{Me in my Ragnar Team Shirt 2009- I can't help thinking of my teammates today.}

Good Luck to all of my friends running this today. I've blogged about my own experiences running this race in Vegas and The Wasatch Back. Who knows, maybe I can be back at it next year. 

I had to have more blood drawn today. It got a little sporty. It's getting harder for the techs to find a vein willing to cooperate. They've been poked a lot lately. All the veins in the crook of my arms no longer cooperate. They roll, jump or let the needles pass all the way through. Little stinkers!

Mercifully, after an hour of experimenting with different veins, tourniquets and needle positions, a nurse came in on her day off just for me. Using a pediatric needle and syringe, she found a decent vein in a weird place on my hand then manually filled the vials. Like I said, a little sporty but manageable. She filled a little more than half a vial before the blood stopped flowing. We were hoping for three. But that should  be enough for the tests. If not I'll have to go back on Monday.

I'm pretty used to the drill. It usually takes at least one miss before a tech can find a good vein. Today almost pushed my limit, almost.

But enough about blood and needles. I've got awesome news!

The big fat silver lining to the blood draw today is that my Doctor only order three vials! That means my hormones have leveled out and we have narrowed down the culprit that's making me sick. Guess what? It's the same old one. The Thyroid. My stinky thyroid does not play nice with the others. It always thinks it needs to show everybody else up but sending out way too many hormones then throwing a tantrum and not sending any out at all.

Which a relief for two reasons:

It's an organ fairly easy to regulate and that means my tumor isn't secreting anything else.

This is very good news. Secreting tumors are almost always benign but they can cause a lot of health issues by throwing off the delicate balance in the body. And when the hormones are out of whack, yikes, you get all kinds of weird symptoms. Maybe I'll share some of the yuckier ones with you but not today.

So for now my tumor is just hanging out, enjoying the scenery. Hopefully once I get my cheeky thyroid reigned in I should feel great!

Okay, "great" is my word. My Doc prefers "better". But he doesn't really get that I'm an overachiever. I'm shooting for  "fantastic", "stupendous", "better than ever". I've got races to run, classes to teach and a million creative projects simmering on the back burner. Believe me, all this laying around has given me one HUGE back burner.

But that is a post for another day.