Sunday, January 10, 2010

Loose ends

It's Sunday morning, I'm enjoying a cup of tea and the last of the Christmas McVitie's Milk Chocolate Digestives. Here's the round up for the week...

Jaw
The facial surgery people called back on Friday: There's no sign of active arthritis in the jaw joints, all the "destruction" is in the same state as before. That's why they said it was the same as the last CT scan.

My reaction: Destruction? Seriously? I'm hoping this is just medical speak. But I fully intend to talk about it at the follow up visit in April and ask to see the CT scan myself.

Enbrel
The pharmacy called, they are still waiting for the insurance pre-approval. How expensive is this stuff? Is Bill Gates going to have to approve the application himself?

The drug itself is interesting. It's a human creation; we'll be injecting PuffyFingers with a technological equivalent of genetically modified crops. It's humongous molecule and every easily broken; it has to be injected as it would be broken down in the stomach before being absorbed into the body. Also we need to keep it in the fridge and if travelling will have to take a cool box with us. Getting that through airport security is going to be a barrel of laughs. It also means I'll have to clean the fridge - don't ask me why keeping food in the fridge in it's present state is acceptable but keeping medication is not.

It's a weekly injection like the methotrexate. The dose will be 25mg. It's going to be in prefilled syringes rather than the powder that we have to mix ourselves - this is a good thing. We are capable of doing it but anything that makes injection day easy is a good thing.


Life
PuffyFingers is delighted that she hasn't had an injection this week. I've pointed out that this celebration is fine as long as she realises we'll have to give her an injection of the new stuff as soon as we get it.

Tomorrow the OT and I are abandoning the girls with my parents (they've been staying with us since Christmas) and are heading to Whistler for a couple of days. It's raining in Whistler which isn't fun. But it's 3 days away from work which is fun. And I'm excited about seeing final preparations for the Olympics.

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