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september 25. 2010
Thanks to groupon, we got an awesome deal on family photos-only $45 for the sitting fee, the photo session, the cd with all the pic’s, and we can print to our hearts content anywhere we want, so overall, it was a good deal for what was valued at $600…or was it?

After getting four GIRLS up at 5:00am, along with myself and hubby, we hurriedly got ready, did hair, dresses, tights, flowers, make-up (and let’s not forget the hours of shopping, thinking, hoping things would come together), and got ourselves to Piedmont Park in the center of Atlanta for our hour photo session.

I am a photographer myself, but not professional. I love taking pictures and capturing moments, and I’m not excellent, but when I have to organize the group or place people or make recommendations to the photographer, my confidence in that photographer collapses. After taking merely two shots at each pose, we found every family pic to have someone squinting, making funny faces, not a great shot, and all of it ended up being worth poop!-My focus was a good family pic after Nadia’s face last year-which was poutie. Well, welcome to this year’s family picture! You see what I mean! She did end up capturing some cute shots of individuals or a couple of the girls together, but us all together, didn’t work!

Like I’ve said before, you want something done, you’ve got to do it YOURSELF!

october 11. 2010″

So I’m coming up on six years of having pretty rough health problems…and can one even complain? I mean, I see Stephanie Nielsen, and her amazing mormon-ad she’s done, and everything else in our lives seems so trivial…but I still have my own trials to conquer, and they aren’t easy to me.

The blessings, one of many being here in Atlanta, is that I’ve finally found a doctor who doesn’t just say, “I’ve treated fibromyalgia for twenty years and there’s nothing you can do, here’s another narcotic for your pain,” or “your thyroid looks fine, we just need to deal with the lyme’s disease”, or, “you have a couple of autoimmune diseases(which I really don’t), and since you have fibromyalgia, don’t eat gluten, dairy, or peanuts the rest of your life.”

I am so very grateful, having seen my mother start out similarly, but then as things got worse for her when doctors didn’t know how to fix them 25 years ago, other things then began to be affected and started a snowball effect if you will, until it all fell apart.

So, I’m grateful to have had a couple good doctors along the way, and that science has moved forward. So, my new doctor, Dr. Ou, has answered many questions to my issues, which is great, since having “issues” can so easily place you in “categories” which really can be a way of saying “unexplained” or “we don’t really know!”

So the fatigue: TSH is working, but T4 isn’t really following it’s signals and T3 isn’t converting, hence the 15 pound gain in two months after moving to Georgia, and can’t lose it when only eating around 1000 calories. IT’S SO NICE TO HAVE SOME ANSWERS!

Liver isn’t filtering much at all, so I have an excess of testosterone and estrogen, which if that would have gone unfixed, would have easily resulted in a myriad of health problems such as breast cancer, stroke, heart attack, and even diabetes. That’s not a great mixture at all!

Adrenals aren’t working, actually at stage 5 adrenal dysfunction out of 7, and my doc informs me everyone pretty much skips stage 6, so I was just about at the end of that category.

My cortisol levels are a straight line throughout the day, which if you have “normal” cortisol levels, you start high and gently slope down through your day, which explains a lot, as to why I struggle getting out of bed at 9:30!

So, the greatest of all findings, is that my gut isn’t working(which if you didn’t know, is where about 80% of your immune system is), thanks to annoying little parasites that are keeping nutrients from going into my body, causing my body to think it’s malnourished, hanging on to every ounce of fat that is, so it doesn’t “starve” to death, even though thanks to my thyroid, I’ve gained weight.

So, if you ever find a doctor like this who looks at the body as a whole, who figures out why something isn’t working well, and wants to get to the root of the issue… KEEP THAT DOCTOR! No matter where we live, I may have to always fly to Georgia. This doctor, let’s not jump ahead too much until I’m “fixed”, but has possibly saved me from a lot of diseases, and years of exhaustion, moodiness, fatness, and other “ess” things I’m sure.

But beyond this doctor, is a loving Heavenly Father who has helped me, and given me patience and persistence as I’ve struggled through doctors, not giving up, and guiding me to this doctor. Above all, it’s my Heavenly Father who has helped me, so I can be a better mother, wife, and person. I’m grateful for these many blessings, and many more I won’t list here, but I know what they are!