Countdown to Graduation: 8 months
Eight months until Andy graduates! Actually, as of a few days ago, I can change the countdown on the 21st of each month, and so you'll see these posts a week or so earlier. I found out May 21, 2011 is Andy's actual graduation date, with finals done the day before that. It feels good to put a date on the end. Woo hoo!
Sept seemed to have gone fairly slowly, with the weeks dragging on more slowly than usual, though it's still funny to think that it's already October.
I picked up a book again yesterday about thyroid conditions, which I have not read for a couple years, in hope of finding a chapter that will help Andy to understand how this thyroid and adrenal issue is affecting me and contributing to my mood and reactions. I am grateful that it contained a chapter that did just that. The book is The Thyroid Solution, by R. Arem, MD. I am saying this here because it has a quote which I believe will shed light on why I am doing this countdown and why I am so anxious for Andy's graduation and my staying home.
"Many patients... devote most of their attention and remaining energy to the effort to maintain job performance. This tremendous burden on the brain will often be expressed in outbursts at home as patients' frustrations and inability to fulfill emotional and physical responsibilities in their private lives affect [spouses and] families.
"Amanda, a teacher with a hypothyroid condition, described this conflict to me. 'I became irritable with my students,' she said. 'I had to exercise a great deal of self-control so that I wouldn't fly off the handle. This would tire me out so much that, when I got home, I was useless to my husband. I felt guilty, like I wasn't really all there to do the things we wanted to do. We would go dancing, and I couldn't remember to move my foot out for each step. It was very noticeable.' When patients focus on doing the best they can at work, their home life inevitably suffers, because they have no energy left for family duties and obligations."
I have had no doubt my work affects my family; being a physical therapist and having to be "on" all day, just as a teacher does, leaves me exhausted at the end of the day and the end of the week. When I was working 4 days a week, with kids at home the the other 3 days, I could never recover. And I was getting worse and worse. I do my best not to let my condition affect my patient care, devoting most/all of my remaining energy on maintaining job performance, and giving my family the left-overs, meaning I'm often exhausted and moody at home. I get after the kids and fight with Andy too easily, and it pains me to see the effects this has on them. But somehow (and I still can't get a grasp on this), it seems I am powerless to stop my own reactions - it seems I am too fatigued and that it takes too much effort to control myself. I need to learn to just walk away, but the anger and irritability prevents this. I feel guilty for this, as being a wife and mother is most important, after God, and I want to do it to the best of my ability. I want my children to know the love and joy of following Christ, not to associate faith with anger and guilt. What "Amanda" said about not being able to remember to move her foot while dancing with her husband - it sounds ridiculous, but things like that happen frequently with me. Simple actions, simple phrases, things that used to come easily to me confound me and seem to elude me at home.
But more recently, my job performance had been suffering as well (and that means home/family is suffering more). I was written up for being so tired and for complaining about my fatigue to a co-worker and "worrying her" months ago. Now, I feel great pressure not to say anything to anyone and not to show signs of how tired I am, which is overall beneficial to me as well but very difficult on my bad days. Now that I have cut back to part time with weekends, Mondays, and Wednesdays off, it seems it takes at least the weekend to recover to pre-week status and sometimes Monday as well, but at least I am partially recovering. I thought I had been actually slowly getting better, but this new thyroid medicine has made it more difficult to gauge. I am (hopefully temporarily) more irritable recently.
The solution to me is to put in my notice and be done with work as soon as possible, but financially that is not possible. It would likely do Andy in to take on 16-18 very involved credits, with the effort he puts into school, and to take on a job. So I feel very trapped. This perhaps sounds ridiculous to some people - how can I be struggling so much with a part time job and two children?? So many people take on so much more and do just fine. I'm just making too much of this. No, I promise you, this is real.
But yet there is hope. I do believe, despite how much I am struggling with it recently again, that the treatment I am receiving is the correct one for me and will rebalance all those endocrine hormones, eventually making me feel a lot better (normal???). And decreasing my hours from 31 to 20, including an extra day off and somewhat shorter days at work - the longest being 9 1/2 hours rather than 11 - gives me better balance between work and home and decreases the extent of exhaustion. Having two mornings without kids, with ability to exercise and go to church, and with responsibility to no one but myself until 11:15, gives me the opportunity to take care of myself and encourage recovery. And a growing trust in God, and increasing frequency of turning to Him helps greatly too, even if I don't "feel" the effects immediately.
From this perspective 8 months seems like a long time, and often I wonder if I can make it through two more semesters when every semester thus far has gotten worse and worse for our family (and this one seemed to take a huge dive to being even worse this last weekend). But God does not ask of us what we cannot do, and 8 months will likely go fairly quickly. With His grace, I will likely make it through, family intact and somehow stronger as a result.
Sept seemed to have gone fairly slowly, with the weeks dragging on more slowly than usual, though it's still funny to think that it's already October.
I picked up a book again yesterday about thyroid conditions, which I have not read for a couple years, in hope of finding a chapter that will help Andy to understand how this thyroid and adrenal issue is affecting me and contributing to my mood and reactions. I am grateful that it contained a chapter that did just that. The book is The Thyroid Solution, by R. Arem, MD. I am saying this here because it has a quote which I believe will shed light on why I am doing this countdown and why I am so anxious for Andy's graduation and my staying home.
"Many patients... devote most of their attention and remaining energy to the effort to maintain job performance. This tremendous burden on the brain will often be expressed in outbursts at home as patients' frustrations and inability to fulfill emotional and physical responsibilities in their private lives affect [spouses and] families.
"Amanda, a teacher with a hypothyroid condition, described this conflict to me. 'I became irritable with my students,' she said. 'I had to exercise a great deal of self-control so that I wouldn't fly off the handle. This would tire me out so much that, when I got home, I was useless to my husband. I felt guilty, like I wasn't really all there to do the things we wanted to do. We would go dancing, and I couldn't remember to move my foot out for each step. It was very noticeable.' When patients focus on doing the best they can at work, their home life inevitably suffers, because they have no energy left for family duties and obligations."
I have had no doubt my work affects my family; being a physical therapist and having to be "on" all day, just as a teacher does, leaves me exhausted at the end of the day and the end of the week. When I was working 4 days a week, with kids at home the the other 3 days, I could never recover. And I was getting worse and worse. I do my best not to let my condition affect my patient care, devoting most/all of my remaining energy on maintaining job performance, and giving my family the left-overs, meaning I'm often exhausted and moody at home. I get after the kids and fight with Andy too easily, and it pains me to see the effects this has on them. But somehow (and I still can't get a grasp on this), it seems I am powerless to stop my own reactions - it seems I am too fatigued and that it takes too much effort to control myself. I need to learn to just walk away, but the anger and irritability prevents this. I feel guilty for this, as being a wife and mother is most important, after God, and I want to do it to the best of my ability. I want my children to know the love and joy of following Christ, not to associate faith with anger and guilt. What "Amanda" said about not being able to remember to move her foot while dancing with her husband - it sounds ridiculous, but things like that happen frequently with me. Simple actions, simple phrases, things that used to come easily to me confound me and seem to elude me at home.
But more recently, my job performance had been suffering as well (and that means home/family is suffering more). I was written up for being so tired and for complaining about my fatigue to a co-worker and "worrying her" months ago. Now, I feel great pressure not to say anything to anyone and not to show signs of how tired I am, which is overall beneficial to me as well but very difficult on my bad days. Now that I have cut back to part time with weekends, Mondays, and Wednesdays off, it seems it takes at least the weekend to recover to pre-week status and sometimes Monday as well, but at least I am partially recovering. I thought I had been actually slowly getting better, but this new thyroid medicine has made it more difficult to gauge. I am (hopefully temporarily) more irritable recently.
The solution to me is to put in my notice and be done with work as soon as possible, but financially that is not possible. It would likely do Andy in to take on 16-18 very involved credits, with the effort he puts into school, and to take on a job. So I feel very trapped. This perhaps sounds ridiculous to some people - how can I be struggling so much with a part time job and two children?? So many people take on so much more and do just fine. I'm just making too much of this. No, I promise you, this is real.
But yet there is hope. I do believe, despite how much I am struggling with it recently again, that the treatment I am receiving is the correct one for me and will rebalance all those endocrine hormones, eventually making me feel a lot better (normal???). And decreasing my hours from 31 to 20, including an extra day off and somewhat shorter days at work - the longest being 9 1/2 hours rather than 11 - gives me better balance between work and home and decreases the extent of exhaustion. Having two mornings without kids, with ability to exercise and go to church, and with responsibility to no one but myself until 11:15, gives me the opportunity to take care of myself and encourage recovery. And a growing trust in God, and increasing frequency of turning to Him helps greatly too, even if I don't "feel" the effects immediately.
From this perspective 8 months seems like a long time, and often I wonder if I can make it through two more semesters when every semester thus far has gotten worse and worse for our family (and this one seemed to take a huge dive to being even worse this last weekend). But God does not ask of us what we cannot do, and 8 months will likely go fairly quickly. With His grace, I will likely make it through, family intact and somehow stronger as a result.
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