Remicade is magical for me

I am soooo much better. I love remicade and I feel so much better that I am only taking regular strength tylenol instead of codiene tylenol. It is a miracle to me. I am in love.

This second infussion went off without a hitch. 4 weeks now until my next one. I had the pleasure of meeting an elderly lady who was there for her first infussion and scared to death about the risks of the medication. I told her how I felt about improving my quality of life so I could adequetly parent my children and get more out of life than I was before this opportunity. I also feel lucky that this medication is available to me in my lifetime. When I was finished she got up and hugged me with tears in her eyes. She told me that she was certain that she was meant to cross paths with me and I had convinced her to remember that she needed to live with a more positive attitude towards life. I'm so glad that I could help her. My world is not really unique to any other chronicly ill mom out there. I don't think. I just need to remain that glass is half full attitude. Not that it's always easy. Every day is a challenge.

I can't believe how much laundry I need to do or that the Christmas trees (yes we have 2) need to be put up and on and on and on. Not to even mention the tiny dent I've only begun to put into the Christmas shopping. At least this year I will do it feeling better than last year. Putting one foot in front of the other is a little lighter than last year and that is the most wonderful Christmas gift ever.

Hopefully soon my colon will stop bleeding and I will no longer be enemic. The sight of so much blood is always sooo unnerving but that in itself is a bit of a hurdle to overcome. It's only been not quite 2.5 weeks but most of what I read says about 8 weeks till possible remission. I pray it's so. I think I'll call my gastro doctor for a pep talk today. He is an amazing man who always has time for me. A ton of my symptoms are better and that's so fabulous.

If I can raise 3 kids and foster a healthy marriage through this I can do anything. Right??


Laurie

Remicade

1st infussion done. Called day 0 and then 2 weeks and 4 weeks and then every 8 weeks.

No side effects that I noticed. I was tired when I got home and went to bed for the night in the late afternoon noticing some waking with hot flushing feeling in my face. Other than that it was pain free and fine. I drove myself an hour and a half to the clinic where the infussion took place and then drove myself home.

I did notice that a week after the infussion my bowel movement was solid for the first time in years but there was a significant amount of blood still. I know that's probably way too much information for my mommy blog but the first thing I did was go to good old google for some info on response to treatment times and could find nothing. So if I help one poor scared person out there just starting remicade then well it's worth it.

Unfortunately my 9yo daughter Courtney woke up with a lovely vomit fest of the flu yesterday morning and I now have it. Not really cool when your immune system is trying to infuse with a new drug and you cannot even get said drug if you have the sniffles. Soooo needless to say I feel like crap warmed over and pray it's completely cleared up for my next infussion this coming Wednesday.

Oh and I've managed to cut my T3 usage in half since starting the remicade. That speaks volumes to me. I still feel kinda yucky but the degree of yuck is much less I guess. I used to go for the tylenol when my sides were burning so bad and my back could not stand another minute of pain and everything just hurt all over. I would be near tears and now it's just way easier to get through the day. The inflamation in my body must be decreasing. It has to be for the pain to be that much less.

I am very pleased and only one infussion in. Goooo REMICADE!!!!