Could be! The Cimzia seems to be preventing new joint & organ damage. After almost two weeks sick with an upper respiratory infection complicated by COPD, I bounced back 4 days ago and have been powering through errands, garden care and miniature projects. I’m still at 99 lbs., but that’s well up from the 93 lbs. that I dropped to, and my Rheumatologist is quite pleased with everything. He asked if I would be willing to speak at various functions about the importance of persevering, the importance of pushing through pain to remain mobile and maintain dexterity despite RA . I could really, really enjoy this!
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Speaking at various Arthritis Association? Cool!
Friday, August 26th, 2011Happy 4th of July Weekend!
Saturday, July 2nd, 2011This year (after an embarrassing number of years of planning, collecting and creating stock), I am proudly displaying “1776 – Fireworks Stand and Americana Souvenirs”.
I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable holiday:)
My "1776" Fireworks standAmericana Souvenirs
Americana Souvenirs
Osama Bin Laden
Sunday, May 1st, 2011Osama Bin Laden is dead and his body is in the hands of US officials!!!!!!!
They Faxed What To You?!
Friday, April 1st, 20114-01-2011
This could be a funny entry, but I think I have lost my sense of medical humor after many years of erroneously trusting doctors staff to use old-fashioned common sense, basic powers of deduction and/or simple reasoning skills. Yes, I know. Trust me, I know it’s a silly (and sometimes dangerous) assumption; I just continue to expect intelligent file handling and proper sharing of the correct information when my physician refers me to another specialist! To be fair, most of the staff get it right most of the time, but??????
At my last appointment with my RA doc (the follow-up appointment which had originally been scheduled for November 2010 and cancelled/rescheduled so often that it took place March 29, 2011!), the in-house lab did an extensive panel of blood tests. Several hours later, one of the nurses called to explain that some of the results were back – my ALP (Alkaline Phosphatase) was sky-high & Doctor W wanted me to see a Gastroenterologist soon. (Hmmm – same story about 12 months ago.)
I’ve put off contacting the Gastro’s office as I am still fighting a nasty bout of IBS. (Actually, I am betting that is why the lab work came back wonky.) Someone at Dr. W’s office sent my lab results and contact info to the Gastro; his nurse called me today to set up an appointment. A hint of puzzlement in her voice tipped me off – - – -something wasn’t adding up for her. Not sure why, but I asked “What is the date on the lab-work you are referencing?” “Uh, erm, it seems to be July of 2010!” No wonder she was confused!
I immediately called Dr. W’s office, went through the customary dance with the automated phone service and managed to snag a real, live person. (Pressing “0″ sometimes over-rides the system and lets you contact a person instead of a “leave a message, we’ll get back to you” recording.) As briefly as possible, I explained that someone at their office had contacted Dr. G’s office and supplied them with July 2010 lab results instead of the relevant March 2011 lab results! I expected some embarrassment and an apology – what I received was a blithe explanation along the lines of “Oh yes, that happens often. The lab results do not reach a patients file for a couple of days ~ if our staff contacts another physician right after we’ve seen you here, the current results aren’t available to them yet.” OK. . . .so this seems to be common knowledge throughout the practice? With that in mind, it doesn’t occur to the staff to seek out up-to-date lab results before contacting another physician? Groan! Somebody, anybody, please tell me this sort of error doesn’t occur with predictable regularity with this clinic!!! (Except, obviously, it does!)
Physical therapy – that’s a surprise!
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010Before my follow-up appointment with the hand surgeon (today), I fussed and whimpered and fussed some more; the “brave Christy” simply went into hiding, leaving a complete coward in her place!
My last encounter with stitch removal was two years ago, when the male nurse (aka Attila the Hun!) removed all of the surgical wraps on both feet (including the ones which had adhered to the incision) briskly, efficiently and painfully. He then proceeded to SCRUB the incisions with great zeal and particularly rough-textured gauze! I have a witness – I think the marks of my fingernails are probably still dimly visible on Tom’s left hand! The actual stitch removal was done by a very sweet, empathetic nurse, but she still had to dig for stitches within a rather deep V-shaped area on both feet and somewhat overgrown by new skin. . . . every time it hurt too much for me to stay silent and stoic, I felt guilty for making her feel guilty about hurting me! All of this, of course, was on my mind while Tom helped a very reluctant me to get dressed for The Appointment before he left for work.
The mystical, “magical gauze strip with important healing qualities” hadn’t been removed when my neighbor (aka Ace Nurse) or I did my own dressing changes, mostly because it was obviously well adhered to the surgical site by the rather important red fluid that flows through my body! I was fussing because I had mental images of the surgeon (or nurse) calmly ripping the “magic strip” off. In point of fact, it was the nurse who did the deed, and then proceeded to dig around and remove twelve stitches before leaving me to my surgeon’s tender mercy. OK – I survived that, the incisions looked good and I was sent off to physical therapy to be fitted with a ‘figure-eight’ brace and given a sheet of exercises to be done five-times daily. (According to the surgeon, “We had to remove a lot of extraneous bone.”) and released to return to the therapist’s clinic on Nov.10th.
Excuse me? (1) The center of said figure 8 brace rests across all three incisions, with no padding between brace and skin! 2) I can perform the range-of-motion exercises much better without this infernal appliance constantly shifting and 3) ”OK, Chris. . . .give it time. Calm down, do the exercises, breathe deeply & give it time. . . . well, I’m trying, but. . . .!
Off with her head (erm, hand)!
Tuesday, October 26th, 2010O.K., confession time. With the guys off at work all day and ”The Hand” sending out post-surgical messages I cannot repeat in polite (or even semi-polite) society , my “plan” was to escape boredom and pain by napping as much as possible. However, my self-appointed ‘nurse cats’ have decided it would be a good idea (and very helpful, of course) to keep the injured hand warm if I happen to doze off! This ‘good deed’ consists of either Diva or Cassidy draping their considerable weight over the elevated hand , centering themselves over the bandage, and falling into a deep, virtuous sleep!
I’ve started fiddling around with the bandage. Hey! The surgeon did say we could move to a smaller bandage after 3 days! I’ve re-wrapped the Ace bandage several times and in several unorthodox ways , as well as cutting away a few parts of the ‘cotton batting’ which had become rather frayed and disreputable. None of this activity has produced much in the way of comfort or improvement 
The biggest problem is that some subconscious portion of my brain has decided that the main discomfort is a result of having the ring finger firmly bound to the little finger by layers I’ve been way-too- chicken to delve into. (Actually, I had worked my way down to three layers of ‘cotton batting’, all of which are firmly attached to me by post-operative bleeding. Nope – no way am I fooling around with that! By the time Tom arrived home from work, I had latched onto a much better plan; catch my delightful neighbor/Ace Nurse at home, if I could, and have her redo this whole mess, hopefully leaving only the ring finger bandaged!
I’m thrilled to report that the Ace bandage is now banished, best neighbor/nurse freed me from the layers of felt/batting/whatever and released the trapped little finger! There’s a strip of “magical gauze with mystical healing & anti-bacterial properties” (that’s an extremely loose quote from Nurse Kathy) that she left in place directly over the incisions . . . . .I was rather relieved, as said strip seems to be firmly attached to me by the aforementioned bleeding! Still, with a fresh gauze wrap and bright pink cohesive tape wrap, I’m feeling freer and somewhat stylish. LOL!
Giddy!
Friday, October 1st, 2010Woke up at 4:40am (hate it when that happens!) and got up when Tom’s alarm went off at 5:30am. (Hate it when that happens, too! I’m retired, but just cannot make myself sleep through his alarm the way he did mine when I was working.)
The only way I can describe my mood today is giddy; felt appropriately foolish for dancing around the first floor and chortling, but could not help giggling throughout the morning. I left the #*@! purple orchid plant (1/12 scale) overnight so the glues could set completely, inspected it under strong magnification and padded the he– out of it for shipment to its new home this morning. With color choice difficulties, mobility issues and fatigue-factors presenting challenges, this order has taken a very long time to complete, but the buyer knows me well enough (at least I believed so) to bear with the delay. There’s been some “static” about this order since about 60 miunutes after she placed it! She happily bought a white phalaenopsis orchid plant with a yellow throat, deep pink lip and the typical ‘spike’ leaves of the species. . . .then decided an hour later that she wanted a purple orchid (with a color contrast) and the smaller/fatter leaves of other species!! It has been hard to overcome the irritation factor plus physical issues and do a complete re-make for no extra charge!
Once I had delivered the dratted purple orchid to the UPS store, I came home and triumphantly completed a standing needlework frame kit (destinened for my “Sew Be It” shop and a wooden school bus toy (to be added to the FAO Shortz display.)
Can’t help it – I am STILL giddy, and plan to complete at least two more kits tomorrow!