Merry Christmas

Hi All!

I haven't updated in a while but since I'm laid up in bed today, I thought I would update you all.  We have had two Christmas celebrations all ready.  Last weekend we had Christmas with my dad's family, they all came up from Missouri, and we had a blast.  Then Saturday night we went to Christmas Eve Eve Eve service at Hope.  Then we came back to my mom's house and had our normal Christmas Eve appetizers, played a couple of games, and opened up our Christmas eve jammies.  Tonight we are going to Brandon's dad and step-moms house for the night then we will do our Christmas morning with them and then we will come back to Des Moines and do Christmas morning with the Christians.  Then Saturday and Sunday will finish up our Christmas festivities with the Munyons and the Dunns.  So far it has been a great Christmas season.

I also wanted to update you all on my foot.  I had a CT scan done on December 13, 2012 with Dr. Trout at Iowa Otho (if you need a foot doctor he is the best!).  Then I had a follow up appointment to go over those results last Tuesday, and he found that when my foot healed the cuiboid bone on the side of my foot, healed 2mm from where it was supposed to and it healed on top of my tendon.  So he said a third surgery is what it would take to get it completely healed.  So I left the doctor's office that day knowing they would be calling me to schedule another surgery.  The next day they called me and said the first available appointment was January 8, so I took that one, but I asked them to put me on a cancellation list in case someone cancelled.  Then on Thursday we got the snow storm of all snow storms, and the nurse called me to say they had a cancellation for Friday would I like to have that appointment, I said YES! So I had my surgery on Friday evening and the doctor said it went well and he had to shave my bone, so hopefully it will be back to normal pretty soon.  

For the fertility side of things, nothing new to report after the appointment that I had in the beginning on December.

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Tori

Update

Hi All!

I've been extremely busy with school this semester and it has pretty much consumed my entire life, and next semester is just going to get worse, with 18.5 credits.  I have a couple of updates for you.

The first update is I've decided to make some extra money I am going to make cards and scrapbooks for people who don't have the time and want something homemade, so if you know of any people like that send them my way. 

The second update is I have made an appointment with a fertility clinic, to get a second opinion on what is happening because the Metformin has done nothing.  My appointment isn't until December 6, which is the day before my and Brandon's 5 year wedding anniversary.  I will update you all again soon. 

Take Care
Tori

Great News!

I got some great news from my doctor today regarding my hormone levels. 

I went to the doctor on Tuesday because of my allergies being so bad and when I went in they did another hormone test on me, since I had been on Metformin for almost 2 months.  I did expect a change in hormone levels because 1. I've lost weight (15.4 pounds to be exact) and 2. I got my little monthly "friend" the Tuesday before I went to the doctor.  What I wasn't expecting was for my doctor to tell me that my levels are back to normal.  I am beyond thrilled with this news and this makes me want to keep losing weight because now I could get pregnant at any time.  I'm really so happy I could cry.

I also haven't updated my weight loss in a while and like I said above, I've lost 15.4 pounds total.  This is great news but I still have another 85 pounds to lose.  My pants are fitting looser and my shirts are getting baggy. 

Hope everyone has a great weekend and Go State, Beat the Hawkeyes!

Back to School

I haven't updated my blog in quite a while so I thought it was time for an update.

First Here are some pictures of Brandon and I's vacation to Disneyland in California from Day 1, I will do Day 2 and 3 sometime soon.

So those are some of my favorite pictures from Day 1, I think if you click on the actual picture it will make it bigger.  

Also, today is my first day of school for fall semester 2012.  I only have a year left so I can do this.  On M/W/F I don't start until 10:00 and on T/R I don't start until 9:30, so I don't have to wake up super early.  I have 15 credits this semester, Music Listening, Theater 110, Business Calculus, and two accounting classes.  It's a pretty good load but I have confidence in myself that I can make it through it.

Yesterday, Iowa State at their annual Fan Fest, and I wanted to go so Brandon's friend Thomas and I went together.  I had one mission in mind, to meet Fred Hoiberg(the coach) and to get a picture with him, well as you will see in the pictures below I accomplished that.  Then I had an idea come to me in a dream, where I got a 16x20 picture of the basketball floor and had all the players and coach sign it and I uploaded a picture of that too.

Have a great week everyone!

Home from California

Well, I've been home for 6 days now.  Brandon and I had a blast in Disneyland.  We stayed at a Holiday Inn Resort in Anaheim and took the public transportation to Disneyland every day.  We went to both Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure.  We left Kansas City on time at 7:25 am, and landed about 10 minutes ahead of time at 8:45 am.  We got our baggage and found the shuttle service to take us to the resort.  We checked in and to our surprise our room was ready at about 10:30.  We dropped our stuff in the room and headed to the parks.  We pretty much stayed in Disneyland all day since we didn't have a full day.  On the first night we left about 7:00 and went to Bubba Gumps in ANAHEIM, not LONG BEACH (right dad?)  We really enjoyed ourselves at both parks and since I am still dealing with a foot injury I used an electric wheelchair all days.  We rode a lot of rides and rode everything we wanted to with a couple of repeats.   The new Cars Land is amazing and has so much to see.

I didn't follow weight watchers while in California so to my surprise this morning when I weighed in I lost not gained.  I only .8 pounds but that's ok.

I am having foot surgery Monday morning, and am fully going to enjoy this weekend and get some scrapbooking done.  I made a couple of cards that I needed to make today.  Tonight I am going to work on my scrapbook that I started for Brandon and I, from the time we first started dating through present.

I promised I would post the pictures of the autograph book that I made for California, so here it is.  I still need to go through the close to 2000 pictures that I took while there and then I will post some of my favorites.  I probably won't blog next week because I'll be sleeping a lot of the time because I'll be on pain medication.

Vacation!

It's been a while since I posted last.  This week has kind of been a whirlwind.  Last Thursday I went to Weight Watchers and lost 2.8 pounds, which meant I was only .4 pounds away from losing 10 total.  I set a goal for myelf to get to that 10 pounds this week. 

On Monday morning I got a phone call that my dad's dad had had a major heart attack and was rushed to the hospital.  My grandpa had a quadruple bipass in 1993, so if he had gotten another bipass done he wouldn't have survived it this time.  They had to wait a while to let him get a little more stable so they could do an EKG.  The EKG showed that he had some damage done to his heart but it wasn't critical.  He will have to have a stent put in in 4-6 weeks and rest until then.  He will be in the hospital until Friday, so continued prayer would be excellent!

I went to Weight Watchers yesterday because we are leaving for vacation today after Brandon gets off work.  Like I said up above I wanted to get to that 10 pound mark this week, and I did!  I lost 1.4 pounds (mind you I went two days early), so that makes 11 pounds in four weeks!  My goal for this next month is to get to my 5% lost goal, which is 14 pounds, so I only have 3 pounds to go.  Yes now you can all figure out how much I weighed before but I don't care because I'm changing my lifestyle.

The medicine that my doctor put me on is working, because I noticed this morning while getting ready I noticed I didn't have as much acne on my face and the medicine was supposed to help balance my hormones, which it is doing just that!  I hope in the next few weeks my "monthly friend" will come along since I haven't had one since February. 

Brandon and I are driving to Kansas City tonight to stay in a hotel and then we fly out tomorrow morning at 7:25 to fly to Los Angeles.  We are staying at a Holiday Inn Resort in Anaheim and we are going to spend 3 days in the parks.   I am going to get one of those electric wheelchairs because off my foot.  I know I won't be able to walk around the parks very easily.  We will get back on Sunday which is Brandon's birthday. 

I am really really nervous about keeping to weight watchers while I'm on vacation because going to Disney and Disney is not known for having the most healthy food.  I'm really nervous about going to Weight Watchers next week but even if I gain I need to realize I can get that weight right back off.

Then next weekend I'm going down to Missouri to see my dad, grandparents, and my dad's friend Julie.  Then that Monday (30th), I'm having foot surgery number two. 

I hope you all have a great rest of the week and I will post pictures when I get back!

Tori

Good News/Bad News

Well I got the results from my doctor today and I have good news and bad news.  The good/great news is I don't have PCOS.  I do have symptoms of it though so my doctor started me on metformin.  The pharmacist said that this is normally used for diabetes which I all ready knew about but she said that they found out it could be used to treat symptoms like mine when people who were diabetic were getting pregnant when they were on this medicine.  I'm not saying this will help Brandon and I get pregnant, but it will help get my cycle back on track hopefully.  I am supposed to take this for two months and then let me doctor know after two months how things are going.  The bad news is also I don't have PCOS, so they don't exactly know what is wrong with me.  Hopefully, the weight loss and this medicine will help get everything back on track.

I have counseling tomorrow at Iowa State, I only have two weeks left with this counselor and then they are going to transfer me to a new one because the one I'm with now is leaving Iowa State to go to a different university.

I go weigh in on Thursday so I probably won't make another post until I weigh in on Thursday.

Tori

Today was an interesting day.  My day started out by having an ultrasound done of my pelvis, to try and figure out what is going on with my body.  My doctors are 99.9% sure I have poly cystic ovarian syndrome but they needed this ultrasound to diagnose it.  I should hear tomorrow and after tomorrow and they confirm it then they are going to start me on a medicine used for diabetes but it helps regulates my hormone levels and everything should get back on track.  I will post on my blog when I get the results.

Another thing I didn't mention on my first post was that I also have been diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder.  I have been seeing a counselor at Iowa State because it's free to students and a mix between that and the meds they put me on hopefully it will start working soon.

I decided last night that I wanted to make a little autograph book for when Brandon and I go to Disneyland next week.  I'm only doing 12 characters because we are only going to be there for 3 days.  Here is a picture of the the Mickey page that I made.

This picture was taken with my phone so I'm not sure how good it will be on the blog.  I am going to work on the rest of the book this week and will post it when it's all done.

Until next time.

Tori

First Post

This is my first blog post.  I am going to use this blog for my paper crafting addiction and hobby, to vent about school, talk about family, vacations Brandon and I take, my weight loss journey, and the road of infertility that Brandon and I are going down.

Making posts on my blog about all of the above things was suggested to me by my dad's friend Julie (sorry Julie if this embarrasses you).

First order of business is describing myself.  I'm Tori and I'm married to my best friend in the entire world Brandon.  We started dating in November 2002, so we are coming up on being in a relationship for 10 years.  We have had our ups and we have had plenty of downs.  We got engaged in March of 2006 in Disney World during the nightly fireworks in the Magic Kingdom.  Then we got married on December 7, 2007 at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines and had our reception at The Renaissance Savery in Downtown Des Moines.

We then honeymooned in Disney World again in December 2007 for 7 days.  We stayed in a Magic Kingdom view room in the Contemporary Resort.  The weather was perfect and we got to see all of the Christmas decorations.  We bought our first house in May of 2009, and we are still living here now, we would love to get a bigger home, but we may have to wait until I am finished with school.

We have two dogs, Maggie (shih-tzu) and Molly (black lab/border collie mix).  They are our babies.  Maggie is 5.5 years old and Molly just turned 2 in May.

Brandon works two jobs, he works 36 hours per week at a lab in Des Moines making hydrogels for ultrasounds and defibrillators.  His second job he works 20 hours per week at a nursing home pharmacy.  Since he has these two jobs we don't see a whole lot of each other.

I am a full time student at Iowa State University getting my bachelor degree in Accounting.  I will graduate in December of 2013, so only have 4 semesters left including a summer semester next summer.  I enjoy numbers so that is why I chose accounting.

Brandon and I have been trying to start a family for well over a year now with no luck.  I have had my hormone levels tested and my doctors are 99.9% sure that I have PCOS (Polycycstic Ovarian Syndrome), for those that don't know what that is basically it means I don't ovulate and no ovulation equals no eggs to fertilize.  I have an ultrasound scheduled for this coming Monday to 100% confirm that that is what I have.  Once they have diagnosed me then my doctor is going to start me a medication that will help regulate my hormone levels.  Another way to lessen the symptoms of PCOS is to lose weight which is why I have started back at weight watchers.  I have been going for two weeks now and have lost 6.8 pounds total.  That may not seem like a whole lot but I also cannot exercise very well right now because I broke my foot in January in four places and had 3 bones set and my foot is still not healed all the way.  I am having another foot surgery on July 30th to repair the tendon that is causing all the problems.

Brandon and I are heading to Disneyland on July 19th for his birthday and we are both getting really excited.  We have dog sitters all lined up (thank you Reha clan and Aunt Sheryl!)  We are flying Southwest out of Kansas City since Southwest will not be in Des Moines until September 30.  We are staying at a Holiday Inn Resort in Anaheim.  I'm really nervous about eating healthy on vacation because any Disney vacation isn't exactly a healthy place to go on vacation.  We return to Des Moines on July 22, which is Brandon's birthday.

I do not know how often I will post to the blog, but will try and post a couple of times a week.  I am going to post a scrapbooking/paper crafting post tomorrow when I start working in my scrapbook room tomorrow.  For tonight, take care and God's peace.