Day 24

I'm a little late on the next two posts, but it's Christmas-time so I'm sure you'll forgive me (and you're probably busy celebrating with your family yourself anyway!).

So on Christmas Eve day, which is also my day 24, I slept for about 9 hours! However, I did wake up every hour starting at 7 am, so I don't know if it counts as good sleep? My fatigue was about the same as the past week or so. I've been thinking about it for the past few days and I've figured out that there are multiple reasons I might still be very tired:

1. I still don't sleep consistently well or long enough still, and if "sleep debt" really do exist like my sleep specialist believes, I probably will need to sleep well for a few weeks/months before I get all my energy back.
2. I had a thyroid condition when I was young and had to have my thyroid gland removed, so I take replacement hormones. I didn't take them for a few days after the surgery, and then I had to crush them. Since the quantities of actual hormones in the pills are microscopic, I have a feeling I wasn't getting all of it. Some of the powder would inevitably get stuck in the pill crusher and the syringe, so I probably had a much lower dose for a good 2.5 weeks. I just recently started popping them now that I can open my mouth a bit more. Maybe my levels are out of whack and I need to be patient for it to resolve, or go to my GP for a test and an adjustment to my meds.
3. It's possible that I actually need more calories than I'm eating. Maybe all the nutrients I'm getting are being used to heal my bones, so there's not much left to give me energy. I feel like this will be fixed when I can start chewing again and getting enough calories isn't such a struggle.
4. I haven't been able to take my vitamin D and a few years ago I was pretty badly deficient. I think I'll soon be able to open my mouth enough to slip it in. I probably should have tried piercing the little gel cap and see if I can get the liquid into my smoothies, but I was afraid it would taste horrible :P But yeah, a vitamin D deficiency could contribute to my fatigue.

So there are a lot of reasons why I could still be tired, but I feel on the cusp of fixing all of them so I will be patient and try to sleep more often, and take naps more often. The jaw jerks have subsided so I just need to stop being afraid of going to sleep!

Today, I exchanged gifts with my family! Since they live in Canada, we had a webcam session and opened the presents we sent each other by mail a few weeks ago. It was the first time they saw me "live" instead of in photos, and they kept saying how beautiful I looked :D

I got some awesome gifts!

However, they could not understand me haha. It was a bit frustrating. I know part of it was the crappy sound from their laptop, but it was hard to communicate and having to repeat myself constantly was tiring. They also made fun of it at first, and I know they weren't being mean or anything, but it still made me self-conscious. I shouldn't take it personally and I'm not mad at them, but I just ended up not talking much. I smiled a LOT though, it was so much fun to see them and listen to them joke around with each other and enjoy their gifts. After about 2 hours, my jaw muscle were SO tired though, I had to end the call. It wasn't really hurting, just really tight and tired, just like any muscle feel when you do a long set of strength training rep and you just can't do even more more.

One thing I noticed is that my mom kept asking if I really liked a gift I had just unwrapped, and I wonder if it's because my smile looked stiff and she thought I was fake smiling. I'll have to work on loosening it :P Or maybe she's just so used to seeing a LOT of gums when I'm smiling for real, so for her, if she doesn't see as much gum, subconsciously she thinks I'm not that happy.

Tomorrow morning, my husband and I will be opening the presents we're giving each other, and then we're going to a friend's Christmas party. Her mom, sister and brother are in town, but she's inviting some friends as well who don't have a family in the area, which is so nice of her. We're not planning on staying too long though, but I'm glad my husband will have a nice, Christmas dinner instead of just whatever I can cook and blend. I think she's making rib-eye steak, so he's going to be really happy haha.