Is it the answer?

I have hurt my shoulder badly. Today, I can vividly picture the bone scan with the arthritis in my neck and going down. I did a bit of ironing Tuesday to Thursday and I paid bitterly for my choices. Shoulder still sore. I will go buy Transact patches and go back to those days when the nurse giving me the anti inflammatory injection told me she fully understands why I have pain patches all over my body. 🙂

BUT on the other hand! Rinvoq is DEFINITELY the best treatment we’ve tried. Finally after eight long months of testing it, it is finally providing relief. I still stumble because my foot drops as I walk, so something is still fusing BUT the pain!! For three days now, I haven’t gotten up and raced to the pill box to get my pain meds! Usually, I lie awake waiting for a suitable hour to take the first pain pill of the day, knowing that if I take it too early at 4am, the effect will then go away too soon and you can’t be on excruciating pain while parenting. So you’ll lie in excruciating pain when everyone except their running father, is asleep.

I haven’t done that. I haven’t even taken my tablets until later to stop the pain from STARTING. Like today, I was up at 4:20am because that’s when the children’s father makes noise getting ready to go run for three hours or more, but I wasn’t in pain. I could study my Bible and pray. No pain!! No pain!! Can you believe I had no pain at all except for my shoulder and the ruined right leg where my bone meets the pelvis at the back??

I’ve walked around and done laundry and all and only at 7:40am did I take a tablet when the pain started whispering. I haven’t used all my daily muscle relaxant (and painkiller) tablets in a week! I have more energy.

I have more energy.

I cannot believe how I feel waking up not feeling like I’m dragging cement stuck to my bones. I am not stiff either. I can walk without feeling like a tin man! I can’t believe how much better I feel. The pain is still there. But it’s bearable!

“And in the afternoon? What about the 4pm wall you hit where you just want to cry from how the pain has been building and you need to lie down for the rest of the day?” you ask.😜My answer is, ‘that end of the day, I’ve been enduring and trying to live with the pain but now I can’t anymore’ level of pain and built up exhaustion is not coming at 4pm anymore. It’s at 6pm that my body gives up.

It could be Rinvoq. But as I type listening to the children screaming at each other and fighting outside, what if it’s because I haven’t taught formal school for two weeks? What if THIS is what my rheumatologist knew I’d feel when she told me last year to stop teaching?

If this is because of not teaching, and not because of the Rinvoq, then even more am I saddened at the response I got when I told the children’s father that I need to “go on disability leave.” The “Is she crazy?” hurt back then. It would hurt even more if my extreme suffering is caused by something doctor and I both begged for and were stopped from doing.

Let’s see what happens when I resume teaching. For now, I’ve only been teaching Bible.

I promise not to kill myself ironing ever again.😅