Things are pretty bad

Tuesday turned out to be a pretty important day.  I went to see my new apartment at Prices Fork and it looks fine.  The one problem I brought up is that there are no screens on the windows and that is important.  I told Heather Hodges I need at least one and two (for each of the rooms with windows would be best).  She is going to bring it up next week.  It shouldn’t be too hard to have a small frame built that would take care of the problem.  

      The bigger concern was my meeting with Dr. Trivedi and that was really a setback.  She explained that my numbers were slightly worse and that my case had turned into a refractory or difficult case and that meant that the prednisone was not working as expected (my dosage should be increasingly lower) and that is why she put me on 20 mg instead of the 12 and ½ I was on.  She offered me several options for an alternate drug but the best one seemed Prograf, a kidney transplant drug, that has to be strictly monitored and of course can have a lot of dangerous side effects.  I started on it that evening and will take two pills a day at about 9:30 am and pm.  I also need to start taking iron since my iron level is very low.  Trivedi thought much of my anxiety is coming from the move and from my returning to teaching in January.  I think it is mainly due to the prednisone but I’m not fully sure.  I did get another blood shot and it didn’t hurt much and hopefully it will increase my energy some.  I was really down about the visit and my relapse, but I did have a few laughs when I visited the Gallows.  Lou seemed pretty down but he has his own stuff to go through.  I did ride my bike along the river so that was a good break and some good exercise.   I also helped Mary with some of her packing.

Wednesday was the start of my new situation and I can’t say it was very pleasant.  I slept pretty good by using the nebulizer but when I got up I was very low energy.  I did my knee exercises, did a slight bit of packing, practiced the songs, rode my bike for 35 minutes.  None of it felt very good and I took half a valium to make me feel less anxious.  I went over Mary’s to help her pack more and then I came back for a real nap of over an hour then went back to Mary’s to help pack a little more and to socialize with her while she made bread.  I ordered a pizza and salad for us and then we played a game for an hour and I headed to Kroger for some grapes and clementines for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving at Glenda’s, then I chatted with Dave for a while and he seemed to be doing rather well. 

Thursday has started out pretty anxious and I am hoping that I can get out of the terrible funk I am in.  I am really down about my health stuff.  I talked to three people this morning, my sister Judy, Rob, and my sister Roberta, and I broke down talking to all of them.  I just feel lost, anxious, tired, just pretty awful.  Talking with Lou did help me quite a bit since we are both in a pretty deep hole and we are both doing well talking.  I did get my knee exercises in and I did go for a bike ride, for the first time since the asthma attack going up the smallest hill twice.  I then picked up some stuff for Mary and got ready for Thanksgiving dinner at Glenda’s.  Fortunately that turned out pretty well and I socialized okay and felt reasonable when I left around 7:30.  I took a 25 minute walk and talked to Lou again it was comforting to speak with him and he and Cathy and Maddie and Claire had a decent Thanksgiving so that was good.  I texted Gyorgyi and got a nice response and I sang three of the songs before doing a couple sets of weights and yoga.