2014…I’m hoping all of you will have a fantastic year, a
better, more positive, and more healthy year than 2013 was! Being a little tired of all the medical trials we endured during the past year,we were hopeful to
be off to a good start. It turned out different though.
All is better now but my husband started the year off with a
nasty pneumonia, was admitted to the hospital for five days and stayed home for
9 more after that. It seems he is on the mend now, but it was a stubborn bug
that hit hard.
Not just health wise, Mother Nature is also not helping out! We have had more snow
in just December than we usually have in a whole winter. We've had extreme cold
temperatures and crazy winds, where semi trucks were blown off the highways.
The crazy amount of snow has caused many barns to collapse, what is a big
catastrophe for our local farming community. We've had above zero temperatures
where the snow starts to melt and freezes up overnight, to create ice rinks in our yards and on our roads.
Wicked weather. But: we do see a bit more sunlight already and we are nearing
the end of January, so there is light at the end of the winter tunnel!
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| it sure is pretty though! |
Today was another day of driving to Calgary, to have my girl
and my boy checked out. Luckily this was one of the very beautiful days so the
driving conditions were great. It almost felt like spring was in the air!
My daughter’s joints were clean, Hooray! She has been having
back pain lately and the doc did some further exploration as to what may cause
that. Since she has a leg length difference from about a centimeter, chances
are her hips are slightly tilted or she may compensate it with the posture of
her spine, this can cause back problems .An insole to correct the difference is
prescribed, we will go and hunt for that at some point in time! When the doc was examining her back, she also
found there was a curve in her spine: scoliosis. It is a very mild curve and
usually scoliosis does not cause back pain, but it definitely is something we
need to keep an eye on. Also a question my daughter had was if she had
developed an intolerance to dairy, the fatty dairy in particular; creams, ice
cream, whipped cream etc. because she can have severe cramps after she has
eaten it. The doc is investigating this further and is also wondering if she
maybe has developed celiac. Blood work ordered and done and also x-rays ordered
and done to finish off her appointment!
My Son….he’s not quite there yet. He’s been on Humira now
for 4 months, plus on prednisone, MTX, Naprosen, sulfasalasine, folic acid ;
the works. There is no improvement in his finger joints and that is a bit
worrisome. The treatment has been aggressive and we should have at least seen
some improvement. So now it’s time to bring in the big guns. The doc had a
couple of scenarios and this is what we chose to do first: do joint injections*
in all his affected joints (more than 10), give it two months and we will
evaluate after these two months if we see enough improvements. If not, we need
to move on to another biologic, she mentioned two, and both of them would be
monthly infusions. Since he has so many
joints that need to be injected they will put him under general anesthetics, so
he will be out completely! So…blood work
ordered and done and x-rays ordered and done to finish off his appointment!
After that mommy, boy child and girl child were all hungry
and in need of some shopping therapy! Red basketball shoes, a Pink hoody, and a
grey winter coat were purchased; I’ll leave it up to you to figure out who got
what!
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| red, pink , and grey |
*Joint injections are injections done in the inflamed joint,
where fluid is retracted and medication is injected.
