UP Dating in Thirty-Five

Whats going on my PB family. Hope you’re all enjoying your Thursday afternoon? Tucson is back under a mandatory mask in public order. We’ve had 2500 new cases in the last two days. So, just like stay home if you can and if not, wear a mask ok?

Anywho, so we really haven’t been doing much here either. Our kitchen is a mess because our garbage disposal decided to die. It was old and it cracked somehow. I accidentally washed eggshells down the sink trying to get rid of a bunch of ants (another disaster) and I think I definitely fucked it up.

So we got a new one the other day when we went out and did all our shopping. We had to wait a week or so because Randy lost his wallet for the 4392857395873th time (when it was on his night stand, blended in with his nightstand and he’s colorblind lol). So we had to wait for the new SNAP card to get here.

Got almost $500 in groceries. FUCKING AYE! Thankfully we won’t have to go anywhere for a while. I had my last appointment until July on Wednesday. Randy has one in a couple weeks but i’ll send him by himself. He needs to find a new primary doc though. his current one is a good person, but she’s just ignoring his needs. He keeps bringing up his wrist being in pain and she puts it off.

So there’s that. He submitted for his MMJ card as well and got approved so we will have that in a week or so as well! Sooooooooo much needed. I’m going to wait a little bit to see about getting mine. Depending on what happens with all this stuff and whatnot.

I got my botox on the 6th. My appointment was scheduled for the 13th but they moved it up. But then my appointment in September got moved to October. And December to January. So i’m hoping that I’ll have a longer period of relief this time around (lost effectiveness around 2 weeks before my next shot was scheduled and I got it a week later). So hopefully those extra 3 weeks won’t be too bad.

The biggest thing, that a lot of you have seen already on FB, is that my current regimen of medications for my RA seems to finally be working. People may not realize it, but I do have a goal to return to work eventually. I just can’t physically and mentally handle it at the moment. I haven’t been able to for about 10 years, but I’ve only not worked for the last 7.

When i first started seeing my current rheumy, I was diagnosed with Seronegative Rheumatoid Disease. That just means my Rheumatoid Factor was not present, so they read the C-Reactive Protein (CRP) as a value of how much inflammation is in the blood, as that is in the blood, which goes through the liver and that’s where that protein exists to filter stuff out. High numbers indicate high inflammation. Normal range is 0-5 for CRP and ESR is 0-20.

My CRP/ESR was 78.8/68 when I started seeing Dr. P in June of 2017. It roller coastered up and down the entire time, only coming down to the 20s during and shortly after my very limited pregnancy and miscarriage. After that it skyrocketed back up to the 60s and stayed there through 3 med changes.

In October of Last year, after having some results with xeljanz, but not enough to continue taking it, i was switched to Actemra infusions. Self administered injections are an option but he wanted to make sure it was getting completely into my system, most likely because of my weight, etc.

So I had my first infusion in December, haven’t had any side effects. My next infusion was in January and I saw the dr a week later. From october to january, after 2 doses of Actemra, and continued use of Azathioprine and Hydroxychloroquine, my CRP/ESR went from 30.5/30 to 0.4/5.

In April it was <1.0 and no ESR.

This is the first time something so dramatic has happened, since my A1C dropped from 12 to 4 in 3 months. That happened in 2014. Since then that has all been good too.

It’s just crazy to me how quickly something can turn a switch off. I’ve noticed the lessening of the swelling in my hands and ankles especially. I just got the custom orthotics yesterday, and hopefully i’ll be able re realign myself finally. I feel like I’ve been suffering for a very long time and I just need a little bit of relief. Even if that means I return to work. I’m only 35 for fucks sake!

I think, though, once I get as healthy as I possibly can with these diseases, we will try to have a baby through a more aggressive approach, than just “trying”. But we’ll see where we are at by then.

My brother is 42 today. so happy birthday to him lol.

We may have some baby rattos on the way. We put Winston and Eleanor together for a couple nights last week. We’ll know middle of next week most likely if she has started to get bigger. I’ve been weighing her every couple days, but she’s been holding steady but it’s still too early lol.

I hope she is preggo. We have been looking around at breeders and stuff to add to our troop. But with all this COVID stuff we were just like meh, and Ellie and Winston are our two best candidates for it, so we should get an interesting assortment. Winston has some silver or blue on his undercoat, otherwise he’s Fawn and Ellie is white with a black mask and a few random black spots. We’ll most likely get brown, fawn and some black masked ones. Their fur is going to be interesting. Ellie is a double rex, more like double velveteen, because she’s super soft compared to Parsley who is a true double rex. Winston’s hair is long and soft.

Ahhh we’ll see. I’m going to weigh her again in a while.

I suppose that is all for now. Hope you are all having a good day and I shall talk to you all later.