Weekly Mileage #94 and the First Snow of the Year

little bridge and stairs on the trail

This week we started getting back into our routine. I like flexibility, but having a routine makes it easier for me to find times to be functional and get stuff done. I'm figuring out how to work around the low points and to take advantage of the times I actually feel ok.

On Monday preschool and co-op started up again, signaling the start of getting back on schedule. I went for a solo hike after dropping everyone off, and explored some trails we haven't been on yet at the nature preserve.

Wednesday Ocean had his first speech therapy appointment. The therapist thinks he'll make rapid progress now that he's got his tubes in and is hearing so much better. And it turns out that she has narcolepsy too. In fact, this week I also found out that there's someone at church who has narcolepsy. Small world.

Sunshine had to go to the orthodontist to get a new retainer to fit over the teeth that are growing in weird. She still needs to get four more teeth pulled, but we have to pay for the <expensive> anesthesia up front, so that's on hold for a bit. This will be the third time pulling teeth, and I'm really hoping she can finally get braces after this round of teeth pulling.

Thursday I had a followup with my sleep specialist. She's impressed with how functional I am, and even double checked the MSLT (the daytime sleep study) results to confirm that I do indeed have narcolepsy. There's a lot of things I'm doing to be as functional as I am, so it's certainly not without effort. She did give me a script for another type of stimulant, since the first one gave me a migraine, but I'm waiting to fill it. I'm trying something else first, which I started on Saturday. I don't need to go back for awhile unless I decide to take the stimulant and it doesn't work and I need to try something different.

Friday Sunshine got to go to a youth fireside where Elder Christofferson and an area authority seventy spoke. Super cool opportunity for her.

I also started running the tubing for sap collection. Getting the elevation change correct proved as tricky as I thought it'd be. Our house sits at the top of a flattened hill, with the black walnuts down the slope a little on one side and the maples extending down the slope on the other side. Cresting the hill and keeping a negative slope meant I had to climb on a ladder for the walnuts and the tubing is running along the ground at the highest points. Not optimal, but hopefully it'll work.

Saturday I finished running the tubing, drilled the taps, and it should be ready to go. Earlier in the week the sap was running, but right now it's too cold. Setting up ahead of time, means it's ready whenever the sap is running. It started snowing in the afternoon as I was finishing tapping the trees, and it almost felt like I was in New England :) Now if only we had a real sugar bush, instead of 10 trees spread out across almost 2 acres of land....

The new supplement I wanted to try before taking more meds arrived. This one pulls toxins from the body and allows it to work more efficiently. It's primarily used by people with autism, PANDAS, POTS, etc, but some people with narcolepsy have had success with it, so I thought it was worth a try. I'm at a very low dose right now, but can already feel it doing something. Not loving the detox symptoms, but if it eventually helps me sleep better and function more during the day, I'll power through it. Six months is the average time to full results, but I should see results before then.

We received about 5" of snow Saturday into Sunday, and it started snowing again Sunday evening. Schools were canceled Sunday evening and Mr M has a delayed start. Since the snow hasn't melted, we're going to a local park today to go sledding and do some snowshoeing.

Weekly Mileage
Monday- 2.10 mile solo hike
Tuesday- 10.00 miles biked
Thursday- 2.20 miles walked on the treadmill
Friday- 1.52 miles hiked while setting up tubing
Saturday- 1.58 miles hiked while setting up tubing
total- 17.40 miles

3 hikes towards #52hikechallenge
0 kayak miles towards #365milechallenge

7.40 foot miles towards #365milechallenge
10.0 bike miles towards #365milechallenge
17.40 miles total