Medical update...

Medical update...  Just got back from the doctor, where I got a bit of an education.  There were two results from my blood tests that were definite indications of a problem. 

First are the levels of two thyroid-related antibodies: they are (respectively) 200x and 1,500x normal.  Yikes!  Basically, as she explained it, that means my body is eating my thyroid – an autoimmune problem.  My pituitary gland is reacting to that by increasing its stimulation (through a hormone) of what remains of my thyroid, and under that increased stimulation the remnants of my thyroid are producing hormones at levels that are borderline low.  This is called Hashimoto's Disease, and about 5% of all people will get it at some point in their life.  It's easily treatable with a daily oral dose of levothyroxine, which I'm starting immediately.

Second, my blood levels of vitamin D are significantly below normal.  The doctor had no explanation for this, but typically it's caused by a dietary deficiency.  So I'm taking massive supplements for a couple weeks, then daily normal dose supplements after that.  We check again in six weeks to see if that was all it took to get my levels back to normal.  When we discussed my diet, it seemed like I ate plenty of things with vitamin D in it – so we're going to look at the results in six weeks carefully, and if the vitamin D levels don't pop back up she's going to start looking at things that might prevent my body from absorbing the vitamin D.  One thing that struck both of us: my pernicious anemia (diagnosed about 25 years ago) is a condition caused by my body's inability to absorb vitamin B12.  We're both wondering if there's some related condition with vitamin D...

Both of the above problems have fatigue and sensitivity to cold amongst their symptoms.  Hashimoto's Disease has as a risk factor the presence of other autoimmune diseases (which pernicious anemia and Raynaud's Disease, two conditions I've been diagnosed with, both are).  Both are also easily treated.  So basically that's all unsurprising (except to me!) and relatively good news.  And if the treatments work as advertised, I'll certainly be happy to have the symptoms reversed!

Phone weirdness...

Phone weirdness...  We have a Panasonic cordless phone system at home, and yesterday we installed a new one that I'd purchased some time ago but had never set up.  With the new phone system we have eight handsets.  That might sound completely crazy unless you saw our house and barn.  I've got one handset on each floor of the barn, and then there are six scattered throughout the house.  Not really as phone-saturated as eight handsets sounds! :)

Anyway, we'd noticed something quite odd with our new phones: we'd set the date and time, then sometime later the time would change to seven hours later.  We'd fix it, and then sometime later once again, the time was seven hours later.  What the heck?

Well, seven hours later than Mountain Standard Time, at the moment, happens to be Greenwich Mean Time.  That got me to thinking that there might be a time zone setting in the phone, but no, there wasn't.  Well, what then? 

After a bit of research on the Internet, I found some references to others having the same problem – and there was a fix, too.  It turns out there's a setting buried a couple of levels down in the menu system, one that I had missed: a “time adjustment” option that lets the phone pick up the time from Caller ID or manually.  It was set to Caller ID by default.  I switched it to Manual, and if our experience is like others that will fix the problem.

Our phone isn't POTS and Ma Bell, it's Xfinity (Comcast) over our cable connection (along with our Internet).  While researching this I discovered that lots of people are having a similar issue, with multiple phone systems (Panasonic isn't the only phone vendor providing this feature) and multiple phone service providers (including some POTS lines!).  That makes me wonder why the phone system vendors seem to all default that setting to Caller ID...

Human meat...

Human meat...  Laughed, I did...

Paradise ponders: paperwork, spring beauty, and geraniums on our porch...

Paradise ponders: paperwork, spring beauty, and geraniums on our porch...  I spent darned near all day yesterday on danged paperwork.  What a pain in the butt!  Makes me wonder what it would cost to have someone trustworthy do all this for me.  Hmmm...

In the afternoon Debbie and I went on a quest for baby goats.  Really! :)  We'd noticed four newborns in a paddock a couple miles north of us, and we know several places where there are herds of goats – so we made the rounds.  Not a goatlet to be found anywhere except the original four.  Those little things sure are cute, bouncing around like crazy.  Too bad they have to grow up into actual goats, obnoxious and smelly...

When we returned from our quest, Debbie noticed a flower on our front porch.  It was a potted geranium (at right), presumably a Mother's Day gift for Debbie.  There was no note on it, so we have no idea who might have left it.  Chief suspects are our immediate neighbors, but there are quite a few people within a few miles who might do something like leave a geranium on every front porch – so we really don't know who it was.  But it sure put a smile on Debbie's face!  :)

Today I'm visiting with our doctor, who called me back into the office for consultation after receiving the results of some blood testing I had done two weeks ago.  It seems unlikely this would be entirely good news. :(  All I know from the nurse who called me is that the blood tests showed (a) normal B12 levels (which means my every-two-weeks one milliliter injection of cyanocobalamin is the right dose), and (b) there are thyroid antibodies present in my blood.  The latter might be indicative of hypothyroidism, which could explain my low energy levels the past few months.  We'll find out more today, I hope...