Wednesday, November 01, 2006

The Current Dilemma

      Recently I've been remiss in posting here. With the new diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis, I have been struggling with whether to post about how it is going or simply to ignore it. I don't want this blog to degenerate into a pity party.
      Yesterday I had an appointment with my rheumatologist (a wonderful man!) who is very successful in treating his RA patients. He's somewhat aggressive, but believes that "throwing the book" at RA fairly early in the disease process is more likely to achieve remissions. And for most of his patients he is correct. So I am assuming he is correct in early aggressive treatment in my case. The long and the short of it is that I'm going on methotrexate (Rheumatrex). This is an old cancer drug that is pretty successful in achieving remissions in early, mild to moderate RA. I start on it on Friday. As with any therapy with powerful drugs, there are good things and bad things. The good is, of course, the high percentage of remissions achieved with it. The bad things are: high possibility of major hair loss :-( and serious nausea.
      So tomorrow (Thursday) I will go get my 3 1/2 feet of thick naturally curly hair chopped off and donate it to Locks of Love. It will make my aquatic therapy easier, as I won't be so reluctant to get my hair wet. It will also remove a serious source of vanity. Those are the "up" sides of the possibility of hair loss!
      The "up" side of the possibility of serious nausea is, perhaps I'll actually lose serious weight. That would be good for the joints in my feet, ankles, knees, hips and spine.
      As my dear, dear friend Meg says - "Glory to God for All Things!" We need to remember - and I, in particular need to remember - that God is, indeed, in charge of all. He both can and will redeem all things in His time. That is a great comfort.
      So, there is no "pity party" here - just the daily struggle to improve my spiritual life and to keep my physical health as good as possible as long as possible.
      Now, I'm going to aquatic therapy and get my joints moving!

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