suggested by Blogletting.com

"My neighbor has a bumper sticker that reads: "Remember Who You Wanted To Be". Did you grow up to be who you always wanted to be as a child?"

Who did you want to be when you grew up? I thought I'd be a teacher for the longest time. When I was littler, I know I had a nurse phase. My mom gave me a box of memorabilia a year or so ago. In it was a homemade "postcard" addressed to "Mom/The Kitchen/Our House/Aurora, Ill." with the following message on it:

Dear Mom,

When are we having dinner? I am very hungry.

Love,
Nurse Andrea

The nurse thing never materialized. The teacher thing was abandoned when I nearly flunked out of history in college (was planning a career as a history teacher).

But did I mention I used to play "library" all the time when I was a kid? When I decided to go to library school, my mom laughed and said she should have known. Of course, the other thing I liked to play was "JCPenney." I guess we should be glad some career paths didn't pan out.

Less Degeneration. More Drivel.

School is in, so Spanish classes have started again. Yesterday we had to fill in a questionnaire about ourselves. The toughest question was "Name something unique or interesting about yourself."

Last semester, my answer was easy: "I am currently knitting a pig." I knitted a stuffed pig for my son's birthday. He was obsessed with Charlotte's Web, so when I found a knitting pattern for a toy pig, I knew it was my destiny.

With Wilbur long since completed, my best random conversation starter no longer applies. I need to give some thought to my next crazy true fact. In class, I went with the not-terribly-original (and not exactly true either) "I make the best brownies in the universe." Well, they are good, but not that good. And being able to make good brownies, while a useful skill, is not especially unique or interesting, really.

I suppose I could have mentioned the fact that I'm in the midst of hand-dyeing long underwear so Superman will have something to wear come Halloween. Turns out that "royal blue" Dylon dye in a stainless steel soup pot for an hour will make your off-white thermal undies look like the real thing.


Now reading:
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud
Thirteen Days/Ninety Miles by Norman H. Finkelstein

Now listening:
"Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" via podcast
Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

Further adventures with Imuran

The intermittent, agonizing stomach cramps continue. I've now had 3 separate incidents. The cramps are not what I normally would think of when I think "stomach cramps," sort of a brief pain like you might have along with indigestion or other GI issues. This is more like a stomach charley horse, so bad it makes me double over, makes my back hurt, and makes it impossible to do anything at all, including sleep, and it is unrelenting, for 4 hours or more.

The last episode, I resorted to my prescription pain pills (Tramadol), which actually worked like a charm. About 20 minutes after taking the tramadol, I literally felt the cramp relax. I felt the release roll across my back from one side to the other; it was really rather strange.

I don't know if narcotics are really the way to go with this issue, but I'm glad to have something to fall back on until I'm able to consult my rheumy about it.

I can tell how well it's working, though. Last week's traumatic thunderstorms made my fingers look like bratwurst, they were so swollen, but that was the first significant problem I've had since going on the Imuran. And interestingly, they didn't hurt much. Stiff, kind of wonky feeling (the same kind of feeling I used to get in my bad knee that told me it wouldn't support my weight), and swollen, but not particularly painful.

I'm therapated

Had my last occupational therapy session today. I found it very valuable. Talking to the therapist really made me aware of a lot of things I shouldn't be doing, or should be doing differently. Get help with the grocery shopping, for example, so I don't end up hauling all the bags into the house by myself. Make tasks into multiple steps, such as

• take out the milk jug
• set it on the counter
• close the fridge
  
• take off the lid
• pour into the glass
• put it back on the counter
• put on the lid
• open the fridge
• put it back in the fridge

so I can use both hands for the lifting and not put strain on my joints.

Some of this will be hard for me. I finally scrubbed the paint spots off the bathroom counter today. I asked hubby to clean up after rinsing the paint brushes 2 weeks ago, and let the paint spots sit, hoping he would do it. Today I got fed up and cleaned up, and realized afterwards that scrubbing off paint spots with a sponge and Comet is really not great for the fingers.

Getting my 4-year-old to carry his own bag when I pick him up at preschool is fine when he's cooperative. But when he's not, and I need to bodily remove him from the classroom to the car, I still end up carrying his stuff. And when hubby forgets to bring home the bag from the day before, and the day before that, the issue is compounded.

I guess, having done the OT, I now know how to look at my life and recognize these as problems. What I have to do next is figure out how to prevent them. Realizing with the last stroke of the sponge that I shouldn't have done that is less helpful than planning ahead so I don't pick up the sponge. Sadly, planning ahead has never been my strong suit.

Imuran update

Well, the take-with-food-or-milk bit has helped considerably with the Imuran side effects. I've had some mild stomach discomfort, but nothing even approaching the 4am Saturday please-kill-me-now cramps. And I think the Imuran's working, too. We're having another week of miserable thunderstormy weather (very very bad for creaky old fogies like me). Today my right middle finger (the worst so far) was a little twingey, but that's the most trouble I've had since starting the Imuran. I've taken only a couple of doses of Advil in the last two weeks, and haven't had to hit the Tramadol at all. (Compare this to 2400 mg daily of Advil, plus Tramadol at least a couple of times a week, and sometimes more frequently, in the couple of months before Imuran.)

And now that I've bored my no readers (reminds me of a silly joke: what's yellow and invisible? No bananas) to no end with whining about my pain, here's an interesting tidbit: A new study shows that rheumatoid arthritis patients have reduced life expectancy compared to their same-sex, non-RA siblings, while simultaneously showing a 40 percent lower rate of cancer-related death.

Oh my poor poor tummy

Apparently, the most common side effect of Imuran is nausea and stomach cramps. What I didn't expect after a full week of taking it was the 4-in-the-morning, doubled over, moaning in pain variety of stomach cramps.

After some frenzied googling (imuran stomach cramps HELP)and some thoughts of losing the use of my hands for the rest of my life might be preferable to this, I found a site that suggested taking the dose with food or milk to prevent stomach discomfort. Don't know why they didn't suggest that on the labeling, but there you go.