School & Time for a switch

I started school yesterday night. I'm taking Human Reproduction monday nights 6 to 9p. Then Tues/Thurs I have a journalism class and geography with a lab from 8am-12:35pm so it's not to bad but still more then i've been used to. I just want to get my AA in the spring i'm almost there!

First night of school went well, I find myself doing better with night classes compared to early morning. This morning was tough, I have been having sleeping problems the past few weeks so that doesn't help. I was really tired going there today, and my arms are KILLING me today! :( seriously no fun at all. My feet are sore as well. I have an appt with the disabled student center to go over accommodations and stuff this friday at 11:30am. (god was i happy to have my disabled parking permit at school, i would have had to park super far otherwise! thinking about walking that far to get to class with sore feet makes me cringe) I have to work tonight 5:30-10pm I was able to get out of class early today so I came home checked the mail to mail in my time sheet for EDD and ate food then fell right asleep. So i'm awake now and I feel like i'm charged enough so actually go to work i was thinking about calling off but i think i'll be okay now. Except for the soreness, i'll just have to put some icy hot on it and hope that helps. I've been taking my meds so i don't know whats going on. Which leads me to my next topic.

I'm highly thinking about switching from Enbrel to Humira. I honestly don't feel like it's working as good as It used to. I filled out the patient support thing for Humira today so hopefully that will go through and my next appt with the Rheumy is at the end of sept (suppposed to be but I can't even make an appt yet still waiting for insurance to approve another one) so by then i'm going to ask for a switch.

Shoes!

So my feet have been my main problem lately in terms of pain. I hate hate hate it! Especially when I get up after sleeping and they are still sore! I am on the hunt for a good pair of shoes that will help my feet out. So my question to you readers with RA, what brand of shoes do you wear? Or even insoles ? Thanks!

Blog Award

Presented by: Medical Assistant Schools

The list can be found of the top 40 can be found here

Thought this was pretty cool when i received the email today :) I'm glad some people find my rants about RA useful.

Pills. Pills, ...Pills!

It's offical i'm now a walking drug store! I left out the Enbrel in the photographs, don't forget that!

I went and saw my rheumy today. My white blood count still isn't where it should be but we are going to hold off on seeing a hematologist for now and just monitor me which reminds me I forgot to get a standing order for bloodwork crap... i'll have to call them on monday. So he wants me to throw away diclofenac & darvecet & now has me on two new ones, Meloxicam 15mg (1 a day) & Tramadol 50mg (3x a day as needed) let's hope this brings some relief my feet have been killing me constantly. My pill bag is offically jammed pack now with bottles. He still has me taking pred 1 time a day for now as well. Blahhhhh. It's depressing I know.

On a better note state disability was processed so i'll be starting this soon so that's good news. Oh & for getting two prescriptions I got 2 $10 giftcards from target so I thought that was pretty good. They seem to have them in the weekly ad every other week now :D So thats pretty cool at least I can get SOME money back. Jeez.

ways to release stress

So I've come across a few different options for me to take my mind off my health problems.

1.) Music, music, music. This has always been at the top of my list, I still to this day don't know what I would do without my Ipod. It's nice to be able to escape for awhile and drown myself in music.

2.) My boyfriend, he is my world <3 I honestly don't know how I ever managed without him in my life and now that I have him, I realize how beautiful life can be and to be cared about by somebody unconditionally just feels amazing. We get along so well, we really are a perfect fit. I've never been treated so well in any of my past relationships. This man is in for the long run and he's always by my side and there for me. I love you baby <3

3.) My Nikon D40. I haven't really been making time for my photography lately I've been consumed with other things but today just reminded me how much I really love to take pictures and capture beautiful things. About a year ago I bought a $500 camera from work cause I got a really good deal on it. & let me tell you it takes the most gorgeous photographs! I went to the Botanical Gardens today and goddess it was so much fun! Here are a few shots that were my favs. I took around 90 photos.
&& this was taken of me by my friend Jamie who went along with me :) & then one of us.


So I had a fantastic time! & we are planning a trip to the Zoo for our next photo adventure before school starts up at the end of this month. :) The only complaint I had was that my right hand/fingers were getting sore from holding the camera which sucked. Other then that it was wonderful to get out into the environment for awhile and escape.

Disabled Parking

I got my "Disabled Person's Parking Placecard" in the mail today! I'm excited for this, as I was reading the paper that came with it on the do's and do not's I found some information that I never even knew about. Such as.... I can park in

blue zones (of course), metered zones without paying!, green zones without restrictions to time limits!!, streets where preferential parking privileges are given to residents and merchants.

So I thought these were some nice perks. At least there are some things that can make RA more manageable but like a friend said, "somehow I don't see this as a fair trade...would rather park FAR AWAY and not have to deal with the pain you do.." which is true, very true.

I'm not really concerned about dirty looks or comment's I might receive, and quiet honestly I do not care what other people think about me, I never have. Karma will come back to them eventually. :)

State Disability & Social Security

Well I applied for both State Disability & Social Security within this last week. I got all of it completed either online or by mail as of yesterday. I still need to do SSI though. I just hope it doesn't take forever to process and i'm expecting to have to re-apply for Soc Sec because it's what i've heard from others. Getting SSI will allow me to get health care coverage so I won't have to worry so much about that if I can get approved before December. So i'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one. The state Disability will allow me to work half of what I currently am & pay me the other half to equal what I'm currently making. I'm excited about this because I won't be as stressed having to work so much and i'm actually taking classes this semester for college. I am set to graduate in the Spring. This semester i'm taking Geography, Human Reproduction & Journalism. Then in the winter i'll knock out a math class or political science class then after that i'll take either or + 1 more math and i'll be done! I won't plan on going back to a school till i'm 24 and can file for financial aid.

I really want to move out of my house, the living situation is horrible. I have way to many family problems and I just don't feel safe being here. I might look to be moving in with a friend for awhile and then moving in with the bf later. I just can't handle it anymore here and under these conditions I know aren't good for my health.

I have work tonight 3pm -10:15pm i'm not really looking forward to it, i kinda just wanna lay around all day but I don't have a choice, & now i finally got my speeding ticket in the mail which is $356, =/ sucks so much. Well I think that covers updates for now!

Results

Well last thursday I was able to start my shot of Enbrel again, and friday I started my methotrexate as well. The rheumy got my blood results back and has crossed out the possibility of the medications causing the low white blood cells! I was so happy because I really was hurting so badly that last week of no meds and didn't go back to work until yesterday. The rheumy said that he believe i MAY be developing lupus but he didn't want to say for sure yet because it's to early to tell. He mentioned something about my Sjogrens being hard to tell apart from the Lupus as far as symptoms go, so I have to get blood done every 4 weeks now instead of every 6 :( he says he will be watching me more closely now and that my white blood cells still aren't what they should be but they got a tiny bit better and he believes it may have been caused by all my infections i had the past month. He just basically didn't seem to sure about anything =/ It was frustrating waiting for him to call me to give me my results, so I smoked some weed that day because I wasn't allowed to take pills and wow did that help relieve the pain for the night and following day! It's not something I like doing unless I really have too cause it makes me feel kinda loopy lol.

My rheumy instructed me to start up pred again 2 pills every morning for five days then 1 pill every day until I see him again on august 13th which also means I need to take the omeprazole again too for now. It's helped a lot but i still feel icky taking steroids and I don't wanna get fat. He mailed me another blood paper so i gotta go 3 days before my appt to get that done again. I hope we can just figure things out so i can get on some sort of schedule and deal with what I have.

ps: im working on social security disability benefits right now, oh my gosh lots of paperwork and i'm also going to be filling for a disabled parking permit.