Date Night!

Last Friday, my sister was gracious enough to offer to babysit my children while I went on a date. Josh and I have been trying to get to the temple for like three weeks now but our best-laid plans have always been interrupted with surprise responsibilities or repeated illnesses. I briefly entertained the idea of going to the temple but honestly, I just wasn't feeling it. What I wanted was a good, old-fashioned date with the husband, so we did that instead.

After dropping the kids off at my sister's house with a house key to our place (so that in case we got back after their bedtime, my sister could take them home and put them to bed), we went to Jinya, this new ramen bar on State Street. Every time we drove past it, we commented on trying it out but we just never did. It's hard to make long-term date plans for eating out, so we don't often do it.

The food was amazing! We had tempura-battered brussels sprouts and a pork bun as appetizers and they were absolutely delicious. I told Josh that the bun in particular was so satisfying as it went down my throat and settled in my stomach that I described it (in a whisper so as not to sound like a pretentious hipster to the other diners) as umami. He mocked me appropriately for the description but (also in a whisper) agreed. We chose to eat outdoors because it was so beautiful and aside from the ten minutes of smoke we smelled from a woman waiting at a nearby bus stop, it was very pleasant. Josh had a pork ramen and I had a spicy chicken. I added a seasoned egg and loved that part the most. The noodles, the meat, the vegetables, and even the broth was individually tasty, but combined it was heaven! I didn't grow up loving soups much, but soups from various Asian regions knock it out of the park. I thought trying pho was epic, but ramen is just as savory and delicious in a different way.

Josh also teased me for taking a hipster picture of our meal, so I included him in it.

After dinner we went over to a bowling alley and played a game. We were going to see a movie but nothing was out that we were interested in (technically it was opening night for Beauty and the Beast but there was no way Josh was going to go see THAT with me), so we opted for a game instead. I am lousy at bowling. I can't roll the ball properly, I can't aim, I usually throw half my turns into the gutter, but I absolutely love bowling! It's just fun! The lights and the slippery shoes and the satisfying sound of the ball crashing into the pins (on other people's turns because that seriously doesn't happen with me).

Josh had a hard time finding a ball that fit his fingers without being unbelievably heavy, so he ended up playing with a heavier ball than he would have preferred. My ball didn't seem too heavy for me, although my wrist was starting to hurt as the game progressed. Our final scores weren't terribly impressive, although Josh did manage to get almost double my score.

Since Fat Cats is so close to Iceberg, we decided to swing by and get some ice cream on our way home. The wait was really long, as it always is, but the ice cream is pretty good. I usually stick very close to my favorite flavors when I get ice cream because we don't get it often and I don't want to risk getting a gross flavor on one of the rare occasions when I actually do splurge on a treat. The same principle holds for eating out: because we don't do it very often, I'm afraid to get something new because what if it's not as good as my tried-and-true favorites? Sometimes it pays off and I find something new that is delicious but it is a risk, because other times I end up getting something mediocre and who knows how long it'll be before we next go to that particular restaurant?

Anyway, because of this first-world problem of mine, I was a little antsy at Iceberg. This was the third time in my life we've ever been there and I wanted to try an as-yet untasted flavor from their massive list, but I was afraid of branching out and risking a bad experience during such a rare opportunity. Josh sort of persuaded me to try something new, and I'm glad I did. It was yummy! I went out of my comfort zone and got a butterscotch flavor this time. It was a ton of ice cream, and not even halfway eaten before we got to my sister's house to pick up the kids, but very tasty.

Somehow, even after our three-part date with fun conversation and beautiful weather, we still managed to take up only two hours of time. That was like the fastest date of my life. It worked out great, though, because we were able to sit out in my sister's backyard with her and her husband and just talk in the beautiful weather for half an hour while James begged more and more bites of ice cream off of me. Eventually my brother-in-law saved me and ran the ice cream into the house and on a kitchen counter so James would stop begging. He went inside and we didn't hear from him until it got a little later and we decided to take our kids home.

James had managed to use his incredible balance and his tippy toes to reach up to the kitchen counter, pull down the cup withOUT spilling, and to bring it to the ground, where he was calmly feeding himself spoonfuls of ice cream. I have no idea how long he'd been doing that, but not a drop of ice cream was to be found on his clothes, the floor, or the counter. That was really impressive. The stinker!

We put the kids to bed and enjoyed half of a movie together until we both fell asleep on the couch. Such is the exciting lifestyle of the not-so-young couple with children! It was a great date and a great night.

Theresa the Thyroid Welcomes Lucy the Lump

I had my regular doctor check-up a week ago today. During the exam, my doctor felt a weird lump on my thyroid. I didn't know what a thyroid was, but research a little later on informed me it looked a little something like this:

It's this adorable, butterfly-shaped gland on top of your neck (I think it looks more like a dapper bowtie but I read a lot of websites that kept calling it butterfly-shaped, so we'll go with that). It's really important for regulating hormones and secreting thyroid hormones that affect your metabolism and a bunch of other really important stuff. When you're not producing enough hormones or in the right variation, all kinds of symptoms show up in your body, from wacky to scary. 

I have no symptoms so I had no idea my thyroid (a previously unknown little piece of my anatomy) was acting out of sorts. And it's still not known if that's the case. My doctor said I needed to get an ultrasound to see what the lump was so he gave me a referral and took some blood for testing and sent me on my merry way. 

I called the ultrasound place (same place that first told me Scarlet was a girl!) and they had an opening the very next morning, so I jumped at the opportunity. I dropped my kids off at my sister's in the morning and had some uncomfortable ultrasounds taken of my neck (they kept pressing into my throat, making me fight to resist pushing the machine off of me in a fit of claustrophobic rage). The images were sent to a radiologist and the information faxed back to my doctor, who then sent them on to an ENT and set me up an appointment a week later with the ENT. I liked to think of him as a giant shepherd of the forest, but really he's just a friendly older man named Dr. Hunter.

Dr. Hunter said my thyroid was acting normally (which explains my lack of symptoms) but noted that the lump on my thyroid was actually a lump IN my thyroid, and he wanted me to get a biopsy of it to make sure it was benign material (which it is 88% of the time). He sent me referral information for the lab and I set up an appointment for the next day (today) to have a PA use an ultrasound to guide her scary needle into my neck and shake loose (literally shake the needle up and down until some cells get lodged into the needle and she can extract them--ick) some "mystery lump" cells for the pathologist to examine. 

So I dropped my kids off again today and spent a very tense hour getting my neck prodded by numbing needles and then the cell-extracting needle. I talked to the pathologist and the ultrasound technician and the PA and the weird guy in the back who never introduced himself or his purpose while I was being prepped. The PA mentioned that my lump was solid instead of liquid, so it's not just a cyst that you can leave alone, and the ultrasound technician said that mystery lumps are sometimes reluctant to give up their cells because the thyroid closely safeguards itself since it's so crucial to normal hormone balancing and all. The pathologist said I can expect results of the cell analysis around Monday. 

It took three needle jiggles and three extractions while I tried not to swallow before we were finished. They gave me a bandaid on my neck and let me drive myself home, which seems irresponsible because I was incredibly tense and rigid walking out of there. Sticking a needle repeatedly into my neck may be the scariest thing I've ever had happen to me.

I picked up my kids, had dinner with Josh, and then we went out for frozen custard because I had undergone four different medical appointments in one week and I was a bit frazzled. The custard was delicious, but my neck is quite tender. Moving, swallowing, and speaking are uncomfortable and sometimes painful. A bruise is already starting to peek out from under my bandaid. 

You can almost see it blooming out of the top of the bandaid.

BUT...

But there's a very, very high chance that the mystery lump is nothing but a mystery lump, causing no harm and doing no damage to the rest of me or my thyroid.

But I've named the lump Lucy. Lucy the lump.

But I've also decided my thyroid's name is Theresa.

But my belly is full of unbelievably creamy ice cream with fudge and cherries like a BOSS.

But I'm really relieved and happy and grateful that everything has worked out so smoothly and that there has been so much good news already.

But I am amazed yet again at what the human body does normally to function and how it adapts to changes and evolution.

And I'm anticipating a lot more good news on Monday when the results come back. :)