Just Say No to Drugs

This morning was my follow up visit with Dr. Gloom and Doom. I will say he's not so gloomy and doomy as he was in the hospital, but he's still not overly pleasant, has no sense of humor what so ever and says "so" a lot, in the way that people say "um". Drives me a little bonkers.

Anyway, all my labs looked great so today will be my last day on Prednisone. Yippie!! So hopefully my moon face, giant swollen football neck, and the 10 lbs I've put on will all magically melt away. The magic part, I have a feeling, will involve me getting back into a rigorous gym routine. I've always been goal oriented so to help me get motivated to get off my hump I'm going to aim for running the Mercedes 1/2 Marathon again in February. Right now I can handle about one mile before my right leg goes numb (this could be do to the fact that I need to buy new running shoes). So I have three months to get back up to 13.1 miles. It can be done!

I do have a consult with a Rheumatologist. That appointment hasn't been scheduled yet, but Dr. G&D thought it would be a good idea to rule anything else out. Actually I believe his exact words were "So.... you can go or not, it's like flipping a coin. So...." to which my response was "well you tell me because I have no idea". And so the consult was put in motion.

As much as I enjoyed the nurses at the Hematology/ Oncology Infusion clinic, I'm so happy that I don't have to go every week and get blood drawn any more! Finally it feels like I'm closing that chapter and can cautiously move forward with my life!

Rain Rain Go Away

It's Wednesday and I think it has rained for the past week straight. Minus Sunday which looked beautiful, but I was unable to enjoy because I stayed inside all day studying for my midterm on Monday.

I loved being in school when I was an undergrad. LOVED IT. For some reason when Abby was talking me into getting my MBA at UAB all those happy memories came flooding back. Really focusing on those memories, very few of them actually had to do with going to class and learning. They were more centered around... well lets see: PSU football, sleeping in, monkey boys at the Saloon, all you can eat pasta nights, Teas at Cafe 320, cheeseburger subs from Boots, anything G-man related. My point is, the majority of my fond college memories revolve around eating, drinking, and good friends. Once again, not class. It wasn't even as fun buying school supplies because I only got one notebook and a bag of BIC pens. I am only taking one class, I don't need to overdo it I suppose.

Back to my original point, I was inside on the only non-rainy day we have seen in uncountable days studying for my midterm. I felt prepared. I mean I studied ALL DAY. The test was 20 T/F, three essays, and six short essays. My hand was so tired and I do feel sorry for my professor having to read my awful writing, because I was not trying to make it look pretty, rather get thoughts to paper. I walked out of the room thinking "where do I go to drop a class." I've reassured myself since that I couldn't have done that bad, but need to get in education mode. With everything else that has been going on its been hard to focus on school work. I've thought about abandoning my pursuits of an MBA, but A: that's just not my style and B: everyone I have talked to told me about all the doors that an MBA has opened for them. So I suppose I will continue to suffer through.

Saturday was Race for the Cure. We do it every year.

This year however, it was raining.So Jason decided to sleep in for a cure instead. I would not be dissuaded and since I was going to walk for a cause in the rain, so were the dogs! I dressed them up in their pink gear, Bettis in a pink and white scarf and Maggie in her tutu, and off we went. They were a hit! Everyone that passed asked if they could take their picture. I was fine with it, Bettis was not. He's not a fan of the camera. He did figure out if he stayed close enough to the woman next to us with an umbrella he didn't get as wet, thankfully she didn't mind him leaning on her. I met my friend Susie, her sister in law and mother in law and we walked all 3.1 miles through downtown Birmingham in the rain.

This Friday is my follow up visit with Hematology. All my counts have been great thus far and I'm down to 10mg of prednisone a day, which is SO NICE, compared to the 100mg. I'm hoping that this Friday they will tell me I can stop taking the steroids, which in turn will hopefully make my face and neck not so puffy. I'll also find out what this whole thing means for me in the long term. Hopefully they will say I need to watch out for the same obscure symptoms and come in quarterly for check ups. Other then that have a nice life! Lets hope that's what they say.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I keep wondering when life is going to slow down, but it doesn't seem like it is ever going to. We spent this weekend in Middletown, MD for Rae and Justin's wedding. It was beautiful. Perfect day in Middletown Valley followed by a great reception. I've never been in a wedding before, and even though I was not the one getting married, there was a lot of pressure!! Rae looked stunning in her dress, and I thankfully had mine let out enough and will the help of Spanx, my dress looked very nice also. My parents and Jason came to the wedding and I met them at the reception.

After our plane was delayed in Baltimore we flew into a rain storm coming into Birmingham, getting in an hour and a half later than previous scheduled. Monday I had class, but didn't make it there until 6pm because we were preparing for a meeting with the university the next day. These meetings are always so stressful because our RVP comes in and you just don't know what is going into the report we will be presenting or what will come up in the meeting. This time however, it was almost enjoyable. I attribute this to the fact that we are doing well sales and customer service wise, and we have a new RVP who is much more laid back.

Right now I'm in the Hematology / Oncology lab at Kirklin clinic. This is my second to last lab and I'm down to 20 mg of prednisone a day. Huge steps! I decided since I hopefully only have a week and a half left on steroids, I will no longer be able to blame my increased weight on the dreadful drugs and really need to get back into a work out routine. I went to the REC pool yesterday and did laps for 30 minutes. While I was very tired afterwards, it was not overwhelming. That in its self was encouraging. This morning I got up and took the dogs on a short walk / run, it was really wet out and was starting to drizzle again, so I didn't want to go too far.

This weekend is the Birmingham Race For the Cure. Jason and I will be walking, as will Maggie and Bettis. They are all about breast cancer awareness. It's a 5K, so 3.1 miles, I don't think I will have any problems, but figure the worst thing that happens is I get tired and have to sit down for a bit or stop walking and go back.

At some point this week I also need to study for my midterm this coming Monday. Still not sure how I feel about this whole going back to school business. So on that note, I will spend the rest of my time waiting for lab results studying and re-reading chapters I only skimmed before.

Wrestling with What Ifs

I'm one of those people that has post event conversations in my head replaying everything that was said and done thinking, "well had a I said this..." or "if I did this instead of this..." Of course there is no way to go backwards in time (that we know of at least or the government is sharing) and we can't change what ifs.

For the past six weeks I have been wrestling with the what if of if my Monday would have gone differently. I normally went running on Monday mornings with my neighbor Abby. What could have happened had we done our normal run? What if I would have have waited until Wednesday to go into the doctors office when my doctor had his next available appointment? What if I would have gone to work, put in my eight hours and then gone to kickboxing at the REC like I did every Monday?

I have no answers to the what ifs in any of these situations. I'm glad that I listened to my mother, did not go running, went to the doctor on Monday and was unable to go to kickboxing, because all the answers to my what ifs seem very grim. I'm glad to be alive and almost back to normal, so I won't focus on the what ifs, but rather on the what can I do nows.