Back to School Update

Last week wasn't the worst week ever, but it sure felt like it.  

In a recent post, I wrote about my six-week autoimmune flare, caused by a chipped tooth.  I improved immediately after the tooth was repaired.  It's been a roller coaster ride since then.  I had temporary deep fatigue from August 8 to 10.  On the afternoon of August 9 during a meeting, I became so tired that I nearly fell out of my chair. 

This fatigue was caused by the dental x-ray of August 5.  The assistant, who I previously stated had an odd attitude, zapped me without covering my thyroid.  My chart is flagged that my thyroid must be covered when I am x-rayed.  She ignored it.  Right as she hit the button, I realized that my neck was uncovered.  Ugh.  I paid for that, but at least it was only for a few days.

I improved again, but the school year didn't start well.  We have new textbooks, so the entire year will be highly stressful.  A few days after I returned to work, I realized that the summer update to my work computer messed up the Smart Board.  I use the Smart Board for all instruction, so this was a big problem.

I put in a work order.  It was fixed but still screwed up and even harder to use.  This was a disaster, since by this point, the school year had started.  I put in another work order.  They figured it out on the second attempt.  Finally, I was functional on the fourth day of school.  

This made the first full week of school very stressful.

Last week was the second full week of school.  The system for distributing IEPs for special education students has not been working in Oklahoma, and this is a state-level problem, not local.  My school finally managed to get us the information last Monday.  Since I was giving a test on Wednesday, I had to speak to every special education student that I have in class about their accommodations.  

On Tuesday and Wednesday of last week, all of this happened:

• Fire Drill
• spoke to 30 students about accommodations and their needs
  
• Open House (late night Tuesday)
• Lockdown Drill
• Picture Day
• gave a test
  

And to top it off, a neighbor's cat was killed by dogs on Tuesday morning.  I also found out about the death of a very friendly neighborhood cat on Tuesday, likely from poisoning.

Everything I just mentioned caused a hard flare.  I felt awful all week.  I had a three-day weekend for the Labor Day holiday.  It took me from Friday evening until late Sunday evening to get back to feeling okay, so I lost most of my weekend.

I've had a crummy start to the year.

At least my eBay and Etsy sales are greatly diminished as I planned, and I'm doing okay with keeping both stores open in a limited capacity so that I don't lose my search rankings.  I currently have 67 items on eBay.  My active Etsy listings continue to drop as more items deactivate, reaching the end of their four-month run.  I'm down to 154 listings on Etsy.  Around 20 more will deactivate in a few days.

In case you haven't read my posts from the last few years, I usually shut down both stores for the first two months of school due to the autoimmune flare that occurs during the early part of the school year.  I am definitely in an ongoing flare that underlies the hard flares that I'm also experiencing.  Overall, I'm not doing that bad.  I mean... it could be a lot worse.

By the way, the real reason I decided to leave both stores open is because I have some free listings on Etsy due to a glitch.  21 of my Etsy listings have been expired for months and yet are still active listings.  By keeping the listings active, they continue to stay active indefinitely.  

I reasoned that if I was keeping Etsy open, then I would keep eBay open as well, only I deactivated most of my eBay listings.

My reading has been very sporadic.  I'll read a few books, then I get too stressed or have a flare.  When that happens, I go days or weeks without reading.  I've managed to read a few books in the last few weeks, which is surprising considering everything that has happened.  I will publish a few reviews soon.

I always bottom out with my thyroid sometime during September.  That should happen in the next two to three weeks, and then I will steadily improve.  How I feel at any given time is directly tied to what happened two weeks before, due to the pituitary-thyroid feedback loop.  Since last week was particularly awful, I expect that I will bottom out sometime next week. 

Note: I continued to find appalling typos each time I proofread this post before publishing it.  I am making so many mistakes right now.  If some are still in the post, then you know why.