End of an era

So. Apparently Sidney Sheldon was... a man? Did you know this? I never had a clue. I just assumed it was woman. This realisation has really shaken me up. It's like someone hit 'tilt left' or something.

OK no, maybe not, but I was very surprised!

So, update: apparently I can eat broccoli, cabbage, brassica family plants all I want as long as they are cooked. Phew! However... All kinds of tea have huge amounts of fluoride in them. Red, black, green, not much difference (slightly less in green, which I only make myself drink because it's supposed to be healthy anyway). I've already binned all my fluoride chewing gum and pills.

Some would say I could just up my levothyroxine levels to make up for the fact that I'm suppressing my thyroid with fluoride all day long, but instinctively that feels... wrong. I know tea is supposed to be good for you, flavonoids and antioxidants and what have you, but they also make your teeth very yellow and I'm thinking that my incessant tea-drinking might be a substitute for my desire to eat, and thus maybe I should try to veen myself off of it.

Incidentally, tea also inhibits the body's ability to take up iron, so if I now have to space out tea-drinking so as to not interfere with either medicine it actually gets a tad complicated. In addition, iron is one of the very very few things that interferes with levothyroxine. So I can't drink tea before or after levothyroxine or iron, and I can't take levothyroxine with my iron. Seriously, they recommend six hours in between the medicines, and at least two between tea and either medicine.
I suppose I could make a schedule and figure out when I can drink tea, but as I'm not supposed to take my iron if I've eaten lots of dairy for my meal I never know when I'm going to take it...
Complicated!!

Oh, speaking of that. When I went to the pharmacy to pick up my levothyroxine she had to ask me which of my medications it was I wanted to take out. That felt very odd.

Health is relative

So. Ironically enough I was going to write about how amazing it is that it's Thursday and I'm still at work, healthy (the last two weeks I had a bad cold and stomach flu respectively).

HOWEVER.

Having finally decided to take the flu-shot because I've been sick so much, I consulted my sister whether or not I was in a risk group and could be bumped up the queu. She then alerted me to the fact that I shouldn't take the shot at all, as there's a possibility that taking vaccines when you have Hashimoto's causes multiple sclerosis. The risk of that is pretty small, granted. I researched it and OMG there is so much research. Apparently you are also not supposed to drink tea when you have Hashimoto's because of the high fluoride content. Seriously? I've been taking fluoride supplements religiously since I was a teen because of my bad teeth. I may very well have triggered my hypothyroidism with all these supplements for all I know.

Also, I love tea!! I always have at least seven different kinds in my desk drawer, and at home. A life without tea?? This is a horror that seems almost unimaginable. Granted, maybe still one step up from getting multiple sclerosis... I've taken the flu shot three years running!! Never again until they can prove it's safe.

I should probably stop researching and start working before I drive myself completely manic.

I've just been oblivious to the fact that having a genetic auto-immune desease might mean more for me than having to remember taking a pill every day for the rest of my life.

I'm just really glad I decided to test for the disease at all at my sister's insistance. Some people don't find out until they're past their 50's. Although I guess I'm not sure which is better: spend your life avoiding lots of things because of a thus-far fairly benign disease or finding out when you're 50 that there were a ton of things you could have done to improve your chances for continued general health?

Also, apparently I shouldn't eat cabbage, broccoli or soy products.
Seriously, WTF.

Perv or emo?

For an unknown reason (but I suspect boredom) I just looked up Tokio Hotel on mtv just to check if I actually have heard any of their songs. They're all over the celeb news sources I sometimes divulge in and I have had no idea who they are, just that they were possibly German. It's been bugging me for sometime and making me feel very old.

So I checked wikipedia to see what their biggest hits are so I could just play a few videos and now I've got Monsoon on repeat and it's driving me insane because it's invoking a huge emotional response. Huge!! HUGE.

I hardly ever listen to radio or MTV, where would I have heard the song under emotional circumstances? It must be in a movie or the soundtrack to one of my favourite tv-shows or was once featured in some emotional moment on one of my favourite tv-shows. Alternatively it's a rip-off of some other song by a band whose CD I own. I can't find any sources to confirm any of this though and it's driving me insane.

(I refuse to believe that the response is purely because of the song itself - no matter how well written, for an emotional response this big it would only mean that I was meant to be born in the 90s and that I'm actually an emo. I mean, there are no emo's over 20 right? At least not that didn't become emo's when they were still teens.)

Anyway. On the course of figuring this out I am now googling pics trying to determine if Bill and Tom really are identical twins, and twins are always fascinating and I've never really done any research into the whole emo phenomenon but now I'm fascinated, and possibly a perv, and how can a 19-year old (German!!) with hair like, like, I don't even know, a porcupine possibly be appealing? It's insane! I'm not even into manga!!! I'm not!!

The only reason I can come up with to explain this insanity is that it's Day 4 0f staying at home with the season's first proper cold, and that I don't even have daytime TV to distract me as the TV is not working. Four days with just me and my brain and the occasional movie and lots and lots of snot. And free time. That never ends. EVER.

I can honestly say that I've never before longed to go back to work quite this much. Monday and Health (physical as well as mental), please arrive soon.

Celeb spotting on the clock

Copenhagen is all the rage this week, what with the IOC voting for the 2016 olympics coming up. Today I saw Michelle Obama's head through a car window (I would have seen her outfit if this huge van hadn't parked in front of us - I didn't manage to push through the crowds fast enough to see her during those few seconds she was visible on the steps). I also saw the Danish queen, and well, Oprah drove past us but I was not at street level so I didn't actually see her (I was on street level for Mrs Obama so I did get a fairly good look). Oh, and the heads of states of Brazil, Denmark, and Japan. But men in suits are very difficult to distinguish from a 100 meters away. So, blaha. Margrethe had it spot on with a very pink suit - it was very easy to tell her apart from the various creti and pleti assistants and commissioners!

Me and my boss stood outside for 45 minutes waiting and the crowd was very cheerful, we chatted with a few people actually (highly unusual in Scandinavia). Freezing, and alternating light rain and sunshine. At least I got my Vitamin D for today!
By far the most exciting castle event so far. The others have only involved the Royal Family themselves. Today they were just an added bonus.

Now there's only the dubious excitement of the train traffic (and motor traffic and airport traffic) being stopped during rush hour tomorrow so President Obama can land his Air Force One securely. So at some point I will be stuck in a tunnel, and a few hundred meters away he will be setting foot on Danish ground.

Yes, I know. I said it was dubious!