June: A month of adventure

July 3, 2014

Wow.  It's been a month since I've blogged.  Could it be because I have....

• nothing to write about?
• brain farts?
• a lack of motivation?
• been super busy?
• too much personal stuff to air on the web?

If it's possible to be all of the above simultaneously, then yes, all of the above.

The past month has been full of adventure.  My last day of work was June 6th, so to "celebrate," my in-laws came to Austin to visit.  We went spelunking in Inner Space Cavern, ate a delicious burger at Hopdoddy Burger Bar and listened to some excellent 70's music as performed by the Austin Civic Orchestra.  It was a great weekend.

Josh and I went to the beach a few weekends later and then came back in time to celebrate Joanna's 30th birthday.  She rented a party bus and we tried out a few of the new "hip" places in San Antonio. The weekend ended nicely with a World Championship win by the Spurs! GO SPURS GO!

Disciple Project 2014

I spent last week at Texas Lutheran University as a sponsor for the Disciple Project, a kind of youth camp where students learn leadership skills while also understanding the gifts God has given them.  They learn more about their gifts through art, photography, sports, and other "tracks."  Each participant was able to select a track that they found most interesting and spent the week learning and doing each kind of activity.  I, of course, took the photography track.  I attended this track last year as well and I feel like I learned 100% more than I knew before I came.  I really love taking pictures!   (I'm working on purchasing a camera so that I can continue to practice the skills I learned while at Disciple Project.) Here are a few of the pictures I took.  All of these have not been edited in any way.  They are straight out of the camera.

I didn't take the last picture above. Thanks to Raffi for that shot of our group.  Go Triumphant Love Lutheran Youth!

I took advantage of the time I had with a borrowed camera and took a few shots of my pup. These photos are not edited either.  I am learning Lightroom and will begin playing around with it sometime in the coming weeks.

Stay tuned for this blog to change from a health focus to a photography focus.  But first, let me briefly update you on things....

My latest MRI showed 2 new lesions. Bummer. I don't even know when those happened because I didn't have any major symptoms in the last 6 months. My neurologist wants me to start preventative treatments soon, which means I will likely have to start the treatment that requires injections three times a week. If you know me at all, you know I am terrified of needles.  Great.

But that's not all! To top it all off, my rheumatologist wants to start me on treatment for undifferentiated connective tissue disease.  It's not lupus and it's not rheumatoid arthritis, but it's kind of in the middle of both of those.  It's an autoimmune disorder where your body attacks itself.  Symptoms include:

• joint pain/swelling,
• malaise,
• Raynaud phenomenon, 
• Sjögren's syndrome,
• muscle inflammation, and
• sclerodactyly (thickening of the skin of the pads of the fingers)

My symptoms include joint pain and Raynaud's phenomenon which is "excessively reduced blood flow in response to cold or emotional stress, causing discoloration of the fingers, toes, and occasionally other areas."  My toes turn white in weather as cool as 70 degrees.  Working at Travis County makes it especially difficult because they turn the air conditioning so low that most of my coworkers have space heaters at their desks. Yes, space heaters.  In the summer. 

I've had Raynaud's since I moved to Austin in 2009. I just thought it was a random thing and I dealt with it. Little did I know it would point to something more. At any rate, I will soon start preventative treatment for the UCTD and also MS.  

Hope you have a great Fourth of July weekend! And if you are in the North Texas area, hit up my sister's fireworks stand-- Gandolf's Fireworks in Sanger, Texas.