Kicking pain's butt

Wanna know why you haven't heard much from me lately?

It's cuz I'M GETTING BETTER!!!!!

Good things are happening, and it's all miracles. I am discovering life all over again, this time with almost no nerve pain. It is nothing short of miraculous. This medicine, "Lyrica", is doing it for me. Although I am taking a pretty high dosage, I am not having any of the side effects that I was scared of; that being sleepiness and dizziness. I am no sleepier than I used to be. In fact, I think I have more energy. I am able to do so much more. I have been tackling house projects that have been waiting for years for me to deal with. I can even sleep on my left side a bit more. It still hurts after a limited amount of time, but that time is much longer than it used to be. I feel like a person who has been very near-sighted for years, without glasses, who just put them on for the first time. It's that dramatic for me. My children can sit closer to me on the couch. You have no idea what this all means to me.

The other medicine I am taking, for the joint pain, seems to be less successful. It is called "Art-50". Dr. D (pain Dr in Jerusalem) said he wasn't sure if it'd help the deep joint pain from the PVNS, but it was his first suggestion to try. At first I thought it was working; now I think I attributed the optimism to the fact that there was such a big reduction in the nerve pain, that it seemed like everything was better.

I am going to give it a bit more time, but I still have pretty steady thigh joint pain, so I don't think the Art-50 is the right thing for that.

Pain control is about patience. It's not an exact science. But that is true of so much of the medical field, isn't it.

I'll feel better when I hear back from Prof. Meller about my recent MRI. I just want to know that things are stable, and the tumor is not growing back. Sometimes it sure feels like it is, but if he says it's not, we're going with that.

(and lets not forget about the kidney issues. Wednesday this week is the second scan. Ugh.)

I have some amazing days, and many, many good days.

We waited a long time to hear this, didn't we.

(and yes, I am slowly but surely working on my book. :-)