A lot has happened since my last real post, so bear with this, cause it’s gonna be all over the map…

The Good – Marathon Training

Last weekend I ran my 20 miles!!! This was my peak goal for training before my marathon. I’m going to do one more long run (16-18 miles…hopefully 18) and one more longish run (12-14 miles) and then that’s it… Marathon time!

The run itself went pretty well. My training buddy came up and we ran all quadrants of my town – a serious whirlwind tour including bike paths, trails, roads, and pit stops at a grocery store and a rec center (did not do good things for our time).

Mile one was hard, but it usually is. My new-found asthma was flaring a bit, despite the inhaler I’d taken before. The asthma went away pretty quickly though. Then I got into a groove and miles 3-12 were breezy. Mile 13, not so hot. Miles 14-16, feelin’ grand. Miles 16-18, the wind started blowing and I was struggling a little. Miles 18-20…REALLY AWFUL (I didn’t want to tell you that, but it’s true). Suddenly, my body started hating me – knees, outer hips, numb toes, and, man-oh-man, the bottom of my feet ACHED.

Not a great note to end on, but at least I did. The marathon’s gonna be tough, but I’m confident I’ll cross the finish line.

On another note…

I had my three month check-up with my rheumatologist.

The Good – No New Damage

My new set of X-rays show no new damage! Hooray! Gotta hand it to all those scary drugs I’m on for keeping more bone erosion and permanent damage at bay!

The Not-So-Good (I know, I said bad in the title, but I don’t want to be that negative)

My general pain and inflammation level is not approving much lately. In fact, I think it’s worse than three months ago. Remember my left wrist? Well the thing doesn’t exactly look or behave normally still… About a month after the cortisone shots, the skin where the rheumatoid nodules had been became rough and colorful (red usually, but sometimes white or purple). One time, my mom even asked me, very concerned, whether I’d burnt myself.

Aside from seemingly scarring my skin, the shots worked pretty well for awhile. Over the last month, my wrist bone seems more and more swollen. Now it’s gotten to the point where I think it’s pressing on my nerve, sending a shooting nerve pain up the left side of my hand at really fun, inopportune moments.

Given the way my skin reacted to the shots, my doc doesn’t want to treat the swelling with another shot. In the end he recommended more methotrexate. That’s right – the drug that’s freaking me out right now because of its connection to interstitial lung disease? More of that.

He did talk to me about MTX and ILD. He assured me that he reviewed my chest X-rays and doesn’t believe that just because I had ILD in the past, I am more likely to get it again. He also said the chances of getting it are very low. It’s reassuring to me that he is aware of the risks and made the call anyway.

He also said he didn’t want to put me on methotrexate-alternative luflumonide because it causes birth defects (as does methotrexate), but takes even longer to leave your system than MTX. Given that I  don’t want to give up on having kids someday yet, that reasoning sounded all right to me.

Either way, I’m still trying to get that second opinion. No appointment yet, but I sent the referral in and now I’m waiting to be approved.

The Bad (Sorry, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows…)

My doc says 10-15% of his patients are on a biologic alone and not taking it along with methotrexate. This number is really disappointingly low to me. As is the number of patients in remission who aren’t on drugs (to be honest, I didn’t even ask). I know I should be grateful that there are drugs that help as much as they do. I just don’t want to be on them for the rest of my life. This may sound negative, but I want you to know that I feel pretty good about the research being done on RA and the chances of better treatments and a cure in the (hopefully my) future.

Also disappointing is that rather than decelerating my meds because of my outstanding remission (I wished), I’m upping my methotrexate once again. I’m now up to 10 happy little yellow pills per week. This has made me majorly bummed, which brings me too…

The Ugly – The Weepies are not just a fantastically sad indie band

For whatever reason, my disappointment at being where I’m at a year post-diagnosis is manifesting itself in a major case of the weepies. Luckily, it’s mainly been reserved for my boyfriend, two close friends, acupuncturist, and therapist, but that’s too many people for this girl. The only thing left is to admit it to the blogosphere and hope that by sharing, I can cultivate some of that Kris Carr wisdom and move on with my life.

I know that things aren’t all bad. I’ve made major progress since being diagnosed. I rarely feel stiff in the morning (I think my pain scale may differ from non-RA’ers, but there was a time when mornings meant that non of my toes would bend for an hour…making walking comically difficult.), my energy and GI issues are generally much better, my feet are not nearly as swollen or painful. I’ve become a bit more of a bad-ass because now I can inject myself and know that I’m a hell of a lot more resilient than I knew before. I also am halfway to med school given all the research I’ve done… 😉

But there are these moments, like today when I struggled to zip my right boot up because my hand wasn’t cooperating, when I have trouble seeing the good. There’s like this echo chamber in my mind of negative thoughts that can drown out all logic if I let it.

I for one am not going to be celebrating the one-year anniversary of my diagnosis drowning in negative thoughts and grieving something as dumb as a zipper. I’ll be in Barcelona running a marathon and celebrating how far I’ve come. Thanks to all of you for cheering me on. Wish me luck. 🙂