Updateish

School is going well. I was planning on going for a Veterinary Technician degree, but I'm changing to Psychology. The good thing is that I won't lose any credit's that I've taken so far because I would have needed them for the Psych degree :o)

I stopped taking my Avonex when I found out I was accepted to college. The shot alone was hard enough for me to handle, both mentally (cause I hate needles) and physically (with the damn side effects). The funny thing is, that since I stopped taking it I've gotten a little more of my appetite back than before and the pain and spacticity in my leg has gotten better. It's still there, but it's gotten better. The *ONLY* thing that worries me, is that I've been having these little bouts of feeling light-headed, dizzy and naseous. It's happened about 4 times in the past 2 weeks so far. I dunno what it is, but we'll see what happens I guess.

As for the MRI - My last MRI was done in September and right after that I got on the Avonex. I had another MRI done in January, and I stopped taking the Avonex the week before. Even though I was on the medicine there were multiple new lesions on the MRI that was just done as compared to the one in September.
For the Spinal Tap - There were OBands present... a lot of OBands.
The verdict is in. Jury Says: "HAHA YOU'RE FUCKED! YOU GOT MS!"

My mom is an evil psycho b!tch. After my last Spinal Tap I ended up with a spinal headache again, not as bad as the previous one but it still hurt like all hell. I tried to suck it up and stick it out, thinking since it wasn't as bad as the one I had last time that it might pass. By Saturday night (my Spinal Tap was Friday Morning) it became clear that it wasn't going away, so I asked my mom if she would take me to the hospital to get the blood patch done, that way I would have Sunday to recoup and be able to make it to class on Monday morning. She refused to take me. Flat out refused. Said it was because she refused to pick up the pieces after I didn't take 100% perfect care of myself. She felt that I caused it to myself because I didn't lay completely flat after the Spinal Tap, but as I'm sure most of you can empathize with, after laying flat on your back for hours and hours on end, it makes your back hurt. After laying flat for about 5-6 hours I would prop myself up on pillows at about a 30º angle for about 10-15 minutes, then I'd go back to laying flat again. I was doing my best to keep pain minimized all around. Then it also came out that she didn't believe that I really had a spinal headache because I wasn't in as much pain as I was the time before. She also ended the conversation walking out of my bedroom (while I'm in tears) and saying "If you feel you need to go to the hospital, get one of your friends to do it. Oh, and stop crying, it'll only make your head hurt worse." with a snotty tone in her voice. I still don't understand her reasoning behind her actions, because I was going to the hospital expecting to get a blood patch... BLOOD PATCHES AREN'T FUN OR EXCITING! It's basically a Spinal Tap all over again, but this time with an extra needle stuck in your wrist.
Well, even if she didn't believe the pain I was in, I knew it, so I did just what she told me to; I got a friend to come pick me up and take me to the local ER. It took him about an hour and a half to pick me up from my mom's house, and before he got there she had done a 180º and came upstairs to ask how I was feeling. I replied that it still hurt like hell and that my friend Brian was on my way to come take me to the hospital. Well she went back to being a complete b!tch, gave me a very loud sigh and said "whatever" and walked away. I went into the living room to let my mom and step-dad know I was leaving when he got there, neither of them looked at me when I said I was leaving. I didn't get a 'goodbye' or a 'call me if there are any problems' or ANYTHING. Anyway, Brian was my lifesaver that night. Stayed by my side through everything, I can't express my thanks to him enough. I didn't get back to my moms until about 3am, went in and went to bed. In the morning when I woke up, I was doing my best to push aside all the anger I had at my mom and I went downstairs to get a cup of water. My mom & step-dad were sitting at the dining room table having breakfast, I said 'Good morning!' as cheery as I could for still being 1/2 asleep. No one replied to me right away, I shrugged it off and poured my cup of water. Then I hear my mom pipe up and say "I just want you to know, we weren't refusing to get you medical attention last night, I just didn't feel that you needed it." Aww, gee thanks mom, it's good to know you can feel my pain better than I can. I replied with something very close to "I'm sorry if my pain isn't outwardly obvious enough or bad enough for YOU to feel that *I* need medical help." She told me not to go getting all upset again, I said that I wasn't going to, which is why I was walking away, and I did just that. Thing's between us haven't been good before that, and DEFINITELY not after that, but moving on...

My dad had a Kidney Stone last year, he had been in the hospital a few times for it, and then got a really bad infection after they took the catheter (sp?) out. Well, here we are 6 months later and he was having some rather serious issues that he went to the doctor for. Come to find out he has MRSA as well as a Strep infection floating around. They have him on all kinds of antibiotics and he says he's feeling a lot better now. It just sucks because now he's all the way down in North Carolina, if he needed me to be there I couldn't. I can't afford gas to get back and forth to class (I live 15 minutes from my college), much less being able to afford driving to NC or taking a plane down there. Not to mention I couldn't get the time off from school even *IF* I had the money. When I found out about him having MRSA I was really upset, for a rather selfish reason. I mean, I'm not engaged or anything, but I couldn't stop the thoughts running through my head of 'My dad has MRSA and is highly contagious, who's going to walk me down the aisle?' What can I say, sometimes I think too much. I've done more research on it though and I know it's not like that, as long as he's not in the middle of a relapse and we don't swap bodily fluids, it would be okay.

So my appointment this past Friday with Dr. Markowitz was rather bittersweet. He told me the results of my MRI's & Spinal Tap (which I covered above) and asked me about why I stopped the Avonex. I explained, and he said he understood and then asked which drug I wanted to go on. I told him I wanted the Tysabri and he refuses to put me on it. He says that the risk is too great and that I'm too young to be taking that kind of a risk. Uhmm... hello? Last time I checked it was *MY* life meaning it was my decision to take that risk. He wants me to go on Betaseron. I can't do that, and I told him this. I couldn't mentally handle a weekly shot, much less an every-other day shot. After I refused to take the Betaseron, I asked about any clinical trials for oral meds. He got his Program Coordinator down to come talk to me and we covered the information for BG-12.

It's a medicine that's approved for psoriasis, yet has proven to be helpful for MS patients. There are 4 groups in this double-blind study:
-Low Dose BG-12
-High Dose BG-12
-Placebo
-Copaxone
The only way you'll know WHICH group you're in, is 1) if you have any type of medical problem, the nurses in the study can find out, or 2) if you're in the Copaxone group, as the medicine in the clinical trial is oral meds. It'll be 2 pills 3 times a day. I'm not very good with pills, but I'm **MUCH** better with them than I am with shots, not to mention the side effects for the oral meds pale by far in comparison to the side effects I was having with the Avonex.

I decided that I'm going to do this Clinical Trial, I have my first screening appointment scheduled for March 19th. If I get placed into the Copaxone group, I'll drop out and search for a neurologist that WILL put me on Tysabri.

And uh, yeah, thats all I got for now :o)