Hanging in there!!!!

So its been about a week since I went down on prednisone!  I'm hanging in there!  My muscles are sore and I have some fatigue, but all things considered its not to bad.  Hopefully I'll only have to do this one more time... and then make sure I don't stress and cause a relapse! :)

Chris was out of town this week for business so it was the first time I have flown solo since I was sick.  It wasn't fun, but I did it and got through it.  Luckily for me I have a great chick flick movie stash!  My mom comes up tomorrow... looking forward to having someone here during the day for a few days.

Hope everyone has a great weekend... I'm ready for more of that fall weather!  How about you???

Shout it from the rooftops! :)

So my week started off crazy... but ended WONDERFUL! :)  I'll start from the beginning as I had an eye appointment on Tuesday due to experiencing some pain when I wake up after sleeping.  My eye lids would stick to my eye ball... very uncomfortable and my eyes were so dry.  Anyways... long story short on a scale of 1-4 my eyes are a 3 in the dry department.  They are looking into prescription eye drops, etc. but due to the medication I'm on I might not be able to use them... so in the end I will have to have silicone injected into my tear ducts to "clog" them so I can produce tears naturally.  Sounds crazy but not too bad.  I just kept thinking though for once I would love to go to the doctor and have a normal check-up.  Although frustrating... I have to wear my glasses for a month, all in all its not too bad.

NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS!!! I had blood tests on Thursday to see if I could go down on prednisone... well I can.  Today started 2.5 mg. I'm almost off this sucker!  You're thinking... hey that's great, but even better is when they busted out that ALL BLOOD LEVELS ARE NORMAL.  This has yet to happen... I mean my CRP, CPK, White blood count, EVERYTHING!  It happened almost 2 years to the day too as to when they started testing me initially! :)  LIKE I SAID... SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS!  I cried, I screamed, and called literally my ENTIRE FAMILY in a matter of 10 minutes.  It was crazy!  I just never felt that everything would be normal.  It's hard to believe that nearly 6-7 months ago my levels were nearly 10 times the normal limit... and now they're normal.  Thank you RITUXAN! :)

I feel so blessed and what amazed me is how relieved I have felt.  I can honestly say that this is the first time in 2 years I see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Chris and I are starting to feel NORMAL!  I can start planning things as I have now become consistently healthy.  I know I will have flare ups and I won't have as much energy before, so I will have to change my lifestyle, but anything is better than the way I have felt the past two years!

Thank you all for your support through the 'bad' news... I'm so happy to finally share GREAT news with ya'll!  Chris and I are celebrating with a night out together!  Something we could barely do a year ago!

Cheers to a new phase in life!!!!

Bust a move...

Hey ya'll!  Sorry for the lack of entries but I have been SUPER busy and feeling WELL!  In the past three weeks we have had two weddings AND my parents just came up this past weekend!  So my weeks have been filled with dancing, present shopping and wrapping, and CLEANING the house! 

Chris and I went to his high school friend's, Melissa's wedding three weeks ago!  It was so much fun!  The wedding was at 2:30 and we actually (well I did) until 10:30... and I DANCED for a song.  It was great and such a joyous wedding.  The love between Cory and Mel showed through clearly during the ceremony and reception and she looked gorgeous.

Then that Wednesday I went down to Cedar Falls (where I used to live for about 6 years) and my best friend, Molly, her sister got married that Friday.  Well my mom helped to throw a bridesmaid's luncheon, and then wet up their dessert table.  It was really cute, but took about 3 hours.  Then I went and did some of the bridesmaid's make-up!  Needless to say by 4 o'clock with the wedding at 6:30 I crashed on our bed for a good hour to recooperate... good thing to because it was a dance party all night long! :)

Anyways, when I got back I had a CT scan, but I won't know the results until the end of September and then this week I go in to give blood in hopes that I'll be able to go down to 2.5 mg. of prednisone. 

Although I still have my glitchest throughout the day, I've been feeling a lot better!  Hope that all my fellow "Autoimmune" people are too!

Here are pictures from the past few weeks!

Chris and Hamed at Melissa's wedding

Me and Kristi at Melissa's wedding

My favorite Dowd girls

My mom, Chris (Molly's soon to be mother-in-law), and Me

You can tell that some of the fluid has left my face,

although not as quickly as I would of liked! :)

Dessert Tables by my Mom and Chris M.