An Attitude Of Gratitude

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It may seem a little silly for me to keep commenting about how well my body is responding to this arthritis medicine. For the last six months to a year I've had this knot appear on the lower side of my wrist right below my thumb. I don't know the name of it. My sister-in-law came by with her twin grandsons today, and she has seen the knot before. She told me something I didn't know. My mother had rheumatoid arthritis.
she had these sorts of knots, had them surgically removed, and they came back.

The first prescription medicine the rheumatologists at the VA Hospital in Durham put me on is called methotrexate. It helped with the pain and swelling a lot. The doctor who put me on methotrexate eventually told me I'd be taking it for the rest of my life. Methotrexate didn't make the knot on my wrist go away. My first rheumatologist graduated and is now in private practice in Fayetteville.

I was assigned another doctor who is an resident at Duke University Hospital, and he and his supervisory doctor will be my rheumatologists for the next four years. They upped the dosage of the methotrexate (which was designed for cancer patients, but was found to do good things for rheumatoid arthritis also) and started me on a drug used for treating malaria and it has "quine" (as in quinine) as part of it's name.

This drug in addition to the methotrexate reduced the size of the knot on my wrist a great deal. It's still visible, but someone would have to be looking for it to really notice. It doesn't appear to have stopped getting smaller. Maybe it will disappear altogether without surgery. Frankly, the cosmetic look of it was merely a curiosity to me. Mostly because of my age. This knot going away ain't gwine make me one whit more attractive to the ladies, just as it didn't keep them away in droves when it was more noticeable.

The most remarkable thing is that my joints are smaller than they have been in decades. I must have been dealing with rheumatoid arthritis for years and years without realizing it. I did a lotta yoga and meditation and shined it on. I've been suspicious if not actively aware that I appear to tolerate pain easier than many people, but that's because it has crept up on me incrementally.

In reflection of how long this may have been going on, it speaks even more highly of the beneficial affects of meditation and hatha yoga. I didn't realize how close to the edge of some harsh physical realities until I had that pot hole mishap in South Dakota on my way to visit the Black Hills, and ruptured a disc in my lower back.

I didn't know I had ruptured a disc for at least six months to a year after the accident happened, but it interfered with my yoga practice immediately, and that discouraged me so much that I stopped meditating too. I was popping too many pain pills. The same ones I have on prescription presently. After the surgery the pain went away, I stopped taking the pain pills without a problem, and I really gotta be hurting to take anything for pain now.

I'm not really hurting that much. Just the normal aches and pains of getting old. I spend hours each day practicing the scales on the piano, and the chords I'm trying to take possession of by rote repetition and redundancy can be tiring for anybody. I get tired, but not overly so, and only occasionally at that.

Some of the positive attitude may have to do with the Prednisone steroids the new doctors prescribed to me. It seems a little odd. They claim to be "weaning me off Prednisone by prescribing me more of than I've ever had. I started on this series of steroids just as the normal procedure seems to be. I took 5 five milligram tablets a day for five days. Then, 3 five milligram pills a day for five days, then two for five days, but the different part is that they have me taking one 5 milligram tablet a day until my next appointment which is November 2nd.

The way they handle my case at the VA Hospital in Durham has really been helpful. The VA Hospital is literally right across the street for the Duke University Hospital. I don't know the actual arrangements between the two hospitals, but I know the VA gets the Duke doctors under that arrangement. Technically, I'm assigned to a resident doctor who is studying rheumatology as a specialty. I don't know whether what they're doing is called being in residence or being an intern. They've already done everything they are required to do as a family doctor, now they're specializing.

Each time I'm kept an appointment there the in-training doctor does all the procedural stuff, but when he's done (it's been two male doctors so far, and both supervised by a female rheumatologist), they discuss my case right in front of me in their role as student/mentor. If I were to learn the medical lingo, I might be able to understand everything they're saying. I don't wanna know. I'm grateful for the results they're conjuring. What else matters?

This brings back an old question with me. My question is not how much longer I have to live, but what if I do live for a lot longer than I ever expected, and what will the quality of life be for me if I do live a long time? Presently, but the way my body is responding to these very powerful drugs, the quality of life I have is pretty good. That could change at any moment, but I am grateful to be in less pain than I've been for a really long time.
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