Progress

The last few weeks have been a mix of keeping up with the doctors, trying to stay busy at home and getting some exercise. And also lessons in patience, communication and physical limitations.

First the fun, what have I been doing: I have been working on random small projects about the house and started a new quilt project that I have been obsessively working on. For the quilt project, I had to cut out over 2500 pieces. It is a double wedding ring quilt. I spent the better part of one week cutting and then sewing non-stop. But then had a nice little flare up to de-rail my progress. I am still slowing sewing the pieces together, but it is at a snails pace.

Exercise: I have attempted to get back into the pool. Swimming was always something I enjoyed, I could just jump in, swim an hour, no problems. Boy, has that changed. It was a real challenge to do 30 laps. It took me 45 minutes with lots of rests. The pool is nice, heated to a wonderful 93C. I even took an RA Foundation water aerobics class where I was the only one in the class. The steroids have helped me to regain motion, just not strenght, so the instructor advised me to take a different class to help with strength and conditioning.
And I borrowed a bike from a friend, so have been riding a few times, just 30 minutes at a stretch. Boy that is a lot of work.
Baby steps... I remember it all being easier...
I have added seeing a chiropractor and hopefully will start some physical therapy soon.

Doctor Fun: There were horrible communication issues between the first oncologist, aka Doctor B, the health insurance company and two different pharmacies. It took 2 weeks for the health insurance company to just say they would not play ball. So I had to go to a new oncologist, Doctor C, at a different clinic and re-start the process for pre-authorization with the health insurance company and get a consultation with Doctor C. The good news, was that Doctor C's office got me in right away and he was awesome! He was able to answer all of my questions that Doctor B could not answer and made me feel at ease. His clinic is great! There is even a treatment wing of the clinic, where all patients getting various treatments hang out with the nursing staff. All went well, but then we had to wait over a week for the health insurance company to say yay or nay.

Then at 7:30 am on my birthday, I got the call, the health insurance company came through! ALL WAS APPROVED!!! What a great birthday present! I went to go make my phone call, to schedule my treatment, only to find out that I have to take a chemo teach class before I can schedule my treatment. So I scheduled my class for this past wednesday, along with 2 other doctors appointments. And during my chemo teach class, the nurse told me the clinic had my drug and was waiting for me. I was shocked to say the least. What?! I could have done this today?? So I went back and met the nurses and re-scheduled my treatment for this friday, tomorrow. And I am scheduled for my second treatment in 2 weeks.

Tomorrow is the big day. They are estimating 5-7 hours of fun for the first Rituxan treatment. I am nervous, but glad to be on the schedule and get it over with. I am prepared, I hope. Made some cookies to bring to snack on, got my bag-o-string cheese and am making a fresh loaf of bread so I can have a sandwich or two. Traded iPods with my brother so I could watch movies, have a few good books to sink my teeth into, and a new knitting project. Hopefully that will keep me busy tomorrow and keep my mind off of what is going on.

It is only one day, it will be over before I know it. And I will be hopefully feeling better soon. Plus I get to start cutting back on the prednisone.