Phototherapy Report

Thank you all for your very interesting comments and e-mails about my recent thyroid/migraine/sleepiness trifecta. It certainly has given me a lot to think about. I know that I snore (in a very cute and ladylike manner, of course) because BJ has complained about it mentioned it all the time once or twice. Dad (thanks again for the light box, Dad!) has sleep apnea and a CPAP machine and the whole bit, so if it's at all hereditary (maybe we have floppy uvulas or something in the family) I guess it's a possibility.

In other uvula news, Aunt Kathryn gave MG and C a bag of old books, one of which was The Human Body which has all kinds of skinless pictures of people (showing organs, showing bones, showing circulatory system, showing all of the above, etc.) and she is absolutely fascinated with the picture that shows the mouth (teeth, tongue, tonsils, uvula). She looks at it while she eats. Kids are weird. But it's definitely progress on my long-term health insurance plan, which is to have one of the kids become a doctor, so thanks again, Kathryn!!

I went to the tanning salon yesterday. I put on sunscreen and avoided the beds with "bronzer" (whatever that is). As I told them, "I don't want to be tan, I just need a shot of sunshine." They put me in the massaging bed, which is exactly like the put-a-quarter-in-and-it-vibrates bed that's always in a cheap hotel in movies (do these even exist outside of the tanning salon world?). Afterwards, they asked me how it was, and I said, "It was exactly like lying on the beach... during an earthquake."

I'm a bit splotchy today. I guess I didn't put the lotion on correctly. I was kind of in a hurry because I wasn't sure how long I was supposed to take. I mean, it's 10 minutes in the bed (5 on front, 5 on back, jiggling with the "massager" the whole time), but would they think I was taking too long to get undressed and dressed, or not long enough? These are the things I overthink. I always end up racing to get undressed before the doctor comes in (when I'm at the kind of doctor's appointment where your clothes are off) and then sitting there freezing forever because they're giving me a normal-person amount of time to get into the paper gown.

I also worried a lot about the flipping over part. I was afraid I'd touch the top of the bed and burn myself. I tried to look to see how much room I had, but the stupid goggles really affect your depth perception, so I took them off and probably fried my retinas. I decided to just risk it and turn over as carefully as I could without opening the clamshell-type lid on the coffin-like tanning bed/massager/vibrating bed thingie, and I didn't burn myself. It made it hard to relax, though, counting down the seconds and trying to figure out what to do.

I guess if they'd wanted it to be relaxing, they wouldn't have been piping in really loud rap music the whole time.

Anyway, Phototherapy Experiment #1 - complete. Results: I fell asleep with Claire at about 9:30 pm, again, last night.

You buy "phototherapy" in 30 minute increments, and since I only used 10, I have time left. I'll head back tomorrow, and probably Tuesday. We'll see if I'm any perkier.

I probably do need to re-address this with the doctor. Especially if all these things (thyroid, migraines, depression, tiredness, etc.) can be/probably are related.