“Where is the way to the dwelling of light,
and where is the place of darkness,
that you may take it to its territory
and that you may discern the paths to its home?”

Job 38:19-20

Boy boy boy, it has been a while hasn’t it?! Apologies for a whole season’s worth of delay between postings. So much has happened! I’ve now twice been to the mountains (because autumn is upon us and it is the best time to visit the NC mountains), went to my first concert since I can remember, did some more pottery (featuring our instructor’s mom’s cute dog one week), we had a work party, the North Carolina State Fair came to town, we enjoyed some of the beautiful colors of God’s creation, and I’ve visited the cats many more times. But the main reason for the delay was…

✨ I have Hashimoto’s Disease ✨

So shortly after my last post in September I had this random day where I felt super tired after work and basically slept for 22 hours straight (I obviously didn’t go to work the next day) only getting up for meals. For whatever reason after that day, I just had this profound fatigue that was accompanied by a collection of non-specific symptoms, like headache, fever (which I guess turned out to be hot flashes), body aches, and what have you. Life more or less stopped, and I couldn’t work more than three days in a row without having to call out sick afterwards, and I just wanted to sleep. All. The. Time. But no matter how much sleep I got, I never really felt much better.

After weeks went by and lab diagnostics came back normal, my anxiety and depression started creeping back. It was really debilitating not just feeling super weak and fatigued all the time with no answers, but also living in this constant fear that I had to plan everything around the risk that at any moment I could just crash and be unable to function. I stopped going to fellowship and church because the drive was too far—the only time I managed to make it to church I lasted about thirty minutes before I had to leave and go sleep in my car and wait for my parents to drive over to pick me up. I ran out of sick leave at work and was worried I would lose my job and health coverage. My parents, church family, and friends were all very supportive during it all which made worlds of difference. I only had the pressures of my own mental worry to deal with, which at times was a lot to deal with on its own. Weeks and weeks of wondering if there would be an answer with no end of the suffering in sight exacerbated by not having a community around me anymore made for a lot of tears at night and anxious dreams.

Originally the workup started with an infectious disease approach, since I was spiking fevers randomly and I work in microbiology. Harking back to my encounter with Brucella, I also had that to rule out. Lots of needle sticks, a bazillion (jk just 3) different specialist visits, and an ultrasound later I went to the endocrinologist on Halloween for a lot of testing and got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Disease in early November. For those who don’t wanna click the link, it’s an autoimmune disease of the thyroid, which is a gland in your neck that produces hormones related to metabolism.

Anyway, here is a photo of the dinosaur receptionist at the endocrinologist’s office (with bonus unicorn on the right).

I have antibodies that cause my immune system to make things difficult for my thyroid to function properly. My thyroid was confirmed to be a big boi on ultrasound (let me know if you ever want to palpate an enlarged thyroid—Jasmine taught me the trick). I started treatment and things are much, much better! I’m back to working normal hours and starting to regain energy for meet ups and making longer drives. Things are not completely back to normal yet, but things are looking up.

Also, I totally called it like a month before the official diagnosis came through.

Anyway. Out of this all I learned a bit more patience and perseverance and that as always, God is faithful and provides in ways I could not even ask for. I wanted an answer right away, but it was withheld for some time and He provided the support of my friends and family in my time of waiting. Had I moved away for work, had I lost my job, had any of these things in my circumstances not been the way they were aligned, I feel like the difficulty of the situation and worry would have been so much greater. My parents kept me fed and physically well and my friends kept me encouraged and company through games, calls, and Scripture reading.

The mountains are calling

These last two months resulted in two (2!) trips to the beautiful NC mountains. Our annual Labor Day retreat was in the mountains at Blowing Rock in September, and our fellowship recently took another day trip mid-November to Hanging Rock for some hiking.

The Labor Day retreat was pretty good. We had a visiting pastor from New York give us a message that challenged us and the way we think about Jesus (who is Jesus to me?). It really uncovered that while there’s a lot I know implicitly about Jesus and who He is, when asked to put it into words I have a lot of difficulty with it. I restarted listening to Tim Mackie’s Exploring My Strange Bible series on Matthew (click below for the first episode’s audio), which does a really good job of breaking down the story of Christ and its implications for who Jesus really is. Especially with Christmas time coming up, I think it’s important to really explore again the gritty details (and I mean, they’re pretty gritty) of Jesus’ coming. I still haven’t finished the series, but I guess this is a good reminder to try again.

We had a rather warm September, so the trees weren’t so colorful yet, but the mountains are wonderful and refreshing even when they’re all green still.

An aside

In other news, during the retreat my Apple Watch’s battery swelled up and popped the screen clean off the watch body. Surprisingly the connector was still intact so despite not being attached the watch face still worked perfectly fine. It just doesn’t stay put and is hanging only by a ribbon.

Apparently it’s some known manufacturing issue with the Series 0, and Apple extended the warranty to 3 years from the purchase date. When I took it into the store, I was 3 years and 3 months from the purchase date so I’d have to pay $80 to replace the battery for a known issue! No thanks. So now I’m back to wearing normal watches. Which I’m actually happy about! There’s a nice ceramic white watch I used to wear ALL the time and my friend Agnes has the same one and now I get to wear it again. It’s classy and fits my tiny wrist better than the huge face of the Apple Watch.

I honestly don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything, after wearing it for a few years then suddenly not. I honestly forgot about it until I started going through my photos to upload for an update. Some people mention that having a smartwatch was life-changing. While it was convenient at times to look at my watch and see notifications or weather or whatever, I honestly think for me it made me a little too connected to my phone. So not having it is a change for the better, I suppose.

The Mountains are Calling 2: The Electric Boogaloo

Eileen (my roommate prior to going to the ship) and Howard came to visit from Atlanta so the fellowship decided to take a day trip to Hanging Rock last week. By now the weather has cooled and the trees are considerably more orange/yellow! It was such a beautiful cool autumn day and we had a great time. I’m still recovering and adapting to treatment so I did the hike then took a nice solid half-hour nap during the lunch then got up in time to scarf down a delicious smoked salmon-brie-fig jam croissandwich by Rachel before we drove back.

There was also this really hilarious moment when someone from a university group came and took our group photo thinking we were part of their massive group of like 50+ people that came to hike. We tried to tell her that we weren’t part of their group but she didn’t seem to quite get the message (we were farther away and it was a bit windy), so she took it and I went to ask her to send it to us so we could have it because we wouldn’t get their email list when they sent out the photos.

It is a really amazing time of year to appreciate the colors of God’s universe and I’m really glad I was recovered enough to make the trip. I was super D-E-D ded after the hike but it was such a good time!

I’ve caught some really incredible sights at work as well.

Much needed relief

I got some ad mail from Spotify saying that Sara Bareilles was coming to Raleigh for a concert and so I bought tickets for other Jasmine and I to go. It was a drizzly rainy night at the amphitheater, but we just bundled up and sat together with her plasticky poncho on our laps and had a great time anyway. I’m not a huge music person, but I was really surprised by how many songs I recognized! If you had asked me what songs I knew of hers before the concert I probably could have only named a couple but it seems like a lot of the older songs I knew were hers but didn’t know who sang them. Whoops hehehe. She’s such a great singer and a lot of her music is wholesome and wonderful when you just need a break from everything.

Even though I was still really sick at the time (this was early October), it was just the kind of thing that got me out of the house with a wonderful friend to pick me up out of my mental spiraling. We left a little early because it was getting late, but the added bonus was that it was an outside event so you could still listen to the music as you walked to your car and drove around the block. I don’t go to concerts often (I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to one) but I’m really glad I went and just had a super great time.

State Fair

Every October, the North Carolina State Fair comes to town, and everyone has a blast basking in a death by fried foods and celebrating the agriculture of our state. There’s all sorts of locally sourced stuff but also the amazing contests where people try to grow the biggest watermelon/pumpkin/squash/zucchini/other produce. They also have a lot of livestock competitions and education which has been more interesting since starting at the vet school and being closer to agriculture life.

I actually went twice. Once with people from work for lunch, and once again with fellowship later that week!

The nice (and not-so-nice) thing about the State Fair is that it’s literally right across the street from work. Which means I can walk to the fair during my lunch break (which is where the Philly cheese steak tater tots below are from), but it is also not-so-nice because we have to battle fair traffic every day that it’s here, which is I think about a week and a half.

There are rides and things, but since getting older I’m less interested in riding something that was assembled in a day and would rather just pig out on fried foods. If I want ride thrills, I’ll go to Carowinds, an amusement park in Charlotte, or Busch Gardens in Virginia. So now the fair is about fellowship and fried foods.

And lots of walking, hahahaha. The fair is also super big. It’s hard to find people inside, as demonstrated by the wild goose chase of finding Rachel when I first arrived.

Okay the rest is for you to enjoy what the State Fair has to offer.

Pot dealer

I took a ceramics class and despite not having any great photos of stuff that I made to share, there is this really cute dog that our instructor Becca brought to class. Please enjoy.

Her name is Maizie and she belongs to Becca’s mom. She was such a good girl and just followed Becca around the studio and was such a wonderful wholesome presence.

Then at the end of the class on the last day, Jasmine and Eileen and I made these little toob vases using the extruder and then got the two instructors involved involuntarily through their impulses to make things absolutely. P E R F E C T.

Anyway, the end result is pretty cute and has a lot of character. We haven’t glazed them yet so whenever that happens.

Work stuff

Here’s some cool happenings from the lab.

We had a potluck! It was like this “mid-year” celebration that was mostly like the halfway point between Lab Week (which happens in April). So we had a potluck which was mostly stuff like chilis and dips but they were all SO GOOOOOD. I guess it’s like those things that people can make and there’s a bazillion different ways to make them all. My favorite one was this jalapeño peach dip. It wasn’t really that spicy but the savory/sweet combination was so good! Denise (who brought it) said she gets the mix from this single store like way out in the eastern side of the state so until the next potluck I probably won’t get to taste it for some time.

Here’s some edumacation

Hopefully this preview below works and you can see the nasty moving worm inside the egg. Whoaaaaaaaa! I’ve never seen a worm actually moving, let alone inside an egg. Gross, but somehow cool at the same time. It’s like a right of passage for parasitology people I guess.

More cats

Just for your viewing pleasure.

The cat room is really the best room.

In closing

I guess this update was kind of all over the place. There’s been a lot that’s happened since my last update and I didn’t really know how to explain it all very well. I’m doing alright. Kind of gone through grieving the loss of my community and accepting that and being okay with not having a really spontaneous aspect to living in a community and being able to pop in and be popped in on. I had a lot of trouble really putting that feeling of loss into words until recently and I think after really pinpointing it, it’s been easier to really come to terms with it and kind of move on from being super mopey about. At first I was just really upset all the time that I didn’t feel like I was really included in any community anymore after years of living in a university setting or close to church family or onboard a ship of hundreds of wonderful people. But now I can just kind of try and focus on making more intentional connections with those I can keep in contact with still and try and and get plugged into the community I do live with. Now that I’m feeling better after starting my levothyroxine treatment I think I can get back into that. This week for American Thanksgiving our family visited “The Big Easy” aka New Orleans, Louisiana aka NOLA. That will be a post on itself.

With love,
Jasmin