the other side of the fence...

every day i talk to patients about taking their medications, side effects of their treatment, signs and symptoms of their disease...and my whole job revolves around research. is a higher dose of this medicine more effective than the lower dose? but even if it is, does it have significantly more side effects? what about if the patient reacts to the medication...what do we give then? which is better...this arm of chemotherapy with one block of meds, or this arm of chemotherapy with another slightly different block of meds? and my job is to capture every minute little detail such as a missed dose, a wrong dose, a fever, an infection...so that we can compare this drug to another.
i say all this to say, i do this every day without thinking twice about it...but now i'm on the other side of the fence. i've had rheumatoid arthritis for 15 years now. i've been really blessed to have as few problems as i've had. unfortunately i have had to change meds every 3-4 years because they just quit working. i was on enbrel, remicaid, and then humira. my rheumatoid factor and my sed rate have been going up (this means the inflammation in my body has been increasing) and i've been having a lot more pain. so, i asked dr. gupta what my options were. he wanted me to do a drug where i'd have to go in once a month and have an iv infusion that takes about 1 1/2 hours. i just really don't want to do that. i don't want to have to get an iv once a month, and i don't want to have to take that time off work. the other option was to go on a research protocol. so...i'm doing the research drug.
i went and did my screening on tuesday. i really think they took like 100ml of blood from me. i hadn't eaten because they told me not to so i thought i was going to pass out! but i didn't. they did a chest xray and an ekg and i signed the consent for the protocol. i can't get the first dose of the medicine until 1 month after my last humira shot, so i'm going back for my first dose on october 11.
it's a sq injection, just like my humira, so it goes just under the skin...not into the muscle. after the first 5 or 6 doses i'll be able to give it to myself at home, but they have to monitor me at first to make sure i don't react to the drug. for the first several times i have to go in, get the drug, and be monitored for an hour. it's definitaly not something i'm looking forward to...the office is all the way over by st. francis...but hopefully it will help me feel better and bring my levels down! that would be a miracle!!
please pray for me.

what i've been up to...

this week has been CRAZY!!! to start things off, mom and dad left town to go to texas to be with julie when she had baby jett, so i kept lacy for them. i picked her up on sunday, one day after i got cooper. let me tell you...it was a mad house with those 3 dogs in my little house. i had her until today, so basically i was running a doggy day care all week.

then on tuesday my very first nephew was born!!! i can't believe it : ) he's so handsome and i can't wait to meet him and hold him and love on him. i'm going down to see him on friday and am so ready.

last night kylie and i had a girls night. we started out by having dinner at chick-fil-a. she was so funny because the pastor's son was working there and he kept calling her "princess". she was eating it up!! after that we went to see the new movie "dolphin tale". it was so good! i love dolphins and i especially love harry connick, jr...the movie was a really great family movie! when we left the movie we headed over to steak and shake for dessert. the only bad part of the night was that kylie had a loose tooth that she really wanted me to pull. i do NOT do loose teeth! it grosses me out to see kids wiggle their loose teeth. i tried 3 times to pull it out, but i just couldn't do it! i ended up hurting her, poor thing and she just fixated on that tooth. she was so afraid she was going to swallow it in her sleep...but she ended up being just fine. we had a great time together. it was really fun being able to spend time with my little kylie. she's getting to be such a big girl and we can carry on real conversations. i love her so much!

i ended out my week by going to get a hot stone massage today at serenity day spa. it was amazing! my massage therapist is in her last year of nursing school at the u of m so we talked about that a lot. it's been way too long since my last massage and this one was well worth the money!!



cooper...

meet cooper, the newest addition to mine and liberty's family. he joined our family this past saturday and he's already adjusting really well. he and libs are getting along great so far! he's a sweetie : )

it's fall y'all!!!...

i am so excited about this cooler weather that we had today!!! i had already pulled out a few fall things, but when i got home this afternoon and it felt so incredible outside, i decided to go all out. luckily, i've got gorgeous trees all around my house so i was able to use things from my front yard for my project.

libs and i say "welcome!!"

this is a wreath that i always use on my coffee table at christmas time

i put a large vase filled with gold ornaments in the middle.

i decided to use it now for fall around what i always keep on the table.

mr. pumpkin is back...now he just needs some candy : )

mom gave me this cute little guy when we did

christmas in august at stacy's house.

i did this project on my piano all from things that were around my house. i used several glass vases and filled them with pretty yellow leaves, then i put branches and pecans from my trees in each vase. i had to make a trip up to the attic to get some christmas lights and strung them around all the vases. i wanted to kinda hide the lights so i cut some more leaves off of the shrubs in my flower bed and just laid them around on the top of the lights. i finished it up with my two little jack-o-lanterns on the sides. i'm so excited for fall!!

 



engagement party...

saturday night melissa, alison, and i hosted an engagement party for meagan and tray. the party was at alison's house. we had about 35-40 people show up and everyone seemed to have a really great time!

alison, meagan, me and melissa

the couple of the hour!

with our gifts from meg and tray

we had lots of good food...i made julie's chocolate chip ball and it was the hit of the night. it was a fun time getting to hang out with friends that we don't get to see very often!

fun-filled friday in nyc...

meagan, melissa and I have been looking forward to our new york trip for several months now and i was really bummed out because the day before we were supposed to leave i started getting sick! my throat was killing me, i was coughing and i had a ton of sinus pressure. nothing i was doing was making me feel any better. luckily meagan came to my rescue and gave me some medicine and i was good as new on friday when we woke up to head out.
we had all spent the night at mel's apartment downtown so we could ride together to the airport. our plane left at 5:50 in the morning....not a good thing for 3 girls who are most definitely not morning people! the day started with me leaving my purse sitting on a chair when we stopped to get starbucks in the chicago airport. the men who came to sit down next gave it to a cleaning lady and luckily she remembered us and chased me down! thank God for honest people!! that would have been a horrible way to start the trip. we made it though and after a short layover in chicago were at our hotel in nyc around noon. we were ready to see the sights!! our hotel, the milford plaza, was in times square so that's where we started out.

we walked around there for awhile and then went in toys 'r us to ride the ferris wheel.

each cart had a different theme

ours was the monopoly cart

there was a little m&m guy looking over my shoulder

after we got off the ride we shopped around for awhile.

of course we spent some time in candyland!

after we left toys 'r us we wanted to go eat at the shake shack in the park. none of us had ever been there, but i had heard it was really good, and it was in the movie "something borrowed" several times. i thought it was in bryant park which is just around the corner...but it's not. we walked, and walked, and walked....and walked some more. finally we decided to go eat at serendipity. when we got there it was an hour wait and we were starving! so, we put our name on the list, went across the street for lunch, and came back for desserts. perfect timing!

enjoying my frozen peanut butter hot chocolate. delicious!

the decor at serendipity is very odd.

this little man is just an example...he kinda freaked me out.

when we left serendipity meagan wanted to get a small purse so we went in bloomingdale's which is just around the corner. melissa and i were just kinda hanging out and we saw this little chinese lady with her dog over by meagan. (you can take your dog in the stores up there) all of a sudden the dog was trying to attack meg and trying to bite her ankles!! for no reason at all!! we were dying laughing...and the lady didn't even take him out. he did it to 3 or 4 other people too.

it was starting to get chilly so we went back to the hotel and changed, then we headed over to rockefeller center. it is always so beautiful there.

by this time we were hungry again so we started looking for somewhere to eat. we saw that they had 3 different restaurants down where the ice skating rink is during the winter. we looked at the menu and found one that looked good and got excellent seats!

the food was so good and it was such an awesome experience!

when we left there we went over to top of the rock to see the city at night. it is 70 flights high and you are able to see the whole city. i had done the empire state building before and meagan had done this one before. we decided to do this one because you could see the empire state building if you do this one. it was breathtaking!

the empire state building is the red, white and blue one.

the chrysler building is one of my favorites

we left there and went down to greenwich village to listen to some jazz. we thought the place we were going to was going to be really quiet and relaxing, but when we got in it was more like a bar and was really loud. no thank you!! luckily, the guy at the door gave us back our $10 and we found a mexican place around the corner with a patio. we sat outside eating chips and salsa and talking about the boys who walked by in cropped pants and the girls who walked by in dresses that barely covered the necessary parts. our first day wore us out so we finally headed back to the hotel with sore feet and crashed!!