Its Christmas!!

Firstly, appologies for such a long delay since my last post once again! 

I mentioned in my last post that I was starting to feel ill with a sore throat and cough, but I was planning to spend the weekend recouperating... Well this has turned into several weeks and I'm still not 100% better! I got really ill and slept for pretty much 3 days straight, I even had to take a day off work which is not like me at all. But I slept for my entire day off, so it was definitely the right decision. Now I am much better, but I still have a cough and I am still going through several boxes of tissues!

Anyway, since it is nearly Christmas, I thought I'd reflect on the past few months with how far I have come since my diagnosis with RA and look forward to the future.

I can honestly say that compared to two months ago, I feel like a completely different person now that I am on methotrexate. I actually feel like me again. I can run up the stairs, I can stay up past 8pm without feeling exhausted, I can even get up and ready in the morning before I have to take my meds. These all sound like small things, but it's the little things that you notice more when they are taken away from you. Like not being able to unscrew a bottle top or wear shoes that have a slight heel.

There is definitely still more improvements to be made, mainly with my index finger which is still swollen. I cant really use my index finger for anything yet, so I struggle to write or do things like squeeze shampoo out of a bottle. But I can straighten my finger now, so I guess it will just be a longer process to get back to normal.

I am down to 7.5mg of steroids now and I am hoping to reduce this to 5mg over the Christmas break.

My hopes for the new year are to get completely off steroids and to get as close to normal as possible. I would really like to get back to my normal weight and fit back into all of my clothes too. But with coming off the steroids and hopefully being able to start exercising more, this should be possible! (Fingers Crossed) I am feeling very positve about the new year. 

One thing that I want to add really quickly,


Wishing everyone a fantastic Christmas and a wonderful 2013!

Checkup clinic, blood tests and DIY

As expected, I haven't had much spare time since getting the keys to my house so once again, apologies for the delay in my latest blog post. Jamie and I have spent every spare minute we have working on our house! We went straight round last Friday and started stripping wallpaper, only to find what was to become our worst enemy lurking underneath... Wood chip! 

For those of you who are lucky enough to not have come across wood chip paper, it's basically a cheap paper with small chips of wood within it which gives the effect of a textured wall finish. Apparently it was really fashionable in the 1970s?! Then add several layers of paint on top and you have the most difficult thing to remove from walls...Ever! Best of all, it is on every single wall!! So we have spent the past week steaming and scraping the stuff off the walls, with the help of our families. We are making progress with only a few walls left to do, but i feel like I have a scraper permanently attached to my hand!

In other news, I had my monthly check up with the Rheumatologist nurse this week. My blood test results showed that I was doing well and my inflammation was coming down, which is great. Its a relief to know that the MTX is working. It also showed that my white blood cell count is still high, so I'm constantly fighting some sort of infection, although it can't be that bad as I haven't felt particularly ill. I have been quite lucky so far with not picking up any bugs or viruses, despite having my immune system dampened by medication. However this week I was finally beaten and I now have a sore throat, sore head and annoying cough. I'm feeling pretty lousy and working on the house every spare minute probably isn't helping but I'm not one to mope in bed.


It was also blood test wednesday this week. I managed to get my best place in the queue ever, Patient 5! It was pretty lucky though to be honest because I felt like I was going to pass out if I had to wait much longer. I think it was the mix of feeling unwell and the warm hospital, but I was glad to hear my name being called. I managed to get a right whopper of a bruise this time though, I think its time to start switching arms!

I'm out for tea with the girls tomorrow for a catch up before Christmas and all my other time will either be spent working on the house or recouperating. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

 

Exciting news

So I have some exciting news…

Jamie and I have just received the keys for our first house!!

It is a two bedroomed bungalow in the Holbeck, which is perfect for us. (No more stairs to climb when my feet are sore!) The ultimate selling point though, was the back garden which overlooks the whole town. Because we live at the top of a hill we can see for miles, I absolutely love it.

We put an offer in for the house back in September, just days after it had gone up on the market. It was exactly what we wanted, in the area we wanted and for the price we wanted, with no chain and we knew that it would be snatched up if we didn’t act quickly. Our offer was accepted within hours and that is when the waiting game began!

Since then we have signed endless paperwork, been to several meetings, but most of all spent a lot of time waiting! We didn’t really want to tell anyone because so many things can go wrong and it could have fallen through at any moment, so we decided to keep quiet until things were finalised and only tell a select few.

So if you asked me if I had seen any nice houses or when I was thinking on buying a house, and I either changed the subject or just completely ignored the question that is why!! I didn’t want to lie to anyone. But I can finally let the cat out of the bag!

Over the past two weeks things really kicked into gear, with the completion date in sight. It has been really stressful, I nearly didn’t make it to sign the contract because the roads flooded and I got stuck in Ulverston, then a few days later we had problems transferring our deposit for reasons out of our control, then we had issues with our home insurance because the company only faxed through half of the information to our solicitor and to top it all off, yesterday we were told that there was a problem with the boiler (we’ve had it checked and its fine, the message was misconstrued).

 All this stress hasn’t done much for my arthritis though to be honest. I have been sleepwalking the past couple of nights(which I tend to do when I’m stressed)  and I really notice a difference in my swelling when I don’t get a good night’s sleep. I have also had a really short attention span for the same reasons. But hopefully now everything is completed I will get a good sleep ready to start work on the house this weekend.

So if I’m a bit quiet over the next few weeks in the blogging world, it’s because im either scraping wallpaper off, painting walls or moving all of my belongings out of my family home!

 

My new addiction

Apologies for the delay since my last post, I have been rather busy over the past week with several appointments and errands to run. Hopefully I will be able to explain why in a few days, but until then I will update you all on my progress.

I am definitely noticing improvements in my condition. Firstly, I am nowhere near as tired as I used to be! I used to struggle to get past 7pm without wanting to get into bed, whereas now I am managing to make it to around 9pm/10pm before I think about getting in to bed. (Wednesday is my exception though because Jamie is at night school so I get into bed really early!)

Secondly, I can now get out of bed straight away now. Before hand it would take about an hour after I had taken my steroids before I could even think about moving, whereas now I get up straight away. I am still sore when I first get up and it does take a while to loosen up, but it is much more bearable these days. 

Sadly, my finger is still not showing any changes at all!!! I'm due an appointment with my rhuematologist doctor over the next few weeks so hopefully she can put my mind at ease and tell me that it will get better eventually. On the brightside, I have still not had any negative side effects from the medication, which is fab!

I also wanted to talk about my new addiction... walking! Over the past week I have been for 3 walks with a total distance of over 11 miles. I love getting wrapped up, turning on shuffle on my iPhone and setting out for a walk on my own. Its a great to get some head space and time alone with your own thoughts, plus the fresh air makes me feel great afterwards. I was planning to do a nice long walk tonight, but my foot has started to hurt when I got home so I am reluctantly having a night with my feet up in the hope that its better tomorrow.

Keep your eyes peeled for my next blog post... I will hopefully have some exciting news to share!

Improvements...

Hi everyone

I noticed a few improvements in my condition over the weekend, so I thought I'd let you all know!

Firstly, on Saturday morning, Jamie (my fiance) and I were up at 6.30am because Jamie had work. Usually when Jamie works at the weekend, he drives me home because I don't have time for my steroids to kick in before I have to drive. However, this weekend I managed to drive home 15 minutes after getting up without too much discomfort! I'm not saying it was a pain free drive, but certainly bearable, which is a huge improvement. This got me thinking that maybe I don't need to wake up at 5am to take my steroids anymore... The past two days I have taken my steroids at my normal wake up time of 6.30am and have managed to drive to work okay. So no more 5am wake up calls!!!

Secondly, after getting home, having my breakfast and catching up on Friday night's Children in Need Show (I recorded it so I just watched certain parts) I decided that I would go for a walk. My dog isn't very well at the moment, and Jamie still at work, so at 10.30am I set off walking on my own with only my iphone music for company. I didn't have a planned route or time to walk, I just went where my feet took me. I was quite surprised when I walked back through my front door to see that it was 12pm and I had been walking for an hour and a half!

I took this picture of the Abbey on my walk, how pretty does it look?!

I felt great after my walk! Admittedly my feet were a bit sore and my legs were ready for a sit down, but all in all the fresh air and exercise left me feeling awake and energised. After so long of hardly being able to do anything, it is so nice to finally become more active again. Im looking forward to my next walk now!

My third improvement is I have decreased my steroids again by 2.5mg, so I am now on 12.5mg. Each time I decrease, for the first few days I feel slightly more pain in my joints, but then it starts to get better again. I think this is because my body needs a few days to adjust to the new level of steroids. Im going to keep decreasing them by 2.5mg every few weeks until I am either in pain again or hopefully, until I am off them completely. Fingers crossed its the latter!

The only slight disappointment is my index finger still shows absolutely no sign of improvement. It is still swollen and I still cant straighten it or use it for anything. Maybe my next dose of MTX tomorrow will start to help.

Layout Change

Hi everyone

I have decided to give my blog layout a bit of a change with a new banner and background.

I didn't like my old banner and I have been meaning to design a new one for ages, but just wasn't sure how to do it. In the end I had a bit of a mess around on Word and created a new one. I'm not the best at graphic design and it isn't the best header, but it will do for now until I can find someone to make one for me!

I am still changing bits around, but I'm having difficulty editing some links and fonts on blogger. (Still quite new to blogger and haven't worked everything out yet!) So keep your eyes peeled for the final version over the next couple of days.

What you you think of the new layout?

MTX week 6 & Winter Walks

Hi Everyone

There is not much to say in terms of MTX week 6 to be honest, as there are still no significant changes. I am not in any less pain and the swelling of my index finger in particular is just as bad. At the same time I have not had any side effects from the drugs other than feeling dizzy in the morning that I take the MTX. So in that respect, I'm still waiting!
On a more positive note, I have decreased my steroids again by 2.5mg, so I am now on 15mg a day. I decided to decrease my steroids by myself because the visits between seeing my rheumatology doctor is 3 months, and there was no way I was waiting 3 months to start decreasing them!

I don't like taking the steroids for many reasons; 

• they can thin your bones, 
• they can destroy your stomach
• they stop your body from producing natural hormones and many other side effects. 

But the main issues I have found are constant hunger, reduced memory and water weight gain (mainly on my face). Lots of people have said that they can hardly tell I have gained weight and that my face has become more rounded, but I can tell and I have felt very self conscious about it all. You know your own body and you know when something changes.
Therefore I decided to start walking as well as decreasing the steroids, to try and shift this stupid water weight! In order to manage walking I have to strap up my feet and wear a knee support, but its worth it and I am really enjoying becoming more active again. I also love walking in the winter in the fresh air, its my favourite time of year.

Last night after walking for an hour with my dog and niece, I sort of ruined my hard work and had a hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows! I'm not usually a fan of hot chocolate to be honest, I am a big tea drinker! But on the rare occasion that I have one, I go all out with cream, marshmallows the works! I made one for my niece too and it seemed to go down well! I must admit, it was rather tasty and I can see myself having a few more over the winter months. But isn't that part of the fun of cold weather? Walks in the fresh air, big, comfy clothes  and lots of warm food and drinks?!

Don't you just love winter?!