kitty pi

Rx: Simplify your life and call me in the morning

Today at lunch, I went to the doctor for my twice or thrice yearly check-up. She recently moved to a new place really close to where I work. Her new office is beautiful and very spa-like, except without all the prissy, plastic-fantastic trophy wives you usually find in a spa here. Anyway, we talked about my "condition" which is an elevated level of thyroid hormone (that's not good) and how I've been feeling in general lately (pretty crappy). The real condition, as Mr. Quilty can attest, is that I am a mental patient 4 out of 5 days. If you have ever had any kind of metabolic imbalance you might know what I'm talking about. If not, then you are lucky. Unbalanced hormones = I am a Basketcase.

Since the thyroid gland I have is supposed to be out-of-commission permanently due to radiation treatment 2 years ago, I have to take a supplement everyday. It took a year to get the doseage right but after 9 months, I found out it was too much. I figured that since I am such a freak I probably grew a new thyroid or something and that's why everything is too high.

Apparently, and thankfully, that is not the case. Dr. J seems to think that quitting smoking (which I only partially did, but she doesn't know that) and a variety of other factors are the real reason I am all f'dup. She says I will feel much, much better in about 4 weeks, but she also seems to subscribe to the philospohy that I am doing too much. Says I need to relax. Well, duh! If only I had known before! I could've saved an hour of my day, not to mention a wee bit o' dough if only I had known.

Here is my life in review at this moment:

Married, happily.
One teenage daughter living at home; Just got her learner's permit (eek! grey hairs are popping out of my head as I type this).
One cat who pees in the shower and humps anyone who will sit still longer than 30 seconds (he's fixed already so getting him fixed won't solve that problem).
Work: 45-50 hours per week. I'm a baby-sitter, um, I mean Executive Assistant, for two very busy executives. In reality, I think that means I am just a really poorly paid executive.
College classes 3 nights per week. Homework, sometimes.
Bills - all of them late.
Car - overdue for service. But on this I have nothing to complain about since Mr. Q drives a Jeep with only a safari top even when it rains or it's 40 degrees outside and sometimes even when it rains AND it's 40 degrees outside. We'll get you a new top soon, beebs!

That doesn't really sound like a lot to me, but everything is relative. I did an exercise last semester where you had to write a list of all the tasks that you needed to do in the next week. Of course, I wrote a long list of "pay the bills, get organized, clean the bathroom", and so on. The very next exercise went something like this: If you only had a month to live, how many things on that list would you do? It was a complete no-brainer. There wasn't a single thing I would've done. Well, I might've hired someone to clean the bathroom. I don't think I could die knowing I had a dirty bathroom.

In summary, of course I would feel better if I did less. Everyone would. I think we should all be on vacation 9 months out of the year and work the other three. It's not like I run around all frantic because I have so much to do. Well, in the morning I do, but I'm not a morning person! Most days, I get at least 30 minutes to just zone out and do nothing (that's called driving to work), or knit, or watch the news and the Daily Show with my sweetie. That's pretty good, I think.

So, simplify? I'll try. In the meantime, I hope my hormones somehow acheive nirvana and sort themselves out so I can feel a little bit better.

posted by Anita at 3:56 PM