This week, earlier, was my Rheumy appointment. It was not something I was looking forward to. I knew my toes (turns out my ankels too) were still pissed off. I was right. There is something to be said for being wrong.
So…
Turns out that, if you are on something like enbrel or its family of biologics, and you decide to go off of them (even for just three weeks) to be sick or have surgery or something, and then you go back on them, it is pretty much a crap shoot (who in their right mind shoots crap, anyway) whether it will work when you start it back up or not… or if it will work to the same degree it worked before. It isn’t a huge percentage of people who have this as their situation… lucky me, I’m one of them.
Dr Booth, when this happens, usually tries at least one other medicine in the same family to see if it will beat the beastie back into submission. So… I go from one shot of Enbrel a week in the tummy to one shot of Humera in the tummy every other week… if the insurance company approves it… probably after an argument over covering it. If this doesn’t work, it might be the IV version of the family (don’t know which one) for a while to see if that works…. or.. a whole new family.
oh boy
We discussed that maybe someday, if we get back to where we were before my surgery (which, incidentally I would do again anyway, even if I knew then what I know now) maybe we can start to cut back on my methotrexate to try to get some of my hair coming back. We can’t do that until something gets me back to where I was in July. I guess I’m coming to terms with my hair. I can comb it with a baby comb (or a dog flea comb… which I kind of like since they are made well) and now I’m kicking myself for not keeping Squirrel’s baby clips. Right now, my hair would actually probably all fit in one and stay well. Okay okay, it’s the optimist in me looking for the bright side… shoot me.
So… I took my shiny new prescription for methotrexate to the pharmacies… and… you guessed it… It isn’t the end of October yet!!! Or to be more precise, they started shipping something then IMMEDIATELY recalled it. I’m on a mad methotrexate hunt. The one “little” pharmacy in town closes at 6 (except on Saturday… then they close at 1) so I don’t know if they have it or not. If not, I start on Georgetown and see if anywhere there might have it. I think this would irritate me less had the b-witch at the pharmacy I usually can rely on to have it when no one else does told me I needed to go TELL my doctor to put me on pills because SHE can get THOSE… I told her that I had been on the pills and they made me puke and made me so dizzy I couldn’t cope and (OH by the way) also had the MARVELOUS side effect of not doing the job, that’s why the doctor moved me to injections… at which she SNICKERED at me and told me “good luck with getting that”. Yeah, like I wasn’t already on the edge of trying really hard to not cry. Thanks for all your help. THAT CVS won’t have my business again.
As an aside, it looks like Keppra (or at the very least generic keppra) is also in short supply and is backordered and after giving us a three day supply five days ago, our local Walmart pharmacy neglected to let us know they can’t get it. HELLO… freaking idiots.
I keep trying to remember to keep my outlook positive and my sense of humor in full force. It hasn’t been easy to do either one this week, but it is getting better. I turned on my cube’s Christmas lights this morning to cheer myself up (even though only a dozen or so are visible on the INSIDE of the cube, they are right above my computer monitors and i can enjoy them) and I strapped on my jingle bell (squirrel is 30 miles away, there is NO way she can hear them from here… and I’m listening to North Pole Radio… i can do this… I can do this… I can do this…
A Figment Of Fitness 