Saturday night's all right for injecting - 7-26-09

Dear friends and family -

I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner - I was told to do my injections on Friday nights and so have religiously injected every Friday night for months, and sacrificed every subsequent Saturday to the side effects. Amazingly I continued, just assuming that it was my lot in life to always have shitty Saturdays.

Weirdly enough, continue I did, no matter how many Friday nights/Saturdays it ruined. Finally, I wised up. This weekend, I did not inject on Friday. Instead, I went to bed at a reasonable time and got up feeling fine on Saturday morning, drove over to my friend Ginger's house, spent several hours looking at her wedding photos and talking, then we went to a vegan restaurant because Ginger has been having some major GI issues - and has a major ulcer, so she has discovered that she may have no choice but to become a vegan. After lunch, we went shopping at World Market and then went to see the new Harry Potter movie. It was a great day - I was out for 8 hours and didn't have to throw up or call it quits or take a nap, my usual Saturday coping skills....And I got to reconnect with a friend that I haven't seen since October....It was a really good thing....

I got home just in time to set the injection, make some food, do the shot, take precautions to prevent side effects, then go to bed....I didn't sleep all that well - too much pain/fevers in and out, so the morning was a wash - out of bed, back to bed, out of bed, back to bed....

I've got a super duper headache that hasn't gone away, but what can you do, you know? The rest of the side effects have been pretty minor compared to that during the day today. Sometimes the days get pukey, so it's nice to not have that for a change. And to have had such a good day yesterday. So today my big accomplishment was getting laundry done...but yesterday I got to have fun!

I haven't had a day similar to the episode last week - I have been super duper tired but that morning was far beyond any sort of legimitate "tiredness" - it was full body exhaustion - everything was just too much effort - just getting out of bed....it was a really weird day and I am glad that I didn't have more like that that followed. I just have to try to keep my stress level down to prevent any further episodes like that....

Busy week this week - Sumi sees the neurologist in the morning and hopefully he'll be happy with the progress she's made....Wednesday is the MACS Community Advisory Board meeting where members of the research study come to the office for dinner and then they can provide feedback on how things are going for them and ask questions of the staff and the Prinicipal Investigator. Friday is my regular doctor appointment, and that afternoon is "research fun day" where we get out of work early to have a barbecue at a research department staff house....

And Saturday I have an adventure planned....you'll hear more after the fact....

So I feel good about this weekend....it helps that Sumi's looking better too!
lots of love,
Kate