Got Milk?

So as you all I'm sure are aware of... Ive been sick with a cold/cough... well, on top of that, last Tuesday morning I got very sick with food poisoning. I think my milk had expired early, and that what made me sick. Thankfully, I haven't thrown up since Tuesday, but I still am sick in other ways. Its not very fun, trust me. But its weird though, because I finished off that bad jug of milk and moved on to my next jug, and am still sick! I think that I'm becoming "lactose intolerant". I haven't gotten much better, these last few days. My parents keep telling me to "wait it out... your body is trying to flush out all of those bad toxins"... but I'm not so sure anymore. Seriously though, If I AM lactose intolerant... I am going to cry! i LOVE dairy! I love ice cream, yogurt, cheese, butter, milk, cottage cheese... i love it ALL! :( I even stayed home from school for 3 days this last week because I was so sick! Today, I had to make an emergency trip to the grocery store for some pepto-bismo, to help me feel better. I found this on a website, and I know that the symptoms DEFINITELY fit what Ive been going through this last week ~If you notice that you have stomach issues whenever you eat foods that contain milk, well then it's probably safe to say that you're lactose intolerant. It can also run in families, so if your parents or siblings have a hard time digesting milk and cheese and such, then there's a good chance that you'll follow in their footsteps.

There are two tests you can take though, just to make sure.

Lactose Intolerance Test: You fast before the test and then drink a liquid that contains lactose. Several blood samples are taken over a two-hour period to measure your blood sugar levels. Normally, when a person eats a dairy product, the lactase enzyme breaks down the lactose into glucose and galactose, which raises the person's blood-sugar levels. If the lactase enzyme isn't there to do its job, then a blood sample would show no rise in the blood-sugar level, and the doctor would then confirm lactose intolerance.

Hydrogen Breath Test: You drink a liquid loaded with lactose, and your breath is analyzed. Normally the breath contains little hydrogen, but when there is undigested lactose in the colon, it's fermented by bacteria, which produces several gases including hydrogen. If your doctor sees raised levels of hydrogen in your breath, then you're lactose intolerant.

So now what? Unfortunately there is no cure for lactose intolerance, but there are two options. You can avoid all foods that contain milk or you can take lactase supplements (Lactaid pills). These allow you to pop a pill with your first bite of dairy, so you can enjoy the foods you love without the horrible symptoms.

Yesterday, my grandma BeaIna's brother Devar called me and invited me over for their Sunday family dinners! I was SO thrilled, because Ive been so homesick lately that I'll take all the family time that I can get! So today, after church... Devar came and picked me up from my apartment and took me back to his house... and i spent most of the day there. I had taken an hour long nap after church before they picked me up... and then took a 2 hour long nap at their house, in the guest bedroom! I think I was tired! :P  It was nice spending time with my 2nd cousins, and their families. I hope to keep going over for dinners so that I can build a relationship with them. Family is so important to me, and the longer I'm away from home, the more I miss those times we'd all gather around the kitchen table and play board games all evening.
I'm SO excited though, because I found a ride home for my semester break! So, ill be going home april 7th, and returning the 14th! Going home will be great, because I miss my family so much, and oregons beautiful green-ness... and my friends of course. It'll be weird, because Charlotte wont be there so I'll be missing her a lot, when I wanna go and do fun things with friends. Char and I would stick together in group activities not only because were best friends, but because were the same age, and a lot of the other people we hung out with are always older than us... I also sense that we can read each others minds and understand if one or the other is uncomfortable, or wants to leave to go elsewhere or just go home. I actually got an email from her last week, saying that she can email her friends, so I'm pretty stoked about that because i don't know how many stamps to put on a letter, and I'm sure it'd take about 2 weeks to even get to Ukraine!
The end of the semester is getting close! finals are the first week of April, and then I'm moving into my new apartment early Saturday morning, and then hitting the road for Oregon, that same day! its going to be pretty crazy, but its gotta be done! There's no way around it, so I guess ill just have to suck it up! This week is also white glove clean checks! So ill start cleaning Monday night/Tuesday afternoon, just to make sure that I do everything required of me, and that its done right. I feel like a lot of people don't do their assigned cleaning jobs, and so things never get cleaned up like they should. the result is to either live in filth... repeatedly ask your room mates to clean up their mess... or to clean it yourself. Ive tried them all... and none have worked. Last week, I registered for my spring classes! I'm pretty excited though, because new semester means, new classes, new teachers, new classmates, new ward, new apartment, and new FRIENDS!!!! i love CHANGE (not the obama kinda change). After some rearranging, this is my spring class schedule:

	Child Development	3.00		Eagar, Kimberly_A.	MWF  11:30AM - 12:30 PM
	Introduction to Family History	2.00		Baggett, Boyd_L.	WF  10:15 - 11:15 AM
	Essentials of Human Nutrition	3.00		Cook, Kathleen	TR  11:30AM - 1:00 PM
	Practical Homemaking	2.00		Blakely, Teresa_Blaser	TR  3:15 - 4:45 PM
	Children’s Clothing	2.00		Miller, Linda	TR  9:45 - 11:15 AM