COOTIES!!!

First, my I say, I'm terribly sorry for having been missing lately...I've been adjusting to...not 1, but 2 new meds.  I don't know about you, but I LOVE medicines that were created for something else and then suddenly the medical community realizes...whoopsie!  For example...did you know that Viagra was created for pulmonary hypertension.  Isn't that FANTASTIC?!?  I LOVE it!!!  One of my meds was created to ward off/treat MALARIA!!!  That's right people, you can get malaria and I can't!  Jealous much?  You are...don't lie.

I ADORE my rheumatologist.  He is a fantastic doctor, really listens, and you can tell he absolutely has his patients best interests at heart.  This is probably why I always have to wait for at least an hour for my appointment...Grrrrr.  BUT...the minute I see him, the rage brought on be the waiting dissipates.  You see...this amazing doctor is a Sikh.  For those who don't know, Sikh's wear turbans.  My rheumatologist doesn't just wear a turban...he WORKS a turban.  It is soooo awesome!!!  He coordinates his entire ensemble...even his socks!!!  I LOVE this man!!!

BUT...he wants to add a new med to my cocktail.  He thinks its time to add one of a group of meds called "Biologics."  Maybe it's just me...but that just SCREAMS cooties!  The fact is, they are similar to vaccines.  They are a group of medications made by biological, rather than chemical means.  In theory, that should be a good thing, right?  When I shop for groceries, I always go with the most natural choices and organics.  So it would seem to follow that I would feel the same way about medications...right?  WRONG!!!!


First of all, they are administered by either needle or infusion.  I may or may not have shared this with you in the past...but I have a violent, pathological, terrifying needle phobia.  Lots of people dislike needles...but that is sooo not even close.  Just writing this, my heart is racing, I'm starting to sweat, see double, my heart is racing and there is xanax in my immediate future.  As a matter of fact...wait one...

Ok...let's hope that helps.  You have understand...when I say violent, I MEAN violent.  Sure there is the sweating and crying and nervous breakdown.  But then comes the biting, kicking, punching, scratching...somebody gets their blood drawn...know what I mean?  DH and I have developed a system.  It involves copious amounts of xanax, calling ahead to the lab, specific instructions to the phlebotomist or tech...do NOT say what you're doing, occasional additional techs to hold me down, and DH with a trashy magazine on the other side distracting me...and then taking me home and pouring me into bed as he heads off to work.


But that's the least of my issues with these Biologics.  They are, " living entities such as cells and tissues. Biologics are isolated from a variety of natural sources — human, animal, or microorganism."  What about that does not positively SCREAM COOTIES?!?!?!?!  If you consider having a lovely pineapple that is, in fact, a pump bottle full of anti-bacterial gel in my foyer in by collection of pineapples on my foyer table for EVERYONE that comes into my home a germophobe...then I suppose I'm guilty.  I also carry every conceivable  type of wipe in all my bags, antibac gel...and I can't lie...a small lysol or alcohol (or both) in my bag for public rest rooms...if you consider that a germophobe...guilty!


So you can imagine what the idea of a needle or infusion of COOTIES is putting right over the edge.  I do not want needles...but needles full of cooties?!?!?  


Kill me now.


XOXO
~CAT

Lifestyles of the Sick and the Famous

Oh...how I have missed you, darling, wonderful, readers...

Wonderful news...your Holiday Wishes fulfilled...

I'm BACK!!!

I don't want to bore you with all the gory details or whine as if my life, on balance, is anything but enviable.  I am an incredibly fortunately woman and my New Year's Resolution is to be more grateful for all my blessings.  

Darling Husband, if you are reading this, skip ahead to the next section, everyone else, keep reading.  I have an amazing husband (most of the time)...who is my best friend...has given me a beautiful home, cars, shoes, clothes, jewelry, and all of those material things...loves me in spite of myself...and of whom I am enormously proud every day.  

I have a fantastic family.  It would doing an injustice to the word "dysfunctional," to say I have a dysfunctional family!  Sure...a lot of people THINK they have a crazy family...until they have met mine.  DH once recently said to me, "It's unbelievable you don't have MORE issues!"  Again, feel free to laugh...I nearly fell out of bed giggling!  Who am I trying to kid?  I laughed so hard I snorted!!!  My parents lived, more or less, around the corner from each other after their divorce.  When DH and I went back to visit, before Mother moved to Florida, Mother threw huge parties with Dad, Stepmom, Stepsibs, Pop pop, her boyfriend, and my inlaws.  Dad flicked a bottle cap at me in front of FIL because his beer, that he purposely carries in his shirt pocket for the sole purpose of driving Mother mad, was empty...FIL was in shock...though I can't say for sure if the look on his face had more to do with the flicking itself or that I knew what it meant and responded by bringing Daddy his beer...and the finger.  We have had to employ a "NO F-word in the Dining Room" rule.  This rule backfired upon it's inception...when I got up from the table, stepped one step into the kitchen, and, well...you get the picture.  Stepmom has called Mother to ask how to deal with Father...to receive the reply, "When he drove me crazy, I divorced him...I not be the best one to ask," followed by laughter on both ends of the phone...and probably nothing good for Dad.  Grams always called me a "jackass," and when finally called on it, she explained, "That means I love you the most!"  That's just the immediate family.  For the sake of everyone's sanity, I'll quit while I'm behind!

I have spectacular friends.  Some go back so far that, in one case, as Mother likes to say is, "the first man I ever slept with."  We were 3 and went to the same babysitter...another who, well, we met one on her 16th birthday, which was long enough ago that we now celebrate our anniversary rather than our ages, and our anniversary is more than old enough to legally drink!!!  Wonderful people that I've known as long as I can remember...and, largely thanks to the USAF, fabulous people all across the country and overseas.  I am honored and humbled to count such generous, smart, kind, patriotic...sarcastic, quippy, maddening, funny...as my friends.

But, by way of explanation for my absence, here goes nothing:

There is nothing new wrong with my brain.  

Who knew?

I'm going to go ahead and leave it that, because no doubt you feel like reading all of my problems about as much as I feel like listing them...but, I kid you not...a doctor said, "There is nothing new wrong with your brain."  Yes, I know you're laughing.  I laughed, too.  I have just about every specialist one can have...but for a podiatrist (Look out podiatrists of the world, you're next!)...and I thought I had heard it all...but this was a new one...even for me!!!  Ask yourself what kind of response you'd have had to that statement.  I can't remember ever having laughed so hard at a doctor's appt...until she said, "...and I agree with everything in that book..except that Evolution thing...but anyway..."

Monday Manifesto

This week's 

Monday Manifesto

will be brought to you on 

Tirade Tuesday

courtesy of

Monday's Spoonie Misery 

Lucky you!  You now have an extra day to let me know what topics you'd like to see in Monday Manifesto...and feel free to let me know if there's a weekly feature you'd like to see!  In the meantime I'll be having a Health Related Hissy-fit over the Rheumatoid Arthritis Agony that has usurped my day.

If you're unfamiliar with The Spoon Theory...especially if you have someone in your life with an Autoimmune Disease or Chronic Pain...take the few minutes you would have spent reading my blog and read it:

The Spoon Theory

by: 

Christine Miserandino

 XOXO,

~CAT