I wanted to give you guys a little bit of an update on what has been going on with me lately. The good news lately is that I’ve been doing physical therapy for my shoulder, and it’s SO much better. I’ve been getting sound wave and electric stim, and now and doing strengthening exercises. Right now it’s mostly a dull pain, so while I may not be lifting heavy things soon (among other reasons-I’ll explain in a moment), it’s not interfering too much with day to day life.

Moving in to my dorm was a process-we took the first load on Thursday and I got to pick a bed.

Friday I took my bike a few other things, and Saturday night I moved in all the way. I’m going to miss my pets!

Last time I chatted with you all, I mentioned my stomach was flaring up. It got really bad on Wednesday, but I was hoping I was over the hump. Since this has been going on for so many months and I thought it had been mostly gone, I decided to make an appointment with a specialist, and we were lucky and were able to get an appointment for Friday. After talking to the doctor, I ended up scheduling an endoscopy for Saturday morning to see if we could tell what’s going on/rule things out. I honestly wanted to get it over with ASAP! For those that aren’t familiar, an endoscopy is when you get sedated and the doctor sticks a camera down your throat into your esophagus and stomach. For me, he also took some biopsies. On Friday, I was still feeling off but thought the flare was nearly gone.

One of the things we biopsied was testing for Celiac’s. Since I’ve been mostly avoiding gluten, a false negative is definitely a possibility, although I hadn’t cut out every single thing. That evening I ate a few crackers to try and at least have something in my system. Later that night, I felt terrible. I don’t know if it was the crackers or just another flare up over something else. It was the worst I’ve felt in a very long time-plus, I had to fast for the procedure which I was worried would bother my stomach even more, and couldn’t have any liquids from 6am on. (I woke up at 5:50 to chug water and some apple juice).

For the procedure, I had an IV and was given pain meds and sedation. I was definitely not all the way asleep the whole time, and it was not very comfortable, to say the least. It also left me with a sore throat all the way through my esophagus!

The doctor didn’t find anything abnormal-no ulcers or anything. So at this point, I’m just waiting for the results of the biopsy. The last few days have been rough, and I’ve been feeling bad off and on, and I haven’t been able to eat very much at all. My diet has consisted of Luna bars and crackers, although I was able to eat a real lunch today and am feeling so much better than this morning, which is really good considering I’m teaching my first official spin class on campus tonight!

I’m living in a big house this year, so we have an open kitchen and a chef. I was happy to see a really good salad bar, plus amazing avocado salad!

Yesterday was supposed to be an 11 mile run. I didn’t think that would happen after Saturday’s procedure, so I was shooting for 8 and ended up with 4 before my stomach called it quits. In terms of my race, I’m not worried as long as I’m ok for this weekend’s run! But we shall see.

In happier news, I went to my senior welcome on Sunday afternoon. We got champagne flutes with our class year on them, and it was so great catching up with people, especially those who I haven’t seen in a long time.

Also-my puppy visited me today back at my dorm! I may or may not have forgotten a few things to pack..

That’s for me right now-I hope everyone is doing well!