creative.mother.thinking

So first things first:

I won NaNoWriMo!

 

But that was in the afternoon. In the morning I went to have my thyroid looked at properly.

I had that procedure called a scintigraphy where they inject radioactive isotopes into a vein which then wander into your thyroid, and then you get kind of x-rayed (not quite the same) and they can see how your thyroid works.

The procedure was easy and fast, I only had to wait for ages for the doctor several times. Good thing I took a book to read.

He dismissed my talk about having an underactive thyroid with a quick, „Your TSH is fine so you don’t have that.“ Which I found interesting but it didn’t convince me. (TSH (that’s short for thyroid stimulating hormone) can be an indicator but there can be circumstances where TSH is within normal range, and thyroid hormones in your body are too low anyway, and there might even be cases where all your hormone levels are within normal range but your body has trouble utilizing the hormones swimming around in your bloodstream. At least that’s what I learned reading several books on the subject.)

So the nodules in my thyroid are ‚cold‘. Hot would have been better but I already thought that wasn’t it. Hot nodules would probably have meant hyperthyroidism (it doesn’t always, though), and my symptoms don’t match that. The good thing is that he thinks I don’t need surgery at the moment, it will be alright to just come back for another ultrasound in six months. That is very good.

I got a nice colorful picture of my radiating thyroid to take to my doctor, and will talk to her again about the whole thing. Probably in January or so.

I’m also thinking about finding a good endocrinologist because I’m thinking maybe someone who is specialized in hormones would be a good idea. The two doctors I’ve seen about my thyroid so far have both completely dismissed anything I told them about my other hormone problems, have looked at said TSH level and told me that should be enough.

Now the hormones in the body are actually interconnected. Having too much estrogen, or not enough progesterone (as I have for example), can influence your thyroid hormones as well. And the whole stress hormone-thing is also interconnected to all the other hormones in the body.

So, for the moment I’m very happy that I don’t have to have surgery this moment. I will also look into other things, and am ramping up my „healing thoughts“-visualization to cover all the bases.

I’m still really, really tired by the way.

Two weeks until my sleep test, then three to four weeks until I can see the ENT to talk about the sleep test, then waiting for a new appointment with my regular doctor, yeah, this will take no time at all.

Other than that there will be some grocery shopping today (I hope to squeeze it in between the dentist and teaching), then a medium amount of teaching, then strength training, then early to bed.

Wow, yesterday was pretty intense.

I was all full og self-doubt and thoughts that I’m not really a writer, and impostor-syndrome and everything. At the same time I had that goal of writing at least 10,000 words, and maybe even finish NaNo that day even though I needed 12,000 words to do that.

The morning did not go well, I procrastinated mightily, and only wrote 500 words when I had planned for 2,000 and was just about to throw out everything and stop writing altogether. And my poor husband had to listen to me going on and on and on about the drama in my mind.

After lunch I decided not to let that throw me off. Just every time I was thinking about the thing that was making me upset I would just think about my novel instead. And not in a „This is all crap, I’m not a writer!“-kind of way but instead in a, „Okay, so what will be happening next?“.kind of way.

I set my little timer, and I started writing. The words flowed about as freely as molasses uphill when it’s freezing. But I persevered, and I wrote on. And after 25 minutes I took a little break. And then I started again. And I forbid myself to think about anything else but what I wanted to write, and the thing I want to knit next. (Oh, I forgot to tell, yesterday I finished the sweater I was knitting. It only need blocking.)

And I was pretty sure I couldn’t manage to write 10,000 words that day but I was set on trying anyway. And I went on with writing for a long stretch, and taking a short break. And sometimes the breaks turned a little longer, and then I started bribing myself with chocolate, and around five pm I had a massive headache, and so at 5.30 I decided to take a longer break for dinner.

I made pizza pane from the leftover pizza dough from Friday (I made twice the amount I needed by mistake), and the boy and I watched Star Trek TNG, the episode where the Borg attack earth and Ryker is captain of the Enterprise for a short while – excellent – and then I went back to writing.

I almost managed to finish the 50K but after 10,949 words I was really exhausted and it was time for bed, and my wrists were hurting and my head was aching so I called it a day.

Less than 2,000 words left I think I might be able to manage that today even though I have this big doctor’s appointment today for my scintigraphy. I had been freaking out about that one as well because that will show what kind of nodules I have in my thyroid, and that will determine whether I will need surgery or not.

But I’m practicing more mind control, and am telling myself that my thyroid is not changing because it gets looked at, this is just showing me what is so that I can make better informed decisions. And yes, I don’t quite know what to expect but then that’s okay, I don’t need to be an expert on this, that’s what the doctors and nurses are for.

So I’m looking forward to riding a train to Herrsching and the Ammersee today after breakfast, and then I’ll see.

Afterwards there will be a medium amount of students, and I’m hoping for some writing time as well, and tonight I want to go to bed early and sleep like a log until the next morning.

But I did it! I wrote 10,000 words in a day for the first time ever! And I don’t feel like not writing a single word ever again! This is awesome!

Yesterday was not quite as productive as I had hoped. On the other hand 5,300 words is nothing to sneeze at.

My 11K run went very well. It’s funny how I can barely manage 5K on an ordinary day, and then I try for more tha double that and things feel about the same.

Lunch was a little late because my husband had to deal with all kinds of things in the garden. While I was running the weather turned cold and wet, and there will be snow soon. (But then there should have been snow a while ago, and it never materialized. Right now it’s cold enough for it, though.)

Then I called a friend on the phone for her birthday and we kept talking for an hour, and then I had a hard time buckling down and doing my words. Which is why I fell short.

Over the course of the day my mother-in-law had been worrying about her very high blood pressure (she keeps taking more pills and it won’t go down) and in the evening she called a doctor so that kept me up late.

Which is why I slept in today again, and am having a late start to the day.

I’m still aiming for 10,000 words today but it will be really hard. Maybe if I do nothing but write all day.

Oh, and I found that my desk chair is really uncomfortable in the long run and makes my hip hurt when I sit in it for too long. The ktichen bench which is all wood and far from ergonomic is apparently better for my joints.

Huh.

So back to the word mines. Have a happy Sunday.

Yesterday I managed to do everything I wanted to. For once. I started writing in the morning, after breakfast, I cleaned the house, I made pizza using a new dough recipe (not quite sure on that one, will experiment further), I even did the dishes before teaching which I often don’t manage on Fridays.

I wrote some more between students so that I got my 2,000 words in before dinner, then I made pancake soup while hanging up laundry with the boy’s help, we watched Star Trek TNG and „How I Met Your Mother“, then I wrote some more, and only went to bed a little late.

The plan for today is to write like the wind, and spend the morning running 11 kilometers. Since I haven’t run a lot these past weeks I feel like I can’t really do that, and I also am thinking that after the run I might be so exhausted that I can’t write anymore but that’s just silly. I was fine doing my long runs in the past, and while I might not reach 10,000 words today I will certainly come close.

Seems I do love a challenge. Huh.

And I keep thinking how cool it would be to reach the 50,000 words by tomorrow.

I am at 31,939 at the moment, by the way.

So I’m pretty happy because yesterday went very well. I went running even though I didn’t want to and afterwards felt much happier and more energetic. Also every day for the past few days my husband has made for lunch what I wished for. Well, he has been running out of ideas so he has been asking me what we should eat, but still.

And then there appeared a thread in the NaNoWriMo-group on ravelry for „Those who didn’t“. I’ve been thinking about giving up for more than a week now. Seeing that thread there, though, made something snap in me. There was still a whole week to go. There are people who can write a whole novel in a week. I mean, it is perfectly legitimate to decide not to finish NaNo, no shame in that, it was just that I don’t want to.

I don’t usually care all that much about accountability, and whether I reach the goals I publicly declare but NaNo seems to be a little different, I have won it every single time I did it, and I don’t really want to come out of November without at least the 50K. Even though I was sick for two weeks, and scrapped my novel after three days, and then spent about five days planning a new one rather sloppily. Even though I hadn’t even reached the halfway point with only a week to go.

I sat down and looked at my calendar, and things were looking dire. I knew I’d have quite a bit of time yesterday with only one student, not a lot of time today with all the teaching and the cleaning, and quite a bit of time on the weekend. I will probably not write a single word on Monday because that’s when I get my next thyroid exam, and I have a dentist’s appointment on Tuesday, so there will probably not be any writing that day as well. Wednesday is another pretty busy day, and on Thursday I had planned to record the next podcast episode. Also I really dislike writing a lot on the last day because so much can go wrong, and it is really stressful.

For a moment I was really disheartened.

Then I made a plan. It’s gorgeous, it’s insane, but it just might work.

I planned to write 5,000 words yesterday, 2,000 today, and 10,000 each on Saturday and Sunday.

Easy!

I did actually manage to write the 5,000 yesterday. I employed my little pomodoro timer and it went really well. Was fun even.

Doing the 2,000 today will be a little more challenging, especially since I already wasted an hour between 5 and 6 am (why yes, I woke up early again, yawn). Doing 10,000 a day is just insane, and I have never managed to do it before but I’ll try. And if I don’t quite manage that I will still have a few days left to do the rest.

If I give up – which I don’t think I will – it won’t be with a whole week left before the end. Nope.

Still unbelievably tired. This is no fun.

Yesterday was a weird in between day because the boy didn’t have school but my husband and I were teaching as usual. I had a potential new student come in which made me somewhat nervous. It’s funny, I’ve been doing this job for ages now but I still get the jitters every single time.

Things went well, and she’ll start next week.

But being out of sorts meant no writing. I only started in the evening after hours and hours of procrastinating, and that meant I only managed to write 1,500 words. Things are starting to look dire, I still need to write 27,000 words, and while today should be a low key day with lots of time to write (not that I usually write a lot on those days) tomorrow will be rather busy, and on Monday and Tuesday I have doctor’s appointments that mean I won’t get anything done.

Of course everything would be fine if I just wrote 10,000 words a day on the weekend but we all know how that has worked for me in the past. Not.

So today there will be running, and teaching very few students, and the mailing of a package, and not much more.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this tired. Maybe back when the boy was a baby that never slept. There is no use in trying to stay up past 9.30 or so, I just fall asleep.

Fatigue has become this all-encompassing feeling threaded through every waking moment. It waxes and wanes but it’s always there. I’ve been trying to think energetic thoughts because I can’t do anything about it but it has only been successful a little at times.

Maybe in December I’ll try just taking a nap whenever I want to unless I am working. But if sleep were the answer I wouldn’t wake up that early, wouldn’t I?

So I’m very happy to have the doctor’s appointment on Monday, and the other one in mid-December because then I might find an answer or two.

Now I need to write. All the words.