Arthritis Mom

We returned from our vacation on Sunday. We had a long exhausting drive home with unhappy, stuffy nosed babies. There was not much time to recuperate - on Monday the boys went to their mom's house, my husband had to go out of town for work and I had two appointments to which I unfortunately had to drag the twins and my 8 year old daughter. It was a really long day for all of us but we plodded through and it wasn't nearly as bad as I imagined it was going to be.

I woke up today with nothing left, no energy, no motivation to do anything. Sadly, we all had to go to my rheumatologist appointment. We needed to leave the house by 10:00am so of course by 10:05am we were headed to the car.

Just because we were running late I was hit with a bonus dirty diaper on the way to the car. I changed it and we were on our way. Just because we were running late, I had forgotten that I was almost out of gas. We stopped for gas. Just because we were running late the gas station was having technical difficulties and could not take credit cards. Just because we were running late I threw a $10 bill at the gas station attended and quickly pumped my 2.5 gallons of gas. And finally just because we were running late the highway was under construction.

I hate being late for doctors appointments. I feel like a loser when I'm late, and sadly, I am often late. I walked into the office and they looked at me a little funny - wondering how I got my double stroller up the stairs. I didn't. I rode the elevator as usual. Apparently the elevator had been out of service and the last two arriving patients had to climb four flights of stairs. So thank goodness for poopy diapers, running out of gas and road construction! They collectively saved the day!

We spent a while in the waiting room and the twins entertained everyone. One fellow patient commented that I looked too young to be there with all the old people (her words) so I told her my story. It's true that when I go to my rheumatology appointments I appear to be the only non-retiree. I know it's common to get RA at a young age like I did so I wonder why that is? A couple of us then discussed the very full waiting room and I shared my opinion: it's better to be sitting in a packed waiting room to see an awesome rheumatologist than to get right in without waiting to see a bad one.

When it was our turn the babies expressed extreme displeasure at being returned to the stroller. I think they wanted everyone to share in their frustration, and we all did. I had a much improved grip strength in my right hand but my left grip scored the worst ever. This qualified me for not one, but two cortisone shots. One in the left wrist and the other in the left middle finger knuckle. I've never had more than one before so I was feeling special (they are incredibly painful but I managed not to whimper and cry in front of my 8 year old). My rheumatologist said the double cortisone injection would hopefully help to avoid increasing my prednisone dosage. I had thought we'd be decreasing the prednisone at this appointment but I had to settle for status quo. We are going to see how I do over the next 10 weeks and we might consider increasing the Humira dosage to weekly if the RA doesn't get under control (which would be great because you know, I love those injections so much).