All Better... Almost.

I can't get drunk anymore.  Too many ounces of Jameson made it into my stomach last Tuesday, and though I had a really great time overall, it took its toll.  It took me two days to shake off wanting to crawl into a hole until the feeling of impending doom wore off.  Immediately proceeding my recovery, I got "the crud", also known as a stupid cold.  

Witness:

Matt has stolen countless pairs of bike socks from me, it's time he gave back.

I promptly put those socks on my hands and stole my friend's beer.

I received the gift of hope.

Until now, it's been never that a politician has inspired hope in me and though I know the tough times are far from over, I believe that we will see many changes that will lead us in a positive direction.  The renewed air of hope and respect toward the United States that Obama's victory has invoked in much of the rest of the world is so promising to me.  

On the Soap front:

On Thursday, I met up with Erin, whose acquaintance I made at the Grant Park Festival.  We had a chat about marketing, as she recently helped a company called Melt blow up thanks to her work with Coca Cola and Dillards.  My first objective...  to tighten up my look and make it consistent across all mediums, i.e.  website, etsy site, packaging, etc.  I seek to do this first by adding a bit of detail to my logo and then make a commitment to a specific style.  I've got a few ideas, but it's going to have to evolve.  

Speaking of consistency, I've decided to cut mocha cafe the same as my other soaps and add whipped topping to them.  I'll post a picture soon and you'll see what I mean.

Health Issues:

A few months ago, I started to experience symptoms of my Graves Disease (Hyperthyroidism) after a year of remission.  I'm continually learning more about it, but I was in a real panic.  I had been informed by a friend who is also a doctor, that I'd had some temporal wasting that I thought were just bags under my eyes since I hadn't been sleeping well.  It turns out that I'd lost a lot of fatty tissue from underneath my eyes and was left with huge dark craters indicating the severity of my sickness.  I've been on thyroid blockers for almost six weeks now and it's obvious in my face that I'm becoming healthy again.  It's a little unnerving for me to display the following picture, but this is such a common autoimmune disease and a little honesty and humility on my part can't hurt, if not help someone else to not feel so alone and betrayed by their body.  

After about 2 months of symptoms, just before starting treatment.

After 4 weeks of treatment.

There is a lot of information that you, as a patient are responsible for gathering.  Your doctor will likely only give you the most common or "simplest" explanation or recommendation for treatment.  In my own reading, I discovered that thyroid blocking medication was the most common form of treatment outside the U.S. whereas most patients here are treated with radioactive iodine, which I flat out refuse.  Hyperthyroid is actually a very dangerous disease.  It's stressful on one's heart and cardiovascular system.  I've finally gotten most of my strength back at the gym and just two days ago, I was finally able to run again without my heart rate skyrocketing putting me in danger of developing arrhythmia.  I'm quickly on the road to recovery and am also in a much better state of mind, perhaps due to my treatment.

Personal news.

After some inner tension about my relationship with Peter, I finally was brave enough to have an honest discussion about my feelings and our relationship status without attachment to outcome.  I know this sounds really cliche, but I need to know where I stand so that I don't unwittingly get myself into something that was never what I thought it was to begin with.  Fortunately for me, Peter is able to be explicit about what he wants, doesn't want and how he feels.  We both have insecurities and fears, but once we both got past them, we agreed that it's been a long time coming and that we should be "in a relationship".  So, technically, I now have a boyfriend, even though everything's pretty much the same but now our hopes and expectations are out in the open with each other.  Who knows what will happen.  We know there's a suggestion of moving to the same city to really give ourselves a chance to be great together, but it's a long way from making plans.  Things could end before they even really begin, but somehow I'm much more relaxed about the whole situation knowing that he wants to be mine and me, his.