My deficiency...and a wonderful weekend.

So ya’ll have been reading my blogging about my inability to wake up in the morning for quite some time now. I’ve been blaming this on laziness, lack of sleep, work stress, etc. for months, but I think this week I finally figured out the cause of my morning problems: Vitamin D. I went to the doctor’s on Tuesday for my usual check-up and came out with a lot of updates on my health. I’ve learned I have a heart murmur (not too unusual considering both of my parents have one), but still something that needs to be further checked out. The physician felt small lumps on my thyroid, so I’ll need to get those evaluated, as well. (However, my blood work came back fine for thyroid levels, so it’s likely nothing, but again, still need to get it checked out.) However, what did come back as a bit of a surprise in my blood work were my Vitamin D levels. Apparently the lowest you’re ever supposed to register is 34…but I’m currently at a 19. Oops.

I’ve done a lot of googling over the past few days, and I’ve learned a lot about Vitamin D. For one, insufficient levels can cause extreme fatigue and muscle aches. Ah ha! Also, Vitman D doesn’t generally occur in foods we eat (though eggs and milk are frequently fortified with a little extra Vitamin D). The sunlight provides our body with Vitamin D, but when you work all day in an office and most days don’t even go outside, that’s likely not going to be enough. Plus, in the winter, we’re so covered up that the sun doesn’t hit our skin anyway. Even in the summer, sun screen can interfere with our body’s ability to process the D anyway, so if we’re being smart about our skin, we might not get enough even in the summer.

So, moral of the story is that I have a prescription for highly concentrated Vitamin D on the way, so I’ll be taking that for the next eight weeks and hopefully feeling more energized!

In other news, M came down for the weekend and we had a such a special time together. It was one of those weekends that I felt as though we really made an effort to make each other happy. We did things we both enjoy. We got outside (the weather was absolutely beautiful…sunny and bright and not too cold), we had a delicious dinner, we went dancing and watched movies. It was perfectly special and we enjoyed each other’s company so much. This morning we made our slightly hungover selves a big breakfast of over-easy eggs, everything bagels, hash browns, bacon and pineapple. (The bacon probably wasn’t great for my slightly elevated LDL cholesterol levels that also came back in my blood work, but can’t win them all. The eggs probably weren’t great for it either, now that I think about it.)

Regardless, I’m missing him terribly, but I’ll be back in Pittsburgh for work on Thursday, so it won’t be long until we’re back together. I’ll leave you all with a picture from our Arlington Cemetery trip on Saturday afternoon. Such a peaceful resting place for so many of our nation’s heroes.

To a lovely, lovely weekend,

Lia