ENT Visit *UPDATE at the end*

So....I went to the ENT on Monday.  He is going to send me to a sleep center at a local hospital for a full sleep study.  That was the not-so-surprising part of the consultation.  The surprising part was when the nurse practitioner, who did my work-up before I met with the doctor, was palpating my neck area and asked, "Now Alice, when is the last time you had an ultrasound of your thyroid?"  I told her I've never had one done.  She proceeded to ask me a lot of questions about my hypothyroid condition.  Then she told me that I have a "nodule" in my thyroid......yup, a "nodule."  Nice medical-terminology for lump or cyst.  She had the doctor come in and feel it also. He found it right away.  He explained that 95% of thyroid nodules are benign and just need to be watched, while 5% are malignant.  My next step will be to have an ultrasound with a fine needle aspiration (biopsy.)  I love how in the medical community everything has a nice, neat euphemism or acronym:  nodule, FNA.....it enables us to speak about serious things without saying scary things like "lump" or "biopsy."    They also talked to me about the possibility of my thyroid problems actually being Hashimoto's disease, which would explain a lot about why I'm having such a hard time getting my thyroid medicine regulated.

Here is a link to the Google Health page on thyroid nodules.  You'll notice that they say "lump" right away. They also have a link to Hashimoto's if you scroll down the page.

I'm so glad that I know Who is in control of all of this, and that He is the same "Who" who loves me and gave Himself for me, to ransom and redeem me, and who works in me to conform me to His image.  He has taught me to rest in Him and have peace.

UPDATE:  My biopsy is scheduled for next Wednesday 10 a.m.

The Verdict on the Sleep Study is in....

.....and what a surprise!  I have sleep apnea!  It's a relief to get an actual diagnosis.  The next step is to go to a specialist on Monday, March 29th to discuss where to go from here.  Is there a good night's sleep in my near future?  I'm praying so.

The Fountains are Green Again in Savannah

You can see pictures and read about it here.  This, of course, is because Wednesday is St. Patrick's day, which is HUGE here.  What saddens me is how many people will pour into Savannah to booze it up and party, not knowing what Patrick really believed.  And here from National Geographic, nonetheless, is an excellent article from last year about who Patrick really was and what he believed.  No snakes.  No wearing "kelly green" (Patrick wasn't even Irish!) and no public drunkenness.  As for the real Patrick--I am currently reading a good book to Mary and Bobby about him.  It's entitled Flame Over Tara by Madeleine Polland.  We highly recommend it.

What a difference a tuning makes....

Yesterday we had our piano tuned.  YAY!  It had gotten to the point where I didn't want to sit down and play anything because it had gotten so out of tune.  One key in particular, the F just below middle C, sounded flatter than a board-book, and in the lower register there was a whole octave that wasn't playing right--all the keys were moving downward when you pressed just one.  But when the piano tuner was done yesterday, it sounded like a wholly different instrument, and playing was once again pleasurable.  Now, it took about two hours of painstaking work for the tuner to bring the piano back into tune.  It isn't an easy thing to do.  I watched and listened as he carefully tested each note, comparing it to the electronic tuner he had, twisting the pin to tighten the string or loosen it until the key played the note perfectly.  If even one note is off, an entire song can be ruined.  So he tested them, tuned them, and played them individually and then together to make sure the sound was right.  He fixed the F that was out of tune.  He found a pencil that had rolled into the piano in the bass section and, voila, those keys began playing correctly again.

So....this morning I'm ruminating on the piano tuning, and thinking that God does a lot of similar things in our lives as Christians.  He sometimes twists and turns us, tightening things in our lives to bring us in tune with Him.  He shows us "pencils in the works," things that have rolled into our lives (or we've invited in) that are keeping us from functioning correctly.  He removes those things from our lives when we ask Him to, and carefully aligns us with Him.  What a loving and gracious God!