Dance In Your Blood

This is a timeline of my struggle with thyroid disease.

1993 – 1998. Mystery illness. Looks like hypothyroid, acts like hypothyroid. Weight gain, fatigue, puffiness, pain, pain, pain in joints and legs. Multiple thyroid labs drawn over the years, alway told they were normal, sent to rheumatologist, considered depressed,

1998- Hypertensive crisis. Started as expressive aphasia. Went to ER. BP was 170/110. Labs drawn. TSH was 5.6, 0.1 of a point out of what was considered normal a that time. So, at 0.1 of a point above normal I was obese at 196 lbs, had a foot drop on the right foot, was in almost constant chronic pain (taking 1800 mg of Ibuprophen a day with only moderate relief) so fatigued that all I could to was go to work (paycheck cashed, mortgage gets paid, children eat) and come home and collapse. I was totally deconditioned.

Treated with levothyroxine,(don’t remember the dosage) improved, continued my dance classes. Lost 30 lbs. Still physically deconditioned but slowly improving

September – October 2001 – stress of 9/11. Symptoms exacerbated. Switched to Armour thyroid, titrated by symptom to 160mg. Was able to get up on the balls of my feet for the first time in years. Finally feeling well! Enjoying dancing and work.

May 2003 – My father died. Stress related exacerbation again. Symptoms returned. Armour increased to 180mg daily with good result. Feeling good, doing well. Dancing! performed for the first time in 2004. Danced with PURE DC. Very happy and healthy.

2009 World wide shortage of Armour, cannot get it. Switched to equivilant of levothyroxine, 3mcg. Doing ok, no specific issues, very subtle qualitative difference, but not anything I can pin down.

summer of 2010, starting to feel not so well again. Major life stress of moving back into my house. Usual recurring symptoms of pain and fatigue and lack of endurance. Missing dance class.

I’m moving back to Philadelphia. My boys are coming on the 15th to load me into a truck and drive me up to a lovely apartment in Chestnut Hill.

My cat Pandora has been helping me pack. Here she inspects a box. She does this with everybox I open

Here she guards boxes that have already been packed:

Pandora has a buddy, Max, who comes and visits her every day. I know she will miss him so I am getting another kitty, to keep her company. We will get her on around the 18th. I am naming her Persephone.

Isn’t she a cutie?

Note to Readers:  I really want to share more about my life in Philadelphia with my friends, but don’t necessarily  want to share it with the whole web. So I will be doing some private posts. If you want to read these, just register for this site and you will have access.

Tommorow is my birthday … well actually in just about 15 minutes it will be.

I have been so sick over the past few days. I’ve not been able to get out of bed. Did not make it to the meeting Sunday, did not make it to work Monday, which was highly unusual since it is the last orientation day for the newly hired nurses. I have never missed a day from work during orientation. I’m not even sure I will be able to get in there tommorow. I have not been this sick in a long time.

I hope I am well enough … I  have dance class tommorow.

Speaking of which, it was a very nice class last week. It is pure ATS Fat Chance style, which is something I have been looking for for a long time. My instructor is working on her teacher certification from Fat Chance Belly Dance. I’m just a little too old to be getting into modern tribal, and that is what most of the dancers who want tribal want around here. 

I have a cold, and am under the influence of generic Nyquil. I’ve spent the day baking gluten free banana nut bread. My first loaf came out fairly well, a little crumbly and too sweet for my taste. I’m going to add someXantham gum and cut the sugar in half for  the next batch.

I’m taking it to a meeting tommorow to help organize the Long Walk 2 in Virginia. We’re eating together afterwards.

I’m loopy from the Nyquil.

I was sleeping hard this morning, right before waking up and I had a dream.  Part of it was in a cemetery, where Robert was buried, only it was not West Laural Hill where he IS buried in real life. It is a very old beautiful place and he has a crypt there, very  beautifully carved. I have dreamed about this cemetery many times, as his burial place and it always feels very comforting and peaceful and beautiful to me. As one drives into the cemetery, there is a curving drive, it curves around an incline, and Roberts grave is about half way down the incline. It is very beautifully lanscaped with old trees and flowering bushes. It feels kind of rustic. One time when I dreamed about this, I actually met Robert there and had a conversation.

This time I was just driving through, on my way somewhere else. I was going to this house, which is one of those ones I have seen driving around with corners that are windows. There was an open space, public with people hanging around. I was having a conversation with a blond guy who said he was a coach and I asked him what school  he went to.  This was my way of finding out if he had any training. He did, and we talked about our respective schools. We were talking about how Master Coaches can make themselves invisible, when we realized there was an invisible coach right there with us!  So we started to try and locate him and bring him out of hiding. We were still trying to flush him out when I woke up.

Thoughts – not sure about the part about Robert’s burial place. I brought my memory box back from Philadelphia last month. I found a framed greeting card and picture, it was from Robert and it just said "I love you – it’s that simple" and the picture was of us asleep with his arm around me holding me. So maybe the dream was stimulated by this picture.

The house was in the neighborhood I had been studying in the possibility of buying in some day and I have that dream of making a space for  people to come and go, kind of a warm haven for friends and family. And there was open space for that in my dream.

The coaching – well sometimes the coach is supposed to be kind of invisible – but I think the dream is more about how do all of these things relate.

Having Robert’s unconditional and eternal love, which I am sure of, even if he is not here on this plane with me, does comfort me sometimes in my loneliness, and there surely is some reason I have been left behind, some work I need to be doing. I think the house/coaching/supporting Origional People causes all somehow are a part of that.

I am putting the intention out there to be open to more dreams so I can gain more insight.

It’s been a while since I have been to class, and it was beginning to drive me nuts. I gotta dance!  I will be taking the Tribal 1 class at Saffron Dance.  I’ve wanted to really learn ATS for a while.  I’ll be starting on Tuesday.

Here’s an example of American Tribal Style Bellydance from Fat Chance Belly Dance

 Here’s my oldest son Sean and his band. He’s the bass player and front man and his Lady Lydia is the lead guitarist.

…… and ain’t he cute? That’s my youngest son Craig Talent!

Ok, so the young people in my life keep telling me to start a  blog.  So here it is. There probably won’t be much in here for a while, I’m kind of distracted by my upcoming duct excision on Tuesday. But I will make this a rich interesting place soon. j