I went up to the dr yesterday, and got my FMLA papers signed.<\/p>\n
The other goal was to get some drugs to help with the dysesthesia attacks, as well as show him all of my lesions and bleeding sores, and other gross things.\u00c2\u00a0 I mentioned my dermatologist gave me something for my lesions which had helped a little bit, and another which didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 He immediately asked “were they steriods” and i said I didn’t know, and he kind of got interogative with me, asking again “well, you should know if they were steriods.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I immediately went into a full blown dysesthesia attack.\u00c2\u00a0 its that confrontation, that conflict, that interogation, that possibility that I (the expert) might have made the slightest mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 In a healthier state, I could have had it roll off my back.\u00c2\u00a0 But not now.\u00c2\u00a0 The slightest confrontation over something as simple as a scheduling confusion sends me into dysesthesia land.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why it is close to impossible for me to teach on the IFN.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried a little bit at the studio, and I just end up clutching my side shivering in a fetal position.<\/p>\n
So in a sense it was perfect timing.\u00c2\u00a0 He actually got to see it happen.\u00c2\u00a0 And see that it was real.\u00c2\u00a0 (Maybe my subconscious produced it for him…)\u00c2\u00a0 He immediately went into support mode, telling me I was doing well, and that if I wanted I could take a week or two break.\u00c2\u00a0 But I dont want to take a break.\u00c2\u00a0 It just will delay the overall end point.\u00c2\u00a0 I only want to take a break if I’m too sick to take the drugs.\u00c2\u00a0 RIght now my WBC is at 2.5, and holding steady there.\u00c2\u00a0 It dipped to 1.8 after Banff, but has been steady at 2.5 otherwise.\u00c2\u00a0 3.5 is the low range of “normal” so I am still immunosurpressed, but I’m hanging in there.<\/p>\n
If the goal was to get drugs, that was a success.\u00c2\u00a0 He gave me a prescription for Atarax<\/a> which is an antihistamine.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that I look closer, it is just a higher potency of the over the counter drug I was already taking (Zyrtec). And it is ‘sedating’ so i’ll be more stoned and sleepy.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m supposed to give that two weeks, and if that doesn’t take care of the dysesthesia, I start taking Neurontin<\/a> which is actually an epilepsy drug, which is now widely used to deal with neurological pain.\u00c2\u00a0 Frankly, the closest thing I can describe my attacks as, are seizures: I am not totally out of control of my body, but I loose a lot of control to the pain, I go fetal, and afterwards I am disoriented and kind of stoned.<\/p>\n The other thing that happened (in the midst of my attack, me trying to breathe and do meditation on the paper on the exam table, while my doctor keeps saying “you’re doing great”) is that I got my FMLA papers signed.\u00c2\u00a0 My “doctor’s note” so to speak.<\/p>\n We calculated out my treatment schedule, and if I take *no* breaks in treatment I will be done the last week of July 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 But considering I’ve had to take 4 weeks of breaks in the first 17 weeks of self injection, it is unlikely I will make it through the remaining 31 weeks of self-injection without having to take a break.\u00c2\u00a0 So realistically, we’re talking an end of August beginning of September final injection.\u00c2\u00a0 As the drug takes some time to work its way out of my system, my Dr has designated a 1 month recovery period, so he has me coming back to work after September.\u00c2\u00a0 E.G. October 1st.\u00c2\u00a0 I will more or less miss the first 5 weeks of the semester.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m working out the details of what that means.\u00c2\u00a0 sitting w\/ my dr and counting out when I would be done forced all of this.\u00c2\u00a0 frankly i was very much in denial of the end date.\u00c2\u00a0 it seems so far away, i felt better not thinking about it.\u00c2\u00a0 but because it runs up against the fall semester, it is important to address<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I went up to the dr yesterday, and got my FMLA papers signed. The other goal was to get some drugs to help with the dysesthesia attacks, as well as show him all of my lesions and bleeding sores, and other gross things.\u00c2\u00a0 I mentioned my dermatologist gave me something for my lesions which had … Continue reading More Drugs Please<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[59,52,54,11,14],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-update","tag-dysesthesia","tag-endurance","tag-immunosuppressed","tag-interferon","tag-sick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melanarrative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}