My injection sites were horrible.  I have a pretty high tolerance for pain as i’m sue most people living with chronic illness do.  But the sites were not going away and keeping me up at night.  It felt like I was being repeatedly stabbed with needles.

I called Shared Solutions and spoke to a nurse.  She told me to heat the injection site for 5 minutes, then self inject, don’t ice, but put pressure on the site for exactly two minutes.

This helped SO much! The nurse explained that when you self-inject, you can go in at a 45 degree angle whereas with the AutoJect, it’s has to be a 90 degree angle.

I find that I have a lot more control over the injection doing it myself.  The nurse also rcommended that I massage the site 48 hours after, and NOT BEFORE!

Also, she was adament about not icing the site after. 

I personally have found that this has helped practically eliminate the injection site reactions, and made Copaxone a much more tolerable treatment for my MS.  Thank you to the Shared Solutions Nurses!

So, last Thursday I went for a Brain and Spinal Scan with and without contrast.

An MRI with and without contrast basically means that they take the MRI pics, inject a dye in your vein - (not painful, but you get a slight metallic taste in your mouth) - and then they take more pictures.

My Neurologist wanted to take both an MRI of my brain and my spine.

I should have started to wonder when everyone I spoke to about scheduling the MRI’s said, “Are you SURE you want to schedule BOTH at the same time?!”

Well, of course I did… Why come back twice? I’ve had a ton of MRI’s, so by now, it’s almost a nice little vacation from my 2 little one’s! They did tell me that I would be in the MRI for a while, but really, how long could it take?

I would highly recommend to anyone that has to do both that they schedule them separately! It was a terribly long time. It wasn’t the “tube” that bugged, but you have to lie perfectly still the WHOLE time, and the spine takes the longest.

By the time it was over, I literallly was crippled from the pain. My left leg was completely gone, and I had horrible flashbacks of when I lost my legs the last time.

I sat there for 20 minutes praying for my leg to come back.

It did, though not completely, but enough to get me out of there and to pick up my kids. It was really scary, and unfortunately, by Sunday, I had lost my left leg completely, and I am now using the electric wheelchair in the house. I can’t even “wall walk.”

I have been progressing for some time now, and just saw my neurologist a couple of weeks ago- hence the new set of MRI’s.

The stinky part is that my neuro can’t do anything for me. Because I am on chemo among countless other drugs, my immune system can’t handle steroids. Nonetheless, I am seing him tomorrow morning for my poor left leg as well as something weird in my arm.

I had a pulse of chemo on February 16, and now, the veins in my left arm are bulging, hard, and painful.

I called my Oncologist, and their first concern was a blood clot. More good news! Yesterday, they did a doppler, or ultrasound, and, no clot! Next was an appointment with a Physician’s Assistant as my Oncologist is out of town.

I’ve been running a fever, and my blood counts are crap because of the chemo. Therefore, he didn’t feel comfortable prescribing an antibiotic as it would drive down my blood counts even further.

As far as my veins, they are done - at least in my left arm. Apparently, this sort of thing happens from either overuse of the veins, a reaction to the actual chemo, or, in my case probably, both.

The PA knew that I was seeing my neurologist tomorrow, so he sort of “passed the buck.” But my neurologist treats my MS. He treats it well, but he’s a neurologist. He won’t even give me steroids in fear of my blood counts let alone an antibiotic. I do have a follow up with my Oncologist on April 11. Until then, the PA told me to take 600mg of Motrin 3 times a day for my arm. I suppose if he felt I would become septic he wouldn’t have sent me home! HA!

Thank you!  Thank You! Thank you!

The MS Mobility Foundation recieved a very generouos donation of $750 specifically for the fee required by the IRS  for tax exemption!  A BIG FAT THANK YOU - you are angels, and you know who you are!

That brings us one BIG step closer to being able to award money.  We are currently looking for a donation of $3,000.  This money will be used to puchase brochures that we will mail to Neurologists that focus on treating MS.

This will not only get more donors for awards, but it will advertise our website and give support for so many that need this priceless service. 

Please know that we are a completely volunteer non-profit, and every bit of help is needed.

Thanks in advance for considering us for your charitable contributions!

My my, it has been a while.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing well emotionally or physically.  I promise to write more on that another time.

I just had to check out for a bit…  But not permanently!

I started to progress, and my symptoms have gotten worse.

What I thought was a cure turned out to be just a treatment.  A viable treatment, but just a treatment nonetheless.  It blew the wind out of my sails to say the least.

In addition, we had some renovations done on the house, and I am still recovering.  I just had an MRI of my brain and spine last Thursday, we will see.  For now, I am sticking with my “viable treatment for MS” as my terrific neuro put it.