Where have all the flowers gone...

And our photos next to our screennames by the way?.... ;)  lol  So yesterday I took my phone down to this phone guy to see if he could unlock it and he talked me into buying a new one from him slick little sales guy was he.  But I needed a new phone, really I did.  My customers keep telling me they can't understand me.  So I go to pay him and he only takes credit or debit cards no checks.  Oy!  Gotta figure here on meth mountain they aren't gonna take checks but it is SO ANNOYING!!!  So I went back to the house and tore my room apart, literally, and couldn't find my card, which I'd given to my girlfriend (and she'd brought back and I'd set God knows where), because.... (drumroll please), it was in the living room sitting on the arm of the couch, exactly where I'd put it.  Right.  ooo-k.  And that is exactly how my brain has been functioning lately.

So they are closed on Sunday, because EVERYTHING here is closed on Sunday, and between the hours of 4pm and 10am, because it is the rural south.  And they believe in having Sunday and early mornings and any time closely approaching and most definitely after sunset, off.  Being the type A kind of gal that I am (oh you guys didn't know that?  Its only because during treatment my hemaglobin hovered around 8 hgb and I couldn't lift my head up off the pillow but really yes, I confess to being a bit adhd with life), its hard for me to deal with all the stores being closed all the time so I do a lot of my shopping online.

You know, I just remembered that I left my CAR at the HOSPITAL, LOLOL  I drove it to the doctor last Monday and then he ADMITTED me.  So... I drove to the hospital parking garage and it has been sitting there worshipping the sun on the upper deck (aka the only place I could find parking) ever since.  And my best friend is supposed to help me go get it today but she has been sick since yesterday so I forgot about it. (I have two cars, my sedan, and what was my son's town and country van, or what was known as the Dylan Taxi, because he used to be the designated driver for all of his drunk friends).  So anyway, that's why I am not freaking out right now, I still have a car to drive.  In fact, the van, which has removable seats, is going to be the delivery vehicle for my cake business.  It's white so it will make a perfect deliverly vehicle.  I am going to sell it to the business and get some decals for the sides of it.  

I am getting uber excited about my new cake biz.  I've already bought most of the decorating supplies I'll need initially online, which is where I've made most of my significant purchases for the past ten years.  I'm just waiting for them to come in so I can build up a portfolio to take around to all of the country clubs and bridal consultants and caterers and wedding planners in this region.  I am really wanting to get into see my new rheumatologist very soon and get on methotrexate or whatever he decides to place me on, and to get into the orthopedic surgeon to take care of this problem with the tendon on my index finger. I have a knot on my finger caused by the tendon becoming so inflamed that it will no longer go back within its sheath.  So it just stays jammed there and cause the finger to lock up and it can be (and is in my case) pretty painful.  To repair it they can just do a local (which I hate btw, I'd rather be put under, it makes me nauseous to feel people pulling and pushing on a body part, I almost get sick when they put in pic (sp?) lines), and then they release the tendon by opening up the tendon sheaf to make it larger.  I think there are less aggressive non-sugical options also, which would be great except unfortunately its taken so long for my peeps (assorted and sundry doctors) to get me into a rheumatologist and then over to the orhtopedic guy, that I think we may unfortunately be past those measures.  I am also having extreme problems with swelling in both my knuckes and the second joints of my fingers (a little sad because my mother has hand that are terribly deformed by RA and she used to be happy saying I had such pretty long fingers, and now quickly my own fingers are following suit, becoming swollen and starting to curl, but you can't dwell on these things, there are so many things to be happy about in life, and I am hopeful that when I get on the right meds some of my swelling will dissipate).

So anwyay, I want to get this stuff done, particularly if I need to have surgery, quickly, so it won't interfere with my cake business.  My mother has the most severe RA and that has never stopped her from pursuing the most delicate arts and crafts and I don't plan to let this stop me either.

My hepc tx doctor (and this is the first time I've seen him since stopping tx because he doesn't do hospital any longer and all of my post tx hospitalizations were handled by his colleagues), said two really funny things at my appt. The first wasy, "So, you and the doctor at UAB decided that it was time for you to stop treatment (this was only funny because it'd been 3 1/2 months since we'd decided that but my doctor is from Germany and english is his second language, and he had the report from the hepetologist at UAB right there, so I think he was just saying that as a manner of saying it, I mean, obviously, he knew already from the UAB report that we had.  I should explain here that even though I was a documented acute my original treatment plan from my tx group who were only gastros at a center for colon and disgestive disease in Huntsville, AL had wanted me to tx for one year due to my 1b genotype,  The doctor at UAB said not only to knock off the treatment that had caused me so many transfusions at the point I was at when I saw him (six plus months), but that if I had been there (which begs the question because had I been there I wouldn't have been treating acutely it took so long to get in, but anyway), they would have had me treat for three months.

I need to write that info down by the way and send it to the center for colon and digestive disease should another poor acute walk through their doors, and they can check it out with UAB but at least they'll HAVE IT.

I wonder sometimes about my RA had I only gone the three months but you know what?

A) It doesn't do that much good to wonder about it?
B) I usually think there is a good reason for everything to happen.  I mean, its not fun or good to do three more months of treatment, but in everything in my life, something good has come out of it if I've just kept an eye out for the opportunity.
C) I had severe joints issues from the first shot and only a few shots in my joints were in so much agony that despite being on MS Contin for God's sake, I couldn't move my legs by myself to get out of bed to use the bathroom by myself in the middle of the night, and in the morning, because they were so stiff and so painful that they were literally locked together in pain and my son would have to help me physically move my legs to the floor so I could get up.  So that tells me that this process of awakening this auto immune process may have and very probably did start very early in my treatment and that the interferon does its little number on us very quickly in.

So.  I do what I always do.  Try to take care of the things that I can medically as fast as I can, but keep on working on the other stuff in the mean stuff.  And right now the other stuff is cake.  Birthdays, Anniversaries, Weddings...
Let them eat cake!