I will explain the title of this post in a minute, but there’s so much else to catch up on. Where do I begin?
This year has been so full of change that it’s hard to know where to start. Those of you who read my blog regularly know that my family and I moved across the country back in September. So far, it has been an incredibly positive change. I can’t even begin to express what a difference it has made in our lives to have supportive family around. I can bring my son over to my parents’ house and go have a long, luxurious lunch with girlfriends. My husband and I can go out on dates. We can get to my doctor and hospital visits without bringing our son or worrying about who we can get to watch him. Best of all, my son is thriving, and his bond with his grandparents is a truly beautiful thing to see. There are negatives, too – we miss our old friends, and the cold weather has been a rough adjustment. But on the whole, it’s been wonderful.
My health has been confusing. For a long time, the only real symptoms I’ve been having are terrible headaches and some weirdness in my fingers. I finally had an MRI and they found damage in my cervical spine, which may or may not have anything to do with the RA. I had two cervical epidurals, a month apart. The first one was amazing – I was totally pain free for almost a month! I really couldn’t believe it. When the pain started coming back, I had the second one. Then, unfortunately, I fell down the stairs a few days later and was so banged up that I couldn’t really tell if it had helped or not. I did know that I was having headaches again, though. I went to the pain management doctor who had done the procedure, and he checked my range of motion and nerve function. He concluded that the epidurals had done their job – the problems in my hands were completely gone – and that the headaches were coming from something else, most likely muscle tension. So I’m going to see a headache specialist in January. On the bright side, he prescribed some Zanaflex to tide me over and it really does help when the headaches hit – looks like his theory is probably correct.
Next came a good news/bad news kind of situation. For the past week or so, I have been experiencing terrible pain and a new level of fatigue. My feet have been killing me, and pain radiates from my back all the way down my left leg. It was frustrating to find myself limping around again – it’s been awhile since I had lower body symptoms. So I saw my rheumatologist yesterday. The good news: my bloodwork looks great, and he couldn’t find any joint inflammation at all. The bad news: he thinks this may mean that I have now developed fibromyalgia. I am very resistant to this idea – I really, really don’t want another chronic condition! Anyway, we are holding off on drawing any definite conclusions for now. After all, I did fall down the stairs a few weeks ago, and we both want to see how I do after some more time passes. In the meantime, I want to see what massage, gentle yoga, and good sleep can do for me.
Okay, so now on to the medless part. My husband and I have decided that we would like to try to have another baby. We talked to the rheumatologist about this yesterday, and he approved. My RA seems to be in a really good place right now. It’s possible that it’s been in a good place for quite awhle, and that the headache and muscle pain were confusing the issue. So right now we are in the process of stopping all of my medications, with the exception of Pulmicort for my asthma, and seeing what happens.
Being medless is weirdly exhilarating, like hang-gliding. I push off from the cliff and hope that my remission-like state holds me up, at least until I become pregnant. (I went into remission when I was pregnant with my son, so I’m hopeful that it will happen again.) The freedom is dizzying – no more med side effects, no more panicking if I forget my pills. There are still vitamins to take, but it’s not the same. My med-free body feels great, healthier. At the same time, I know that like hang-gliding, it’s risky. It’s a race against time, and one that I can’t be sure I will win.
