I was reading a friends blog tonight when it sort of dawned on me that I haven’t really been keeping up with stuff on the medical front.

I have tried to keep my family updated, when I talk to them – but honestly, I just don’t feel like I’ve had any measurable amount of time to blog.

Also? My stepmom has been pretty ill over the last few months and I’ll be honest, my focus has been on her, as she has the more immediate need.

At any rate – I’m doing well. In fact, I’m doing really well. I think that the reduction in overall stress has resulted in a marked improvement in my overall well-being.

I did go for lab work a bit over a week ago and while my liver enzymes (AST/ALT) and my clotting factor (INR) numbers aren’t ‘perfect’ – my Dr. said (via email. Have I mentioned how much I *love* my Dr?) he’s o.k. with where I’m at.

I am bruising a lot – but I think that has more to do with new surroundings and a need to be more cognizant of things around me than anything else. It seems I run into everything – but that’ll get better when I have a better feel for where everything else and stop trying to feel my way around by bumping into everything.

In terms of coloring – I’m more normal looking and less Big Bird looking – which I always say, is a good thing. I am still on the higher dosage of Prednisone and Imuran, so I still have that awesome full beard, mustache and swelling going on – but I’ve come to realize, as much as it sucks, it’s really a small price to pay for how much better I’ve actually felt over the last 12 months.

I don’t know that I ever really wrote about all the symptoms I had leading up to my diagnosis – but it involved the inability to keep any measurable amount of food down and a lot of pain and discomfort for 16 days before I finally had to beg someone to do *something*. Even then, it was 12 more days of a being in the hospital before I finally started to get some treatment…

So yes – this is much better.

Besides, I hear bearded ladies are making a comeback, so there’s always that to fall back on – career-wise.

Anyway, I’m doing good. I feel better than I’ve felt in a very, very long time. I’m in a very good place – mentally and physically.

As for John? The Paxil isn’t working – I haven’t asked him if I can write about what’s going on – but let’s just say, the side effects have, so far, been worse than the actually issue it’s designed to treat. He’s going to see his Dr. on Tuesday to get on something else.

He’s also going for his second week of allergy shots – which he takes twice a week. If you can believe this, his crappy insurance with the $40 copay? They are paying for the shots 100%.

It’s a happy day…well, sort of. The AC is out – that sucks. But, I’m bright siding it – it could be July. It was only 107 here today…it could have been 114 – and yeah, you can really tell the difference. Just fyi.

Everyone loves a list post, yay!

• Dermatology Dr. was uneventful – turns out I have fungal infection. Turns out, it’s not minor. Turns out, when I called and said I needed an appointment and the lady said “three weeks” and I said, “Ok, but there is definitely something going on and I kind of need to see him PDQ, if there is a cancellation, can you please call me, I’m just across the street and I can be there in like 3.8 minutes” I should have, instead, told her I needed to get in sooner? I don’t know – I’m confused…I thought I’d done that. Oh well. I’ve got cream and if that doesn’t work, I get to go to Mayo…where they don’t accept my insurance, yay! Ugh.
• Came home last night and decided to inquire about refinancing the house, to take advantage of the low interest rate. Ended up jumping in with both feet and decided overnight, that probably wasn’t a good idea, given everything else currently going on – so I’m putting that on hold for 4 weeks.
• Last night at 1 AM, my dog became that dog. You know the one I mean…the dog in your neighborhood that bark, bark, barks all night long for no reason that can be identified other than to be a utter and complete nuisance. I got up, fed her, gave her water, let the cat in, in case the cat being out in the backyard was really creating a spacial problem for her and basically told her to shut up before I turn her into some delicious fajitas. It worked, for an hour and 34 minutes. She started again at 2:34 – only this time, for about 5 minutes. She was quiet until 4:06 and after a night of being up and down and not being able to sleep, I finally said screw it.
• I’ve got some other news. It’s good.
• I get to go back to the regular lab this week rather than the hospital lab. And I only have to go twice. I like that a lot better.
• My hair is finally long enough to wear in a pony tail – so why am I really itching to cut it off?
• My stepmom, who I love dearly, is going to the surgical oncologist tomorrow to find out more about having her kidney removed. She has cancer in her left kidney and they’re at the stage now where they’re trying to make decisions about the next steps (surgery, radiation, chemo). If you’ve got a minute, a spare thought/prayer for her would be great.
• The old man totally ignored me for two hours last night while playing video games – the kitchen was a mess (and is still a mess this morning) and the threat I made last week about finding a cleaning person didn’t seem to make an impact – I guess it’s time to actually put the plan in motion. Ugh.
• I finally deleted over 500 ‘Server Down’ text messages from my phone this weekend. It’s really annoying, because each message is given a unique ID from which it comes – so it’s not like I had 500 stacked messages – I had 500 individual messages that required me to click “Edit” then “Delete” 500 times. It was a good time.
• I’ve got to do some shopping this weekend – would love some ‘live feedback from the dressing room’ – if anyone is interested. I really suck at clothes shopping and I *gotta* do this!

That’s pretty much all I got right now. I’m working on my second cup, about to go take a shower and then head into the office a little early.

Yay @ Good news tho – super excited

*Today’s blog title is brought to you by my inability to think of something meaningful to title this post

I had a dream on Friday night/Saturday morning that I think I’ll need to ‘get off my chest’ in order to get over the horror of it.

It started like this:

Before I went to sleep, I noticed I had a bit of breast tenderness. This isn’t totally uncommon for me right around my cycle, and I was getting close…so I knew that’s what was going on. But, breast tenderness (like, don’t touch me, ouch!) was the first ‘sign’ of pregnancy that I noticed when we had our loss in 2007. So naturally, I ‘went there’.

I go to sleep and I don’t really remember what lead up to the actual horrific part of the dream, I just remember being told I needed to take a pregnancy test, being handed one and going into the bathroom to complete my task.

So, I’m sitting there, all done, the test is sitting on the sink counter and the old man walks in and says, “Alright, let’s see what we got here” and he takes out a calculator and one of those big markers you can mark on glass with (like from that show Numb3rs) and he starts writing some random math problem on the mirror.

I’m trying to figure out what he’s doing while at the same time trying to look over his shoulder to see the results of my test when I discover, much to my horror, that the test display has some sort of complex mathematical equation in the little test results area.

He’s trying to do the math. I’m freaking out, because not only would pregnancy not be a good thing…I suck at math and no I don’t know how I’ll ever find out if I’m pregnant.

Anyway, the old man completes the problem and we get what we think is the answer (16, for those who are wondering) but we don’t know what it means. So what do we do? Well, we go to the internet of course.

He’s researching online, I’m asking all my friends on IM/via Twitter what the answer is or what it has to be to mean “yes” or “no” and everyone is giving me different answers…but the one that stuck with me was someone telling me that 15 means I’m most defiantly not pregnant and 16 means I totally am – maybe.

I’m freaking out because I can’t understand how one tiny little number can make such a huge difference.

I keep looking down at the pregnancy test, which by the way, has gotten HUGE at this point, because it seems like the math problem is growing, and I don’t know what to do.

Anyway – I suspect this all comes from my real fear of getting pregnant, the fact that my son is turning 16 this year and the endless laughing at the digital pregnancy test commercials, which indicate women can’t read pregnancy tests…*sigh*

As for a medical update, I’m doing ok. My numbers are falling, some. I still haven’t gotten to that 10% that the Dr. was talking about last week, but the fact that their falling is good enough for him I guess.

We haven’t talked at all about what I can expect next. He seemed pretty frustrated by this setback.

I’m back to visiting the lab only twice a week. I like that better. My next visit to the Liver Disease Center is Monday the 26th.

I go to the dermatologist on Monday (tomorrow) to try to get a handle on this eczema issue.

All in all – I’m hanging in there. I may look like a zombie, but I hear that look is totally in

With the increase in medication, comes an increase in the nasty awesome side effects.

• Super oily skin (it is as disgusting as it sounds).
• 5 o’clock shadow – which can be misleading – because the vast majority of my new beard has become ‘ingrown’ so I have this chin full of OUCH.
• Zits in strange places – like, the one on my chest. That’s a neat little surprise.
• Fred Flintstone like square feet from swelling. Yes…I’m that damn sexy.

This is in addition to still feeling all the wonderful symptoms of the disease itself, like:

• Being yellow – having to match clothes to your skin is not something I ever thought I’d have to do.
• Itchy skin – lots of itchy skin.
• Eczema flare ups that open up and bleed – the most awesome part of this one is, they’re on the back of my thigh – so they do it and I have little blood spots on my clothes back there – it looks like I’ve been shot with buckshot. It’s a good time.
• Sleeplessness – this is my favorite, by far. I love going to bed and waking up every hour and not being able to get back to sleep for half an hour.

So let me draw you a picture:

I’m a yellow mess, with ingrown hairs on my chin and neck and bags the size of steamer trunks under my eyes. I can barely sit down for longer than a few minutes, due to the pain from the eczema on my left leg, but at least walking will be comfortable, because the only shoes I can stuff my Fred Flintstone feet into are my house slippers.

I know, sexy right? You know it’s hawt.

It’s days like today when I wish someone would say, “You know Brandy – this must totally freakin suck – why don’t you work from home with your feet up – they look like they hurt and you look like crap.”

That would not upset me folks…I do look like crap.

Well, we got the bedroom all painted. It looks fantastic, it really does.

But, depending on what you have in the room – it has a blue hue to it. This is very much not good, considering my color scheme is white, black, gray and green.

*sigh*

So, here it is. Keep in mind, I’ve still got some things to do. Obviously, I’m not going to have a maroon colored lampshade in there and I’m going to buy new shams/pillow cases. I also haven’t hung a single picture on the wall…well, except the black mirror above the bed.

I also need to do some nick nack shpoping – plus, we’ve got to get a book shelf for the big empty wall on the one side of the bed.

Here, take a look – tell me what you think:

As I was saying, disregard the lamps, the wrinkles in the pillow cases and the fact that there doesn’t seem to be much to it. The blanket is new – it’s like a pretty granny smith apple green. I also recovered the headboard – it was covered in brown/blue, but now it’s an all black brocade-like fabric. It’s really pretty.

Here, this is the fabric on the headboard:

Here is another view from the other side of the bedroom.

Here is the ‘head on’ view from the foot of the bed.

I think I like it. I’ve never really finished my room. We’ve gotten started a few times, but I usually end up frustrated and I quit. We are planning on getting rid off the crappy floor lamps – we’re thinking ceiling fan?

Also – as far as bed side lamps – how would hanging pendent lights look hanging over the night stands? We’d have to hang them then run the cord down behind the curtain – so I’m not sure. Thoughts on that idea?

If anyone has any tips/advice – that’d be great.

I’m going to hang some of my personal photos on the walls…but it looks like the one photo that inspired this color scheme isn’t actually going to work out, unless I opt to use black and white photos – which is still very much an option.

As for the medical stuff – I’m doing ok today for the most part. I’m super tired and I’m looking forward to my ‘day of rest’ tomorrow. No news really – the Dr. hasn’t called me since Friday – so I assume I’m doing ok number wise