brain wanted so badly to just go to sleep, but my body was like, “NO NO NO NO NO NO.”

I’ve been feeling it for most of the day today, but because I’m supposed to be awake, my body’s not freaking out, yet.  I’m not looking forward to tonight.

I feel like I do nothing but talk about how irritated I am with the medical community lately.  I’m sorry, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon.

Nothing has changed as far as how I feel, physically, in the past year.  I still feel like shit, I still have pain and numbness, and I could still be diagnosed with fibromyalgia if I were to go to a doctor and describe my symptoms.   The fact of the matter is, however, that there are other things that are going on, and until I get those figured out, I am no longer satisfied with my fibromyalgia diagnosis.  I will not sit here and take drugs designed to knock me out and just keep my mouth shut and be glad someone’s “listening” to me.  I will not, when those drugs fail to work, assume that there’s just something wrong with ME, and that there’s nothing else I can do about it.  I will no longer sit in my doctor’s office feeling ashamed because I’m being made to feel as though I’m wasting his time.

I wanted to kill myself last night because I was so miserable, and I didn’t think it was ever going to stop.  I don’t know how I finally got to sleep, but I’m willing to bet that I took too much of something to get to that point.  I spent hours crying and scaring the shit out of my husband because he had no idea how to make sense of what I was saying, and every time I had a limb seizure, I would apologize and start crying again.  He wanted to take me to the emergency room.  I didn’t want to go, because I knew someone would assume I was having a psychotic episode, even though I was completely lucid…just frustrated as fuck and really tired.

You know what?  I’m positive that I’m going to lose readers over this whole past-few-months’ worth of crazy that I’ve kind of dived head-first into describing for you recently.

I’m positive that someone out there is going to make another comment about “crazy gun owners” and say something about background checks and how people “like [you]” ought to be banned from even being able to cut our own steak in restaurants.

You know what else?  I don’t know that I could give less of a shit right now.

I have no desire to shoot my guns for sport, much less to even carry my pistol for self-defense.  I’ve reverted back to my old passive way of living because I feel so poorly that it doesn’t matter what happens to me externally, because internally I’ll still feel like boiled ass with cabbage.  It’s like being in the middle of PTSD again.  Considering that, last time, I bought a gun when I’d been raped, it’s kind of ironic to me that in response to being taken for a ride by my doctor’s office, I feel the exact opposite reaction.  Passive emotional trauma makes for a passive emotional response, I guess.

Thyroid babbles ahead.

Okay, so my TSH level is actually really, really low.  It’s 1.790.  I keep hearing/seeing people say, “My TSH was really high (like, 128 or higher…note the lack of a decimal), so they just knew it was hypothyroid and started me on synthroid.”

That seemed a little counter-intuitive to me (because, obviously, I know SO MUCH about thyroid disorders /sarcasm), so I looked it up.

It turns out that TSH production is encouraged by your pituitary gland, not your thyroid.  When your pituitary gland doesn’t think your thyroid is producing enough thyroxine, it tries to give your thyroid a kick in the ass by way of producing TSH.

Okay, so really, the number for me is actually normal.

HOWEVER, my other numbers aren’t.  Especially that Free Thyroxine Index – that’s what your pituitary uses to figure out if it needs to produce more TSH to get your thyroid to actually work.  My FTI is way below normal, and my pituitary gland isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do in order to fix it.

So basically, taking synthroid would make the situation worse at this point.

The trouble isn’t necessarily with my thyroid (I could be totally wrong in my interpretation of this information), but with my pituitary gland.

This doesn’t necessarily point to Hashimoto’s Disease, though it could indicate an unwillingness on behalf of my body to recognize the thyroid and/or what it’s supposed to be doing.

It could also indicate a serious problem with my pituitary gland, up to and including a tumor.  Which wouldn’t be a huge deal – I mean, you pull the thing out through your nose, I would just need insurance first – but it potentially complicates things.

HOWEVER, I can’t see anything else in these numbers that necessarily supports a pituitary problem.  There’s a disconnect somewhere, and I don’t know enough about the endocrine system to figure out WHERE that disconnect lies.

Looking at and interpreting my thyroid numbers is giving me a headache, because it just doesn’t make any sense at all.  My TSH is low, but normal.  Okay, that’s my pituitary, SCRATCH THAT FROM THE THYROID RECORD for the time being.

My T4 (thyroxine) production is normal.  Sooo…okay, my thyroid is doing something it’s supposed to be doing, obviously.

My T3 uptake is BASICALLY worthless as a single unit of measurement, from what I understand.  Here’s info that I found that I was able to actually understand most of (from this site):

T3 Resin Uptake or Thyroid Uptake

This test confuses doctors, nurses, and patients. First, this is not a thyroid test, but a test on the proteins that carry thyroid around in your blood stream. Not only that, a high test number may indicate a low level of the protein! The method of reporting varies from lab to lab.

The Resin T3 Uptake is used to assess the binding capacity of the serum for thyroid hormone. The T3 Resin test is only useful in conjunction with Total T4 or Total T3. If a patient has a high total T4, it may be due to overproduction of thyroid hormone (hyperthyroidism) or to an excess of one of the thyroid binding proteins, usually Thyroid Binding Globulin (TBG). If the high Total T4 is secondary to high TBG, the Resin T3 will be low; otherwise it will be normal or elevated. So, if the Total T4 or Total T3 deviates from normal in one direction and the Resin T3 Uptake deviates in the opposite direction, then the abnormality is due to changes in binding capacity. If not, then it can be attributed to a true change in thyroid function (i.e. hyperthyroidism or hypothyroidism).

Estrogens increase the binding capacity and decrease both the free labeled hormone and the Resin T3 uptake.

That last sentence is basically the only thing that means ANYTHING to me in all of this.

Estrogens = birth control pills.

I started taking birth control immediately after getting this blood work done.  If estrogens increase binding capacity, lowering the T3 uptake (which is a percentage) and lowering the FTI, then that means that the birth control pills are to blame for not only my 40-pound weight gain (which happened right after my wedding reception…literally just days after I started taking the birth control pills – though most of the ballooning happened after the first of the year), but may also cause my next thyroid test result to show my T3 uptake as much lower than normal, and my FTI to show up as possibly non-existent.

This?  Is scary.  I don’t care who you are, what your medical background is, or whatever.

UPDATE: So apparently…uh…even though your T4 is affected by estrogen, and your T3 Uptake is affected by estrogen, your FTI is NOT affected by estrogen, even though those first two items are necessary to calculate the FTI?  IN WHAT UNIVERSE DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE?  No, really – I’m asking a serious question.

Mathematically, it makes no sense at all.  FTI is an “arbitrary” number BASED on concrete measurements.  How is it not affected by the same things those other concrete measurements are affected by?

Do you guys see why I’m so angry about my doctors not catching any of this?

(original entry continues below)

The fact of the matter is that I’ve decreased my food intake, increased my fluid intake, I’m still getting new stretch marks on my lower abdomen, and I’m getting a “fat apron.”  For those of you who’ve ever been extremely overweight, you know what I’m talking about.  For those who don’t know what I mean, trust me when I say that it’s TERRIFYING and very uncomfortable.

That explains everything that’s gone wrong SINCE the blood work was done, but I STILL don’t know what to think about my initial blood test results.  There’s SOMETHING wrong, and I can’t wrap my mind around it.  I can’t interpret it.  It’s driving me nuts.  I’m not used to feeling this stupid about medical stuff.

Now I’m pissed at my GP and my OB-GYN.  Neither one of them really looked at my blood test results.

I had full-body RLS and some sort of stress/tension seizures in my arms and legs last night.  I feel like I’m constantly on the verge of a heart attack, and I am constantly in the throes of a panic attack (physically).  Something’s wrong.  JB wanted to take me to the ER last night, but I didn’t let him, because I know this is all related to the same thing:  those fucking numbers on that fucking blood test.

The rest of my bloodwork is gorgeous.  It probably won’t be when I get it re-done next week.  But that’s part of why this is driving me so nuts.  There’s NO GOOD REASON for the thyroid blip that I can see.  I’m not stupid.  I’m not ignoring something.  I’m not over-thinking one aspect.  I’m honestly baffled.

And, you know, pissed off, as I’m sure you can imagine.

UPDATE AGAIN: I’m making an appointment to get blood drawn from my GP (last visit, y’all – he can kiss my ass, especially with the way he treated me the last time I was in there) on Thursday morning.  Making an appointment to go see my OB-GYN to have him explain WTF to me and see what he has to say about my blood test results, both before and after going on BC.

Okay, cue the people who actually know something about medicine…now.

The problem with not keeping up with your blogroll regularly is that when you finally take the time to try to edit it, everything’s so gunked up that you want to just throw your hands up in the air and say, “FUCK IT I DON’T NEED A BLOG ROLL RAWR!”

So, um, if you’ve been waiting for me to add you, or you think you should be on my blogroll (but aren’t), be patient.

Just in case, though, feel free to leave a comment asking me to add you.  There’s a good possibility that I’ve lost my paper telling me which links I wanted to add, and I’m not exactly up-to-date on my feed reader, either.