Spring is finally here!

All our snow is finally gone. The last little bit of ice just vanished without fanfare. The pond was melted by the full moon, because I walked a friend over to the pond that evening and the water was still as glass.

Eleven baby goats at the farm, all sooo sweet! Silver babies: Little Lori had a single big buck, Sugreca a buck and a doe, Dancer two does. Five brown babies: a big single doe out of Buffy, twin bucks out of Carmela, and twin does out of Bonnie. One black doe out of Coretta.

Sugreca's little buck has one wattle and loves to chew on hair. Bonnie's girls from Prince are so beautiful, and Bonnie is starting to accept me catching them every morning so she can have her grain.

Actually, most of the mothers are relieved when I go after their kids since the does stand in the stalls calling their babies, who are having too much fun playing big goat on the rock wall to be interested in grain.

Combing cashmere is almost over.

Had a bunch of blood drawn last week, called the doc and found out I am still hyperthyroid, although the levels dropped since before treatment. So I have more bloodwork in a month and have to watch for signs of hypothyroid in the meantime. Certainly the swelling at the base of my throat has gone down. I have put on a few pounds, I'm up to 118 now, but still battling the forgetting-to-eat and running typically on 5 hours of sleep.

I get nightowlish this time of year, but having to be to the farm at the crack of dawn is putting a crimp in my sleeping! lol.

Wednesday

I go for my treatment tomorrow. I am a day behind, since Monday was a soppy wet snow supposed to turn to rain that made me not want to risk a wreck to drive to town to swallow the test pill.

So I took the test pill yesterday and went back for a scan today and go back tomorrow for the big dose.

I find it so ironic, ne, Karmic, that an anti-nuc greenie like myself is facing nuclear medicine. No hesitation. That or get knocked out and go under the knife and hope the surgeon is competent enough not to slice my vocal cords or the thymus gland. Nope, just swallow a pill. Not have a breast removed, or a limb amputated, or half my face taken away, it's just a pill. Or maybe two pills.

And a whole list of recommended precautions, apparently I could shed radiation from my saliva and stuff that comes out the other end, so I have to keep my eating utensils separate for a week, and throw out my toothbrush in a week, and wipe the phone off after I use it, and flush three times everytime I go...but the scientist in me wonders how to handle the volumes of drip that comes out my nose working outside in the cold? What about the tissues and gloves and yes, ok, shirtsleeves?

My favorite part, and I had the fellow from nuclear medicine giggling nervously along with me, is that I get a dr's note in case I try and cross international borders in the next month and set off the dirty bombs alert...lol. well, the geiger counter...

One most likely thing that will happen is that I will go hypothyroid and have to take a pill everyday for the rest of my life. But the meds I was taking came to 7 pills a day and crashed my white blood cells, so I guess I can happily take one a day forever to avoid that!

I suppose some comfort might be gained from hearing that George Bush senior and his wife Barbara both had this treatment for hyperthyroidism.

Monday

Water's back in the well, yay, and more rain coming.

We've had our hard frost, so all the tender annuals are gone. The foliage is still blazing. The Beech and Red Oak have come on strong with the cold- bright orange and red and gold.

I have been having some nagging health issues; racing pulse, short of breath, weight (and strength) loss, trembling. I bottomed out at 112 pounds, and eventually called in for a checkup. They took me in that afternoon.

After telling me that my size was the envy of all in the clinic and quickly changing it to I looked like a concentration camp victim, (shows where today's fashion leads us)
and noting that I am off the bottom of the BMI chart, hyperactive thyroid was diagnosed as the likely culprit. Basically the result is that your metabolism speeds up.

I go for loads of bloodwork tomorrow and a yet to be scheduled thyroid ultrasound in the near future.

Please say a prayer for me, I could use a little strength right now!

Another playoff soccer game tomorrow. We play an, as yet, undefeated team on their home field. Our star forward is out on academic suspension. The coach told the Firebird at practice today he is going to play him as forward and told him to shoot as much as he can.

I took my goats out for a walk on the property today for a little back to nature. The didn't act too ravished-obviously they've been topping off with all the falling leaves. We had a great walk down to the stream. I enjoyed watching their reaction when they saw the water moving.

Cricket has turned out to be the leader, and Badger the lagger. We went up and around the electric fence. I could tell they were happy to get to some of that stuff on the other side! I found a couple beautiful pieces of quartz. One of them was pretty big. I could barely lift it, but I insisted on carrying it to the fenceline.

Then I had one of those nasty short of breath spells where I felt like I was hyperventilating and tried to meditate to calm myself. The same thing happened loading at Home Depot a couple weeks ago and both times I thought "Ok, I going to black out and they are going to find me here."

*draws a little image of a toppled tree*