First of all, I have to say that I am so sorry that I've been away from this blog for so long. I have been wrestling with my Crohn's and with getting medical insurance and landing on the tables of two new doctors, Dr Brian Mulhall, who is my new gastroenterologist (and a total hottie, not that I noticed) and Dr Tanya Wilke, who is my new Primary Care Physician, or PCP. Dr Wilke is also pretty awesome, a nice young gal who doesn't throw around any BS about my weight and assume that everything "wrong" with my health is somehow related to my size.
She is aware that I don't have diabetes, or high cholesterol, or hypertension (high blood pressure) or cancer, or any of the other ills that are said to be caused by being 110 pounds overweight.
She is also aware that I work out at least 3 times a week at a local gym, that I can't have dairy, eggs, nuts, onions, garlic, green beans, strawberries or oatmeal in my diet, because they cause me to have a flare and/or an allergic reaction that makes me stop breathing. Dr Mulhall is also aware of these allergies and he and I have talked about how difficult it is to eat healthy when I have Crohns and allergies. My Crohn's goes crazy whenever I eat raw fruits or vegetables, and there are veggies that, even cooked, (broccoli and cauliflower are the two that spring to mind) make my intestines go crazy and cause me pain and suffering in the bathroom. Doc M has asked me to try being gluten-free for a week, to see if that helps any, and though I managed three days, I was sick with some kind of flu, so my gut was a mess regardless of what I ate. And I wasn't hungry, so it wasn't as much of a problem to try and find gluten free foods that don't also have dairy or eggs or nuts in them.
Anyway, Dr Mulhall had recommended that I start on a new steroid that was specifically for IBD called Uceris, but my new insurance won't pay for it, and it costs $50 per pill, so two weeks dosage would run around $1,600, which is just not affordable for a family living on one income like ours. However, when I went to see Dr M last, I had the flu and I was so ill that I could barely sit up, so he just threw a lot of things at me and then recommended that I go home, drink Nyquil and get some rest and wait until I was well to even attempt to try any new medications. Then, while I was recovering from the stomach flu and an upper respiratory infection that followed close on its heels, Dr M had a family emergency and his nurses said he would not be back for three months! And instead of leaving another gastro doc to take over his patients, he left us with a nurse practitioner.
After going to see the nurse practitioner, and expressing my deep loathing of all the side effects of steroids that I ALWAYS get when I take them, (including weight gain, which doesn't come off as easily as it did 30 years ago), she agreed that we should get started with the process of getting me on Remicade, which is where Dr M said that my "plane was eventually going to land." However, I've had to have blood tests to ensure that I don't have tuberculosis or Hepatitis B, the latter of which I was vaccinated against in 1995. Apparently, vaccines don't always last, though, so my blood showed no immunity to Hep B, and now I have to go in and get the three shots to vaccinate me, and since my bloodwork was inconclusive about TB, I have to have a chest x-ray tomorrow, too. Ugh.
But! I have hopes that I will, before the end of March, be infused with Remicade at St Elizabeth Hospital. Here's hoping that it works, and doesn't make me paralyzed, like it did my brother, or very allergic, as it did a friend of mine.
Meanwhile, I have been reading lots of size positive blogs lately, and this one came up today on Facebook, which I found fascinating. http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/sex-in-a-fat-body/
Also, this is about the kerfuffle with Target phasing out their Plus-Sized Clothing Dept (and do not get me started on Old Navy being sizest jerkwads when they opened a store in downtown Seattle, and I was turned away at the door because the clerk standing there took one look at me and said "There's nothing in here that will fit you. Move along.") http://jezebel.com/the-mysterious-disappearance-of-targets-plus-size-sect-1535188141?utm_content=buffer7e6a7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
