Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Teaching Buca and Peanut to Speak




I found these flash cards in Barnes and Noble last weekend. I thought it would be pretty funny if we tried to teach Buca and Peanut some more commands. We would take them to obedience class, but let's face it they would flunk out. Peanut has the attention span of a peanut and Buca likes to pretend that he doesn't know what is going on and then two minutes later he is doing something sneaky. It just wouldn't be pretty.
They are doing very well so far. They have sit, potty, and bed down to a science, it's the other 47 commands that are going to be tough. This week we are working on "stay." They have the hang of it while waiting for treats, sometime this week we are going to give it a whirl while we are out walking.
We are also working on "lay down". Last night I told Buca to lay down and first he sat. When he didn't get a treat he then put his paw up in the air for a shake. He finally did lay down, I am assuming because that was the only other position he knows how to do. I had to lay on Peanut to get him to lay down. This is going to be so entertaining!

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Initial Exam

Today I had my initial exam/ultrasound at the RE's office. Well, the fun keeps rolling because my lining is thin, I have a chocolate cyst/endometrioma, and I have "several" follies on each ovary. Now, I know what you are asking yourself, how many follies should you have total? The answer is between 15-30 and I have eight.

The chocolate cyst pretty much tells us that I have endometriosis, because that is the only way to get an endometrioma on your ovary. I am bummed that it is going to take so long to do the surgery to remove the cyst and the endo. I am looking forward to it all being over, the PA said my pain level should go down and who can complain with that?

They also said the RE will discuss the rest of the results with me at the follow up next month. I guess we will have to see what my cd3 bloodwork comes back next week.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

First RE Visit

Today was my first visit with the RE. My husband couldn't come because he doesn't get a lot of time off of work, so my friend came with me because I thought I was going to need some moral support.

We met with the coordinators, the medical assistants, billing, and the doctor. They were all very friendly and did their best to make me feel at ease. The RE agrees with my pain doctor that the reason for my pain problems and infertiltiy is because I have endometriosis. Luckily he wants to jump right in and do the surgery to see what is going on in there and remove what he can and see what condition my tubes are in. He said even if they are clear, they could still be damaged and he will only know that by doing the surgery. The only bummer is that I am going to have to wait 6 to 8 weeks to get it done and even then the nurse wasn't sure of what the vacation schedules of the doctors are like yet. I am guessing I won't be getting the surgery until August. Until then, Chris and I both have to get some bloodwork done but other than that we just wait until the surgery.

The RE did mention IVF possibly being our only option depending on what condition my tubes are in. My insurance covers only three. Three shots at ever getting pregnant, and that is it. Wow, I can't even wrap my head around that. He did say not to worry until the surgery is done and then we will talk about options after that.

I do know from my research that many women with endometriosis go on to just using fertility drugs and IUI's to get pregnant. It appears that the medical world is still unclear on how endometriosis affects a woman's fertilty. In some cases it makes her infertile, in others it doesn't. Let's all pray that I end up in this category. Insurance covers all of the meds and IUI's are only $200 a pop so we could even pay those out of pocket no problem if we had to.
Or maybe I don't have endometriosis at all and we are just unexplained, who knows. I hate that I have to wait 2 more months at least to find out!

Monday, May 21, 2007

My Little Mazda and the Rubster

Ruby the Accent... Ruby was my first car. She is an accent and has 100,000 miles on her. I will have to admit that before I met my husband that I didn't take great care of her. Getting her oil changed, why would you do that? New tires? Nah these ones are fine. The poor thing is now dying. She has lasted a pretty long time considering my neglect for the first year and a half of her life. My husband drives her now back and forth to work which luckily is only a twenty mile round trip. I am going to be very sad when that little car kicks the bucket.

My little Mazda doesn't have a name yet. How sad is that? I just call her Ruby also, but she is actually blue so that makes no sense at all. Now that I know how to take care of a car, she has had her oil changed at regular intervals and last week she got four new tires and her alignment fixed. I still have to make an appointment at Mazda to get her timing looked at and her cigarette outlet fixed so I can listen to my Ipod again. I will have to say that I was quite pissed a few weeks ago when I realized that she was going to have to get work done, but she is already riding so much better that I could care less. I can't wait to get a job closer to home so I am not going through four new tires every 16 months, plus she will last longer if I am not putting so many miles on her every year.

We may be getting another car in the next couple of weeks. My husband's grandfather is selling his 1996 Mercury Tracer and we may buy it if he agrees to let us pay the blue book value for it. The car, althogh not the sharpest car on the block has only ten thousand miles on it and it will be great for going back and forth to work. It's the wagon style Tracer so we will be taking that to the drive in!

My husband also wants to get a sports car in the next year, but truthfully we will probably need to get a bigger house so he can put it in a garage. Right now, we have a carport that I am in love with but I wouldn't really trust a nice car to not get damaged on our street.

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Therapy

My therpaist told me last week that I was most likely infertile and in pain because that is what God wanted. Nice, huh? She thought that maybe he wants me to become a pain counselor. Well, although I appreciate all points of view, telling someone who is going to counseling because they are having trouble dealing with chronic pain that God wants them to be in pain forever probably isn't the smartest idea. She did call and apologize a week later stating that she generally doesn't bring religion into the session and that she wants me to come back. Yeah, I don't think so.