Tag: health

weeknotes, 2/25

so… how does it feel to have half a thyroid? not that bad, actually!

the surgery went well: the nodule came out, my parathyroids (the glands that regulate calcium levels in the blood) were preserved and they didn’t touch the nerves that go to the vocal cords, so my voice is still the same. hurray! i stayed in the hospital for a night, and everyone was super friendly and helpful. the hardest part of the surgery was to find a good vein to put an IV line on my hands… several different nurses and doctors tried, giving up after many painful attempts. in the end, i received anesthesia via a mask instead, like they do for the little kids. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

apart from a little pain while swallowing and some discomfort moving the neck (and apart from the scar, which i haven’t even seen yet), i’m mostly back to my normal self. so now we wait to hear back from the pathology results.

in the meantime, because of all this i found out i had a vitamin D deficiency. it’s hard to believe that someone living in algarve could have low vitamin D, but apparently it’s relatively common in southern mediterranean countries. it’s kind of scary because it feels like it is rarely tested, but vitamin D levels impact so many aspects of health — there are even studies linking it to alzheimer. so i’ll be having supplements for a few months, and making an effort to sit in the sun everyday. we’ll see!

weeknotes

weeknotes, 46/24

another week of my body succumbing to viruses and giving me trouble. the flavor of the week: conjunctivitis! first one eye, then the other became scratchy and itchy, and it’s just… ugh. the drops the doctor prescribed seem to be working, though. dear body, can you please behave? ain’t nobody got time for this.

we booked the trains for our christmas trip up north, and also made plans for the new year’s get-together! somehow, it always takes a lot of energy to get these things done. initially, i thought it might be interesting to use the new “green railway pass” that the government launched recently, but the trains in which it applies make the trip longer and cumbersome, with more changes. :(

it rained a lot this week, and the river in tavira was super high. everyone is on high alert because of what happened in spain some weeks ago, but it wasn’t that bad here. i hope all this water means our dams will be a little fuller, and we won’t have as much water troubles next year. fingers crossed!

weeknotes

weeknotes 26/24

we spent week 26 on a houseswap in lisbon, mostly catching up with friends, visiting bookshops and filling our bellies with good food. it was brilliant! we were spoiled for choice, and ended up going out everyday to try some exotic dish, or check out a bookstore, bakery or chocolate shop that we had previously bookmarked.

right now, i think i love our quiet southern corner too much to consider living in a big city again… but these escapades feel like much needed field trips into a different dimension. the people! the metro! the diversity! stuff happening everywhere! whoa! it’s almost too much.

the bookshops were very nice and particularly it’s a book, which has just illustrated books! kids’ books are my soft spot, and it’s amazing to be able to look through the books before buying them (as opposed to getting them online, which is why i have to do back home). needless to say, we brought home quite a few to gift to little niece, when the time comes.

we also saw rodrigo leão’s concert, our initial reason to go to lisbon. it was a soothing show, with voices and tunes that we are so familiar with, songs that we used to have on repeat 20 years ago.

sadly, i got covid at some point… four years after the start of the pandemic, the virus finally got to us. it wasn’t that bad though, just some fever, throat pain and malaise. a lot of napping! we watched the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, and i read half of sally rooney’s normal people from our host’s bookcase… now i need to find the book in the library to read the rest!

weeknotes

weeknotes, 2/24

the week was going well, and then i got sick. pain swallowing, highish fever… i hadn’t had a case of tonsillitis since i was a little kid, but boy does it suck. it threw me to the sofa for a few days, alternating between shivers and sweats. and then i got some antibiotics and things started looking up again. :) the magic of medicine!

amoxicillin is like a wave of nostalgia from childhood, and it amazingly still tastes the same as it did when i was a kid.

apart from that, earlier in the week we finished this succulent-themed lego set that our friends gave us for christmas:

lego has all sorts of fun stuff these days, and these were a really nice challenge. it seems like the theme of the week was “things we hadn’t done since childhood”!

weeknotes

weeknotes, 31/23

– our niece is here! 3kgs of tiny baby LJ, already a champion of the eating-sleeping-pooping triathlon. :) we’ve barely seen her awake, but she seems perfect: healthy, pink and squirmy. looking forward to many cuddles and future adventures with her!

– the pope is also here for a week to celebrate world youth day, and the country seems to be under some collective spell. we’re still up north at the parents, which means TVs stay on at mealtimes… the coverage is constant, overwhelming and a little hallucinatory. going by the street interviews, every passerby seems to have their life changed by the mere sight of the man (it reminds me of this). i start to sound like a grumpy old atheist lady, so i’ll spare you further whininess.

– did you know that the largest trilobites in the world were found in portugal? usually these fossils are just a few centimeters long, but in a shale quarry in arouca, specimens have been found with 70cms! we’re staying nearby at the boy’s parents, so we had a little road trip to see them and to try arouquesa meat (and top up the iron reserves). both recommended!

– the bad news is that the boy is still coughing his lungs out, and his doctor suggested we investigate other causes of the problem, so we’re making time here while we wait for blood test results. it seems farfetched… but if at least we had a clue as to what is causing this prolonged cough, we could at least try to address the root of the issue.