The body does you bad

Update: They don't know what I have.

They know that I do not have rheumatoid, sjorgens, or lupus. But they also know that I had a high sed. rate which means I have inflammation. This was a bit surprising since I didn't feel like I was having a flare up at the time. I've probably just gotten use to that level of inflammation, which is a sad thought. I also have low Vitamin D, even with all the milk and cheese and whatnot that I eat.

So, I've been placed on plaquenil to treat the inflammation and to hopefully stop the flare ups and therefore stop the damage. It's a drug that causes GI issues and can lead to blindness over an extended period of treatment. I have to go to the opthamologist every 6 months to look for eye changes. It's also a drug used to treat malaria, so I'm all set to go to africa now. I also have to take a super duper vitamin D pill once a week, which can also cause nausea. But it also causes constipation, so maybe it and the ridiculous amount of iron I'm taking every day will stop the diarrhea from the plaquenil. You know, silver lining and all.....

Traitorous body

I know I have been remiss in posting to the blog. I just don't seem to have much that I want to really write about lately. Not sure what that's all about. But here I go on another tangent.

Most of you know that I have struggled with painful attacks every so often that make my joints hurt. This has been going on for probably 10 years or so. I've been tested and scoped in just about every way possible and nobody could find anything wrong with me. Basically, I was told to take some ibuprofen when it hurt, which was okay at the time.

I've been pretty awful about going to the doctor for some time. You get tired of saying the same things over and over and nobody ever finding anything wrong with you. But my attacks have gotten much more severe and I have pain that doesn't go away even when the attack is over. My knees hurt so much that I avoid stairs all together. If I chase a kid, I can hardly walk the next day, I can't push in the clutch without it hurting, and it's hard to get in and out of my seat. So, I finally went back to the doctor. Got yelled at for not taking care of myself and sent back to the Columbus Arthritis Center.

During my visit to the arthritis center, I was stabbed three times to get blood and x-rayed enough to probably exceed my radiation allowance for a year. My knees had been x-rayed the last time I was there, and showed nothing. This time, it showed that I have arthritis in both knees. I've had constant pain in my lower back, so for the first time, my back was x-rayed and it showed a pretty good curve of the spine, scoliosis. Even though scoliosis runs in my family, that was a surprise. I was given some physical therapy exercises to do, told to go to Aquatic Adventures and join the arthritis swim program there and take alleve and tylenol arthritis strength.

I was actually pretty upset by this information. In six years, whatever connective tissue disease I have has permanently damaged my knees. What the hell is it going to be like in another six years? Not to mention, that spinal curve. Can't fix that. The best I can hope for is to live with this level of pain for the rest of my life. It isn't going to get better, but it will probably get worse. I was hoping for something that could be fixed with physical therapy or maybe even a minor surgery. Not this.

I can't tell you the number of people who've tried to point out the silver lining. "You know, they can do wonders with knee replacements now." I just try and smile, I know they mean well, but that isn't really something I'm dying to go through, okay folks?

I go back on Wednesday to see if the blood work reveals anything. I'm not holding out much faith since many of these things can't be found in blood work unless you're having a flair up at the time. Even then, they might not be able to find it. If they can identify it, there's an even smaller chance that it might be one of the ones that they actually have a therapy for.

I am doing better with all of this, adjusting to the idea. Still sucks, but not as depressed about it. But dang, one of those physical therapy exercises hurts! :)

events

Saturday, Mia and I went to the North Market Farmer's Market to get preservative free apple cider so that I can make hard wassail cider for Beth and her sister. Mia had fun looking around, although she had a pretty bad cough. The hard cider is stinking up the basement right now. Then later in the day I scrubbed and sanitized two cases of beer bottles, primed the chocolate stout that was in the secondary and bottled it all. This is a tedious process and not one I particularly enjoy. Hopefully, I can one day convert to a keg system and not have to mess with bottles and waiting 3+ weeks to drink my beer.

Sunday we all went to Young's Jersey Dairy for the pumpkin festival and to meet up with Max's birthmom. The kids had a lot of fun running around and playing in the hay and bouncers. Max even decided that he liked to feed the goats!

Monday night Mia woke up screaming. When I asked her what was wrong she stuck her finger in her ear and announced, "ear. hurt." So, at 9:30 pm Beth ran her to the children's urgent care. Her ear was full of pus and the eardrum bulging painfully. Beth brought Mia home while I tried to find a 24 hour pharmacy. Beth ran back out to the get the medicine and finally made it into bed around 12:45 am. That was a great night!

Wednesday I was out in the field all day and had to leave bright and early in the morning. Met up with Bryan in Lancaster and then drove down to Pomeroy. It was cold and kept misting on us while we drilled through concrete and took a gazillion soil samples. I'm sore today from it all.

Today I went to the CASA annual breakfast. This is a big fundraiser for CASA and they usually ask for some of us to help set up/tear down and to attend the event. We sit at tables and talk about what we do and why we need these folks to donate money. I was there at 6:30 am and I'm strongly advocating for an annual lunch instead of breakfast (too early!). It was interesting that most of the speakers ended up crying at some point. What we do has an impact on all of us and it's hard not to show it.

Tomorrow I get to go attend the manager's meeting in place of my boss who is on vacation. Woo hoo!

Fun

So, I went to a supervised visit between my CASA kids and both of their parents. It started poorly and I should've realized early that maybe I just wanted to turn around and go home.

The National Youth Advocate Program (NYAP) building, where the visits are held, is in a questionable part of town. I never feel particularly threatened there but I do become much more alert while in the area. The building has a weird entrance and I always forget that if I turn down the wrong road, it is technically one way the wrong way for me to enter the parking lot. This time I decided that I would be a good example and go around the block so I could enter the correct way. In doing so, I got stuck behind a car full of folks who stopped to talk to a man and a woman on the street. Of course this led to what I believe was a drug deal. Then everyone turned around and took a look at me, dressed up in office clothes, glowing all white and conspicuous. I just kinda smiled and nodded my head, and put the car in reverse. They must have seen that I was harmless and probably looked nervous, because they all laughed and drove off or returned to their corner.

Things only get worse from here.

The father is at least 6'5" , 270 pounds and a felon fresh out of prison. The caseworker told them something about me and he immediately demanded that I leave. Which of course I didn't. Just to make matters worse, for him, the youngest ran to me and gave me a hug. I had to force him to go visit with his parents and chase him off (gently) every time he came back to me. This did not make dad happy. But he decided that he would ignore me, which I was fine with.

The caseworker was sitting next to me and told me that she hadn't been feeling well. About half an hour into the visit, she took a drink from her gallon jug of water and promptly inhaled it. She started coughing and then ended up vomiting all over the floor, repeatedly. The oldest kid thought this was fabulous and kept yelling, "She's barfing! On the floor!" The caseworker couldn't leave because the visits are supervised. So, I had to go run all over the building begging for someone to come relieve her. Amazingly, none of the other social workers really seemed to care and it took awhile for one of them to eventually come down and relieve her.

At the end of the visit, I found myself outside in the parking lot with everyone and 4 caseworkers. The everyon, including the caseworkers, then vanished and left me alone with the parents. Dad was pretty ticked off at me and was under the impression, thanks to the caseworker, that I was the bitch who took his kids and controlled everything about the case. That was a little nerve wracking, considering he has issues with violence and all. In the end, I kinda got him to understand my roll, although I'm not going to be on his Christmas card list or anything.

That was a very hard 3 hours and I was the amusement for the CASA office the next day. Hey, at least somebody had some fun out of it all.

Wild Things

Today we trekked down to Zanesville and visited The Wilds. This is land that AEP used for mining coal back in the day. A neat piece of history, Big Muskie was the machine that did the mining at this location. It was the biggest earth moving machine ever made. It's a machine that is near and dear to most AEP employees. There are pictures in our corporate office of the bucket holding a whole marching band, with plenty of room to spare. Anyway, when the mine was closed the property was reclaimed with 6 inches of top soil and a lot of envasive plants. It was then donated and became The Wilds.

You can take safari-like tours and get close to rhinos, giraffes, bison, etc. I wasn't horribly impressed, but Max and Wilson liked it a lot. Max announced that he wants to go back. Mia, of course, was not happy that the animals could get so close. She was very annoyed that the rhino was near us and kept yelling no at it and then decided that she wouldn't look at the animals any more and would just take a nap. AEP fed us lunch, which Mia was very excited about. So, all the kids were happy in the end.

When we got back home, I decided to do some yard work. Mainly, taking the lower branches off of three pine trees. These trees take up a huge part of our yard and attack me when I mow. Not to mention they create a cave that draws kids and dogs into it and grows poison ivy. I now have a huge amount of branches to dispose of some way, but have discovered that two of the trees are perfectly spaced to hang a hammock! I'm totally excited about creating an adult space in the yard.

Neat sounds

Beth called me into the kitchen with, "You might want to come see this." Best kid routine ever.

Bunks

Max and Mia got bunk beds last Thursday. Max is very excited about sleeping up high and was even mostly ok with moving into the "babies" room and Wilson moving into his old room. When Mia saw them for the first time she yelled, "Look! Playground!" Notice that each bed has a little storage cubby in the headboard.

There is some rustling around and giggling at each other. But they do pretty good. Max is learning to turn on his light so he can see the ladder in the dark.

Max got a new transformers bed set, which he was almost more excited about than the bed. Tonight I went in to check on him and didn't know where he was. He was laying in the storage cubby. I don't know how he fit, but I did have to break the news to him that he couldn't do that anymore. It was all I could do not to laugh.

Mia has done very well in her big girl bed. She takes her sleep pretty seriously and I thought she would do well. She has a very cute bed set with flowers and bees that Aunt Katy gave her.

We did have one incident the other night. We hear Mia yell, "NO!" and then start hysterically screaming. I was very afraid that she had really hurt herself. Beth went back and asked what had happened and Max said that "The horse might have been too low." Max has a big Black Beauty horse puppet that Mia has HATED from the first time she saw it. Max knows that it makes her have a fit and we are pretty sure that he dangled it over the edge of the bed at her until she saw it. It was all we could do to not bust out laughing. It is such a typical big bratty brother thing to do. I can almost hear him thinking to himself, "Oh, Mia. Look up here." Heh.