Still working…

I’m also working on taking care of the things the kids need to do over the summer: finding a new doctor (theirs retired, but we succeeded), doing dental stuff (about half done), doing fun classes for learning to use school resources (done and over with), and swim lessons.  Which are scheduled for next month, but not yet paid for.

All of this takes time.  And energy.  And tends to yank me out of the writing groove.

I’m not done.  I’ve gotten a bit under half written.  I’m hoping to get this sucker out by the end of August, at this point.

I am having a lot of fun–I’m learning things about my characters that I didn’t know.  Things keep happening that I didn’t plan for.  And this…this is the fun part of writing.

Huh.

So, last week was busy, too.  Stupidly busy.  I had blood drawn Monday for a doctor’s visit on Tuesday.  Oddly enough,* I’ve managed to not have a CFS flare up despite being stupid busy and really stressed for the past two weeks.  I even re-started my yoga last week.  I feel closer to normal than I have since before I was pregnant.

I think I may have figured out why: my TSH was pretty low.**  Low enough to concern the doctor.

When I was in college, I had a resting heart rate of 120 bpm, and energy.  When I was pregnant with Daniel, my resting heart rate dropped precipitously, and my energy vanished.  Despite what everyone told me would happen (you’ll get your energy back about six weeks after the baby was born) it never returned.  When I fell pregnant with Kathryn, the first appointment where they do all sorts of blood tests showed very high TSH.  As in, my thyroid gland was making next to no hormone.

I think, perhaps, I was mildly hyperthyroid throughout my whole life.  I think, perhaps, the CFS was triggered by fighting through ten years of not nearly what my body was used to regarding amounts of thyroid hormone.

And I have absolutely no chance of talking the doc into leaving me at the dose I am.  Because they’re convinced it’ll kill me early.

I’ve got another six weeks of the  current dose before the doc’s next ordered blood test.  I’ve got that long to get real life organized a bit better.  I’ll keep writing, but it’s going to be taking a back seat while I try to get other things done.

 

 

 

*I have never managed to not have a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome flareup while I was busy and stressed, not in the three years I’ve been afflicted with this mess.

**TSH=Thyroid Stimulating Hormone.  High TSH means you have too little actual thyroid hormone in your system: hypothyroidism.  Low TSH means you have too much T4 (thyroid hormone), and that your body should back off making it.  Given that I don’t HAVE a thyroid because mine had gone from working to choking me slowly over the last ten years.

Well, damn. Hijacked again.

I intended to start writing about Iris’s and Luke’s back yard that they worked so hard on getting torn up by the creatures that keep appearing (the mutant subplot that took over my book) or one about Freya (who also wants in).

That…isn’t what’s coming out.  Hades jumped in line, and the plot of the chapter has little to do with the rest of the story, at this point.  I don’t know if or how that’s going to change.  No, Hel’s having issues with post-partum depression.  Yeah, Hel.  The one who didn’t have to leave her infant in the care of others.  And Persephone hasn’t had problems with ppd.

Yes, it will go into the book.  I feel it’s important, and it is distracting Hades et. al. from helping to contain the beasts.  I’m just…floored.  My project has been hijacked a second time, and there’s nothing I can do but write through it.