Compression Socks Are Cool

I realized my addiction to blogging when our internet was down from Friday to Monday afternoon and I couldn't post anything! Turns out our cable modem was fried. But we replaced it and we are back in business.

Written on Friday: I’m sitting here today in a pair of compression pantyhose. Compression socks aren’t foreign to me—I’ve taken 12 – 15 transpacific flights that take about 36 hours duration, most of that flying. If you’ve ever taken a flight like that and taken off your shoes, you know that sometimes you have to walk off the plane in your socks because you can’t get your shoes back on. All that sitting results in the blood pooling in your feet and your feet swell up to twice their normal size. Not pretty. So I do like to wear compression socks when I fly. This sounds crazy but they do make your feet and legs feel like a million bucks. I’m not so keen on the pantyhose type (versus trouser socks) but I got laser vein removal yesterday. The whole thing took less than 15 minutes and it hurt while they were doing it but like laser hair removal, it doesn’t hurt once they are done. Compression socks/pantyhose aren’t required but they said I would get better results if I wore them. I should know in about four weeks if I need another treatment. Thank God it’s winter.

This week was a major milestone for Jack. Over the summer, he went through a lot of changes and adjustments all within about a month. He got a new baby brother, he moved from a crib to his big boy bed, he start using the potty, we had him in ISR, the swimming lessons where you go every day 5 weeks for 10 minutes… so I let him keep sleeping with his pacifier (“binky”). He just loves his binky and only gets to use it at night when he is sleeping. He never tries to take Ty’s binky either. Well, Sunday night I noticed his binky looked a little cruddy and also noticed a little hole. I tore it a little bit more and showed Jack and told him his binky was broken. I asked him if he wanted to try it and he put it in his mouth and spit it out. I guess the big hole didn’t feel that good. I asked him if he wanted to throw it away or if I should throw it away and he wanted me to. And he went asleep without it. It’s now Friday and he slept every night without a binky. He’s asked for one a couple times but it’s been easy to placate him with various other objects. His binky really was his “lovey”. I really thought this was going to be a bigger battle but it seems that waiting for an opportune time was the right thing to do.

On another milestone note: I fed Ty a little rice cereal before Thanksgiving and we’ve been practicing a little since then. I tried sweet potatoes last night. He doesn’t really have the hang of eating just yet as most of the food comes out of his mouth on his tongue. I am really hoping that eating will help him to start sleeping through the night.

On Tuesday I went to my naturopath. A naturopath is a medical doctor who listens to your symptoms and determines what the underlying root cause is, and treats the root cause versus treating the symptoms like a regular MD. For example, I have hyperthyroid (Graves Disease) which as most of you know, resulted in drastic weight loss after Jack was born. The weight loss was really cool for a while especially since I could eat half of a chocolate cake in one sitting and still lose weight but then I completely lost my rear end and that wasn’t attractive. Of course, the heart palpitations were a little scary too. My regular MD put me on something called PTU that stunts the thyroid hormone production. The naturopath tries to figure out why the thyroid starting putting out too much hormone in the first place. They tend to give you weird drops and pellets to take. I believe there is a place for both kinds of medicine and they should be used in conjunction with one another. I went to see the naturopath to see what we could do to prevent my thyroid from going to berserk again because it was in remission during the pregnancy. This is because the endocrinologist wants me to do the radioactive iodine treatment to permanently kill my thyroid, making me hypothyroid and I will have to take synthetic hormones for the rest of my life. She thinks I am having more issues with my pituitary and gave me drops for that. She said it will give me more energy and help me concentrate better. The weird thing is that I have had more energy and you wouldn’t believe the “brilliant” work I have produced this week in record time. (Brilliant was Brian’s word—we sometimes have to work together). So maybe there is something to this pituitary thing.

So the next day I went to the endocrinologist and my thyroid is perfectly normal (the test in August showed that I was hyperthyroid). He thinks it will go out of control again at some point in my life but fortunately I only have to get tested every 6 months unless I start dropping weight in 5 lbs increments like I did before.

On Wednesday night after the kids were in bed, I met up a friend of mine from work who was visiting from Folsom. He was my HR rep several years ago when I was managing people. We bonded because I needed him more than the average manager—he called me a poop magnet because of the various people issues I was encountering. Sometimes I wonder if most other managers just have their heads in the sand most of the time. I guess some people would think it was strange that I would meet a man by myself at a bar without Brian but Brian’s HR rep reports to this guy and Brian knows him so he is cool with that. We like to talk shop about work and because he is a higher ranking HR rep, I can get sometimes get some juicy info out of him.