Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Novembre 2011 update

I'm suppose to graduate at the end of the summer semester of 2012. Not very long ago I was contacted by someone from Human ressources at my Diocese. He wanted to know what were my plans when I'd graduate and if I were interested in working for my diocese in a parish (as a lay minister, doing pastoral care). I am interested and I have been interested for several years. I've been doing this degree especially for this purpose so when I heard there was a job waiting for me at the end of my bachelor degree I was thankful and thrilled.

It's been a crazy road in the past three years. Not only did had to move back in my hometown (which brought back a lot of tough issues) but I got very ill with fibromyalgia, adrenal insufficiency. It slowed me down and if it hadn't been from my doctor who kept pushing me to keep going, I would probably have stopped. It was unbereable last year. Seriously I could barely take a shower so imagine how painful it was for me to sit on a chair for several hours, trying to focus on what the teachers were saying and after doing the papers. But, by the grace of God I was able to pull through with some medication and some great friends who stuck by my side and my faith because without it I would likely have killed myself.

I hadn't been physically sick before this, well I had some issues but nothing compare to this. Chronic pain is insidious, it destroys your inside as well as your mental state because not only do you feel pain 24/7 but it also incapacitate you from doing what you were previously able to do. Before being ill I was running every fucking day, 5k a day. When I got sick I could barely walk to the bathroom and I gained 80lbs. Not cool. I wasn't eating more, I wasn't doing anything. Yeah my pharmacist and my GP told me that narcotics (morphine and oxycodone and all that jazz) made you gain weight (so did anti-depressant, cuz I tried 'em all) but something wasn't right. So finally after almost a year and a half of wondering what the fuck was going on, my doctor send me AGAIN late september for blood test and ding ding ding I suffer from hypothyroidism!!!!

Doesn't that explain everything? I didn't know shit about thyroid problem before I was dx'd but when I saw my dr in october and she had received my results and told me the "good news" that I had hypothyroidism BUT that it was really easy to manage. I started to take synthroid 0,05mg and 2 weeks after 40% of my pain was gone. And I had lost 11 lbs in 3 weeks. And I think I have lost more now. I will let my dr weight me again in december. I feel like such a fat ass. I was wearing size 2 pants and I now am wearing size 14 (they are big), in september it was size 16. So it's getting down. I hope to go back to at least a size 8. You know I hate the way I look now. I know it was the thyroid problem that caused my weight gain and also the meds and it also caused water retention but I was a tiny little thing and I feel like such a huge thing.

Anyway, there's not much I can do other than taking care of myself and working on myself. I've been doing that for a little while. There's some things I need to work on to be happier and to be at peace with myself. It's not easy to do but when you do it with someone you trust, someone competent. The person (who helps me through my journey) is a professionnal, but for the sake of this blog I'll call her Faith, because she's always had faith in me. I always give nickname to everyone from my real life. I really believe the name Faith suits her a lot. Especially with our history together.

This weekend I have a 2 days session on how to celebrate funeral services. (either as an ordained minister or as a lay minister which I'll be) I have asked to do this session because I would like to be able to celebrate funerals, either at church or at funeral homes.