Thursday, April 24, 2008

The New Job and of Course the MS!

Well its been awhile since I have written, lots of stuff going on with my new job and of course the MS. I will start with the new job first since that is good news. I just got done working a 6 day stint at twelve hours a day;It was difficult but I made it all the way through. I really like my new job, there is more chemistry experiments involved with it compared to my last job. There was really only 3 types of equipment I used at my last job, where at this job there is more like 40 types. I have only gotten to work on about 12 I will be training for the next 6 months and then I get a four dollar raise, can't beat that. I am going to really enjoy this job because so much of it is lab work not just theory. The lab classes is what I succeeded in college, so I am doing really well. I have been training for 7 days and I am pretty much doing almost everything on my own, however I am still asking questions to make sure I am doing the procedure correctly.I know this will be my last job. I have no reason to leave, the benefits are great and so is the money. I do not want to go through anymore medical evaluations to get another job, I probably woud not pass. On to the MS.

Things have not been going as well as I would have liked. My last shot of Avonex was March 15 to be able to go onto the Tysabri. Ever since I went off the Avonex my headaches have come back and I am having more problems with my left foot going numb. I had all the consultations last week to be able to go on the Tysabri, now there is the issue of insurance. I have insurance with my old company still until April 30, and I am suppose to have insurance with my new company starting the day I was hired, but they can't give me any information until May, so I should have stayed on the Avonex and waited till everything was approved. On top of all that my doctor wants me to figure out what is going on with my right side pain and other issues having to do with my GI track before I go on the Tysabri. I have an appointment with a GI doctor next Thursday, so hopefully they will know soon. I had another shot of Avonex last night hopefully to help with my symptoms. It works it just isn't working as well as the doctors had hoped. He didn't want me off medicine for more than 4 weeks. I can already tell being off of it for this amount of time is causing problems. I definitely know that being off medicine is not a good thing. Its scary when you wake up and you can't feel a part of your body because it is so numb. I know this right side pain has nothing to do with the MS directly, but I do think it may be the cause of whatever is wrong with me. People reading this are probably wondering how I am working 12 hours with being in pain; well I am now so use to pain I ignore it and I try to forget about it. this seems to work until I sit down or get home. I wake up in the middle of the night a lot because I move wrong and the pain gets worse. I am tired a lot, but the Provigil got me through this 6 day stint. I swear it is like I am a normal person when I take it. I don't feel tired and I can do my job without being completely exhausted. Hopefully I will be able to start the first round of Tysabri during my 6 day week off May 16th through the 21st. All the insurance issues should be cleared up, and hopefully the GI issues will be resolved. Not much else is going on, I will give an update when everything has been resolved.