As My Joints Turn

Tomorrow marks my 27th year in a classroom.  I’ve had many different roles over the years.  My current role is as an speech-language pathologist in a public school system.  I love what I do.  Every job has it’s positive and negative aspects.  I love my helping my students become effective communicators, but I despise the paperwork.  Alas, I do struggle to find a balance at times when it comes to my health.

Last week, I started my 8th biologic drug.  I’m back to giving myself shots.  I thought it would be easy-peasy because I’ve been giving Georgia shots of insulin twice a day for months, sadly, it was not.  The needle was a bigger gauge and I just couldn’t get it to work.  I finally found a woman on YouTube who reminded me about the 45 degree angle and BAM, in it went.  I decided to switch drugs because my last biologic was fine as long as I worked 1/2 time. When I work full-time, I didn’t feel it was supporting me enough.  So I opted to switch two weeks prior to the start of my new school year.  I took half of the loading dose last week, and in three more weeks, I’ll take the second half.  How is it going?  Um, so far, not so good.  It’s funny how you live in pain but when it changes, you forget how much worse it can be.  Right now, my pain level is around a 7-8 when I am not working.  To say that I am not nervous about starting work with pain this intense would be a lie.  I’m nervous, but I am going to try to remain hopeful that the second loading dose will make a big difference.  That is really all I can do is hope.

At least I was able to set up my offices.  Big part of the process out of the way.  Wish me luck.  Ice packs are in the freezer in case I need them tomorrow.