filler

Until I get around to taking a better fall picture this banner will have to do for now. Let's see, let's see, since I last posted a lot has been going on. I finished the sideboard/buffet I'd been working on, pictures to come soon. I took out the dropped ceiling in our half bath on the first floor. Yikes! There's previous water damage that makes it look like the tub could fall through the ceiling. I think, hope, pray it looks worse than it actually is. This half bath suffered through a real half-assed renovation, the way the dropped ceiling was put in, the original window chopped down to fit the new dropped ceiling, the seemingly random wall for an awkward hallway area that's essentially useless between the bath, main hall and basement. It's all baffling to me. I want to completely gut it and make it a full bath but my name isn't bob villa so we'll see. Right now the ceiling is covered in industrial garbage bag black plastic so, needless to say, the room isn't looking its best right now.

Hmm, in other news Owen just spent an hour and a half in the bathroom bawling while trying to get poop out which when it finally did come out is about as big as his thigh. And that's after drinking plum juice for days. I should have weighed him before and after the poop. Poor kid, Owen and Oona have such awful poop problems thanks to my side of the family. My grandma is back in the hospital due to lower back pain. I spent close to 8 hours in the ER with her yesterday and was ready for a paycheck once I left. The place was a zoo, there were patients on gurneys in the hallway, not the way I envisioned spending my Sunday. I have to find time to go over there sometime today. Toby's at a parent/teacher conference for Owen. We were all hoping to go but Owen's was stuck in the bathroom until fifteen minutes ago.

In other news, I've been going through this prolonged wait and see about lab tests that I originally had done in July. My Dr. said it indicated a possible auto-immune problem and referred me to a rheumatologist. At first the rheumatologist was 70% sure I had Sjogren's Syndrome and sent me for more lab work and to see an opthamologist. If you're going to have anything autoimmune (trust me you don't want anything autoimmune) Sjogren's is the most benign thing to have. Basically your body attacks your tear ducts and mucus membranes so you get really dry eyes, dry mouth and it sounds pretty sucky. I do not have Sjogren's(phew) the eye doctor did a test where they put paper strips in your eyes to see how much tears you produced and I teared up fine. SO I went back to the rheumatologist last wednesday and he's completely stumped as to how I could go from having an ANA of 320 with a speckled titer pattern to being fine, the most recent ANA was under 20 which is normal and I guess the titer pattern is homogenous now. When I asked how that could be, instead of attributing it to lab error he attributed it to my being anxious. I swear I never want to tell doctors I have anxiety because then they say that's the basis of all my problems and as far as I know anxiety isn't capable of giving you a sky high (his words) anti-nuclear antibody reading with a specklde pattern titer! Don't get me wrong I'm overjoyed not to have lupus or sjogren's but I don't get all the anxiety talk when I'm not a hypochondriac (about my kids I'm a total hypochondriac and fear the worst when they get sick but myself I just get annoyed when I'm sick), I don't wring my hands or jump to conclusions or think I have every ailment known to man. When I found out about a possible autoimmune problem in July I thought it could be lupus since I'm tired a lot and get a random facial rash from time to time but aside from the fatigue, rash and totally minor joint pain I'm fine. I just find it supremely frustrating to pigeonholed because I'm honest about being anxious. But thank God I'm not this poor woman who suffered for 15 years of being misdiagnosed as an anorexic with bulimia when it turned out she had celiac disease - very long but fascinating excerpt on this book I still have to read.