Okay, So We Won't Count This Year

Thanksgiving this year was. . . well, it was pretty much just a meal this year. The only difference was that we all went around the table and stated one thing we were thankful for. We moved our meal to Friday this year because my sister Bridget had to work a shift at the hospital on Thanksgiving. We had just decided this on Sunday evening, so when I got to Bridget's house on Monday to help her empty out her storage unit, I called my brother to let him know. Well, he ripped me a new one for about 20 minutes because we didn't bother to call him and ask him what HE wanted to do. Let me tell you a bit about my brother. He's 40 years old and lives on disability due to a condition he has because of some choices he made, so he doesn't work currently, and my sister administers his finances. And because of some other choices he's made over the years (usually involving a joint or some meth and a pint of Jack Daniel's), his brain is pretty much fried. Those choices led to problems with jobs and loss of his driver's license for several years. He got that back three years ago, but has no money for a car. His days are spent sitting around his apartment twiddling his thumbs because he's isolated himself from life. So when it came time for the matriarchs of the family to figure out what to do, we all just figured my brother would go with the flow as usual. Oh no....not Brian. He tore me up one side and down the other because he had plans with friends on Friday! And to top it all off, he's bi-polar (aka manic/depressive) and doesn't take his meds faithfully. At the time he was having a manic episode, and let me tell you—manic isn't always a positive thing. Then he went off on the fact that no one ever calls him, comes to see him, does anything with him, etc. I told him that I was sorry. I try to do what I can, but lately my life has been just a little crazy, and I was having a hard enough time keeping up with my husband and child. So he asked me what was going on in my life that was making me have such a hard time. Well, I'm 32 years old and just moved my family in with my parents so that we can get some debt paid off. I'm having a heck of a time getting my thyroid under control which has its own problems (see my previous post), we want to have another baby, but even the fertility medications aren't working with my body. His response? "Well, maybe you shouldn't have more kids." I was dumbstruck. There have been very few times in my life that I have been absolutely speechless. His next words were, "Be glad you don't have any real problems." That made me mad. So mad I hung up on him. He must have ranted on for the next five minutes, because about that time, he called back and said, "I was just telling you goodbye and I loved you, and the line was dead." Uh yeah, genius. I hung up on you. I told him that my problems WERE real, and they ARE very difficult to deal with. He said he didn't mean for it to come out that way he just meant that I should be glad my problems aren't worse than they are. Yeah...I'm glad, but that still doesn't make my life easy to deal with at the moment! So long story short, Brian went to his thingy with his friends and then came over and ate with us, and we're all still trying to figure out what was so difficult that he had to yell at me the way he did.

But on the good side, I was finally able to see the endocrinologist. It's no wonder I was feeling so terrible—my TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) level was at 32. Normal is between 1 and 7!!!!!!!!!!!! So he put me on a higher dose and I go back in January to see how I'm doing. Now if we can just get the fertility medications to work.

Yesterday we went to Colorado Springs to pick up Adri's 1 year pictures. Can you believe she's already a year old?!?!?!?!?!? The originals were taken in sepia (an antique brown color for those of you who don't know). I scanned the pictures in, changed them to black and white and then colorized them. I'm personally pretty proud of my work :-)

posted by Brandi at 5:04 PM