put on a happy faaaaaaace!

I have resumed a prednisone taper, unfortunately.  Dr B. would like to eliminate the lung nodules while my body gets used to the 100mg of Imuran, since we know that steroids work so well.  I guess that's okay with me.  I'm doing 40mg for a week, then 30, 20, 10 and probably 5.  Then we shall see if 100mg of Imuran by itself will keep the nodules from re-appearing.  One can pray.

I decided that the main reason I hate prednisone so much is the weight gain issue.  I feel like I look stupid with a chipmunk face and I get p.o'ed when I have to wear jeans that are two sizes bigger than what I should be wearing.  Guess I'll just have to Zumba and TurboJam my butt into shape.

Must fight the fat!

uncooperative lungs

Sigh... I have been off prednisone for over a month and have been on Imuran for about three now.  I got a CT scan done July 9 and there were four new small lung nodules.  ACK!  My lungs were normal/clear on April 9.  So the medication battle begins.  The docs are thinking I will just up my dose of Imuran (no prednisone!)... I go see Dr. Bensadoun again next week, so I should know by then.  I don't care what we do as long as I can breathe and I stay out of the hospital.  :)

goodbye, prednisone

June 4, 2010 was my last dose of prednisone. The plan is to never return to this drug. I started Imuran (azathioprine) on April 26 and so far it is successful. (and it’s a pill-hooray!) The next appointment with my lung doctor is July 9- I’ll get a CT and blood-work to check for inflammation/new nodules. But there won’t be any. =D

My chipmunk face is disappearing. My hot flashes are gone… I am pretty much back to normal temperature. This is helpful since it’s so hot outside. Hot flashes + summertime= misery. I’m losing weight… slowly, but surely. I was a bit sluggish for a while since I didn’t have the boost of steroids to perk me up everyday, but I think my body is regulating itself now. Overall, I feel so much better.

Funny- Last week I listened to a web conference about IBD for women and one of the comments the doc made was that if prednisone were to be presented to the FDA nowadays as a new drug, it would likely not be approved for use due to the nasty side effects. HA! However, it DOES do its job and is an amazing cure for a lot of ailments,but the short and long-term effects are to be cautious about. 

Anywho, I’m done with them after 10 long months. Yippee!

a day full of celebrations

Happy Birthday, Momma!!  I love you!

Happy Anniversary, Barbara and Jeff Barnette!

Happy Anniversary, Kristin and Matthew Collins!

And Happy Flag Day!  :)

It's a wonderful day full of celebrations.

memorial day in memphis

Christopher and I took a much needed trip to Memphis, TN over Memorial Day weekend... we had not seen our friends in exactly one year.  Way too long, despite the fact that the year flew by.

Coming into town, we drove by our first home together.  I actually was kinda sad.  Such a cute little place.

Our first stop: Central BBQ.  Yes, real, delicious BBQ- finally!  Chris and I split a ginormous basket of bbq chicken nachos.  And he also ate a beef brisket bbq sandwich.  Yum.

After we ate lunch, we stopped by Medtronic to see my old co-workers.  Unfortunately, it was a holiday weekend and a bunch of peeps were gone on Friday, but I was so grateful to spend some time with the folks who were actually there.  :)  I put post-it notes (with messages) all over my boss's desk... maybe one day he will find them all.  And maybe I hid his stupid Darwin fish magnet that I despise.  Hehehe.

We spent a good chunk of Friday with our dear friends, Heather and Nathan.  Chowed down on a burger and fries from Huey's for supper.

After dinner, Nathan and Christopher went to see a movie and I went to see my BFF, Jen.  Man, I miss her.  We strolled through the river park and chatted like I had never left Memphis.

Saturday morning, my other BFF, Kelly, picked me up and we went to breakfast and shopping.  Although, we spent most of our time at Panera catching up on life.  I really miss her too.  Moving sucks.  Neither of us was feelin' the shopping vibe... too bad.  We walked around the mall for a little while, accomplished nothing, then she dropped me off at Memphis Pizza Cafe to eat lunch with the Makris family (one of the four essential Memphis restaurant stops for my trip).  It really sucked saying bye to Kel Kel... not to mention, I am lame, and forgot to take a picture of us together.  I am still bitter about that.

After lunch, I called up another friend and we got pedicures!  That was a blessing.  We had a good time relaxing and chatting and she got a little bit of free time away from the new baby. :) 

We ate supper at their house that night and got to meet the new baby, Sam!

Saturday night we went to Dan Lee's graduation/birthday party.  I had not had enough of my Jenneefurr.

Sunday was an awesome day.  We attended our old church- Christ United Methodist.  I boo-hoo'd nearly the whole time- I really miss our time there.  I miss playing in the worship band, I miss our friends, I miss the pastor...  I didn't want to leave.  Our church friends came over for a cookout Sunday night.  We had a blast with everyone.  The little kids made "Miss Sara" jump on the trampoline with them until she was about to croak.  My, how our bodies age so fast... Here's me jumping and smiling through the pain...

Christopher and me with Jen and Lucas Parris

I also neglected to get a photo of us with our wonderful hosts- Paul and Kristy Makris.  They let us stay at their home for three days, fed us, and threw a party for us.  We love them so much- thank you for your hospitality!!!

Finally, on the way out of town, Jen Lee came and met us for breakfast at Blue Plate Cafe.  Delicious.

See you again soon, Memphis.  We will have to make Memorial Day in Memphis a yearly tradition.  :)

slacker

My last blog post was a month ago and it wasn't very exciting.  And it had been a while since I'd posted before that one too.  I have been meaning to write more frequently, but I have lacked motivation for some reason.  Perhaps I feel like nothing in my life has been blog-worthy recently.  Well, that's not true, really.  My birthday and Easter were last month.  There were visits to Oak Ridge and Mt Juliet, and there was Mother's Day and my cousin's wife's college graduation.  So stuff has been happening, but let's face it, I've been lazy.  Perhaps I'm too busy playing on Facebook at night or watching episodes of LOST on Netflix.  (which by the way, Chris and I succeeded in watching all 5 seasons over the last couple of months and have since caught up to the current episode of season 6.  I will be sad when the series ends.)  In any event, my blogging/journaling/posting-of-pictures has seriously been slacking.

So today is a beautiful Saturday, but I'm too hot (as usual).  At least the sun is shining and there is a light breeze!  Topher and I made blueberry wheat pancakes and scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning.  Delicious.  I got some groceries at Kroger Marketplace this afternoon while Chris helped our friend Teague put up some fence for their new ducklings.  I could spend hours in that humongous Kroger.  I love grocery shopping. 

Tonight we are meeting up with a few friends at the Movie Tavern to see IronMan 2.  I am excited!  And I have a buy-one-get-one-free admission coupon, so that excites me all the more.

I will try to do better updating you on the haps.  I can't post any recent pictures because I left my camera in Nashville last weekend!  GRRR.

Short lung update:  Bloodwork showed no lung inflammation and my last CT was clear of lung nodules.  Dr B has taken me down to 5 mg of prednisone every other day, so I'm taking it on MW&F.  In 3 weeks, I will likely be DONE!  I also started on Imuran 50mg daily at the end of April when I saw my GI doc.  We are hoping that this med alone will control the Crohn's.  As always, thank you for the prayers.  I feel okay.  My worst battle is weight gain, but that will cease when I get off the steroids.  I will finally be able to fit back into my clothes.  Eeek.

all for $21

When Chris and I went to Carrabba's last month to celebrate Match Day, we received a small coupon book from them with free appetizers, free dessert, etc.  Several of them expired today.  Luckily, I remembered this little coupon book on Monday and told Chris that we had to go to Carrabba's last night to get our free appetizer!  He did not reject the idea of course.

So we went.

We ordered the large calamari.  Not on my diet.  But it was a special occasion and it was oh-so-delicious and was free.

They brought us bread.

We ordered our meal, both of which came with a salad.  So we ate that.

Then they brought our food and Christopher's was wrong.  So the waitress boxed it up and let us have it for free to take home.  (She said it just would have gone in the trash otherwise).  She went back to the kitchen and put in the order for the right thing.  Meanwhile, the manager came by and told us that because of the mix-up and the long wait for Topher's food (mine was gone by now!), that his meal was on the house.

Therefore, we left $21 on the table for our meal, which included a generous tip.

We got a large calamari, salads, bread, and THREE entrees, all for $21.00.

Yeehaw.

p.s.  I ate my leftovers for lunch today.

my boys

Is this not the cutest combo you ever did see??  I sure do love my boys.

UK Internal Medicine Grand Rounds- 4/2/2010

Last week, I was given the privilege of speaking at UK's Internal Medicine Clinical Pathologic Conference for Grand Rounds.  Six times a year, the IM team selects a case to present and mine was picked for the April 2, 2010 edition.  My doc asked me if I would participate so that the physicians and residents would have the opportunity to hear the patient's perspective on a difficult and prolonged disease diagnosis.  She asked me to talk about my symptoms, fears, frustrations, pain, etc through the whole process this past summer.  I was scared to death to talk in front of all these smart people (ha!), but I agreed to do it.  They have never had a patient speak at conference before, so I was honored to have been asked!

The audience seemed pretty captivated, but they were a tough crowd. I tried to crack a few jokes to lighten my spirits, but like, no one even chuckled. What is wrong with these people?! I guess I'm just more easily amused than most.  Christopher told me he heard people laugh and that I just couldn't hear them because they were all sitting in the back of the auditorium. It's possible... but, eh... I don't know. In any event, it stressed me out when they didn't audibly laugh- it made me that much more nervous.

Anyway, I did pretty well through the whole thing until my last five minutes when I tried to give my compliments to the Internal Medicine team. I started crying when I told them I received excellent care. The Chair of the IM department spoke up and helped me out while I was trying to pull myself together. He said I had a lot of courage to come speak at this event. One of my doctors gave me a hug after the presentation- it was so sweet. My PCP (who is an IM doc and the one who invited me to speak) clapped real big for me and said I did wonderfully. Oh, hurray! What a relief.

It was a really neat presentation. The residency program director told me it was the best one all year.  How cool.  I really enjoyed listening to my pulmonologist's part of the talk about how they diagnosed me and the tedious process they went through to get there. Fascinating.

Fun fact of information: Less than 0.5% of IBD patients develop a true pulmonary manifestation of the disease. Of that 0.5% of people, more than 90% of them have Ulcerative Colitis... the other 10% or so have Crohn's. I am a rare bird.

My loving supportive husband attended the presentation of course, and my daddy also flew up with his flying buddy, Joe.  It was so nice to have a personal fan club there.  We all went to lunch after it was over. 

Anyway, I'm glad that's over with.  :)

april

I love the month of April.  I'd say that it's my favorite month of the year.  First of all, it's my birthday month.  I was born on Easter Sunday- April 3, 1983.  When I was 11 years old, my birthday fell on Easter again.  This year, it's a day off, but close enough to make me happy!

April is the time when all the flowers and trees start blooming, everything looks beautiful and it's not too hot yet....I hate being hot.  I love watching everyone pop out of hibernation- they're jogging, walking their dogs, riding bikes, kids are running around in the yards- it's a pleasant sight.  When I was younger I always liked April because it meant that the school year was quickly coming to an end!  :)

Anyway, I hope no one plays any tricks on you today for April Fools..

HAPPY APRIL!!!