Well, what a week it has been. A week where waiting had finally resulted in action, and a week that finished with me feeling far from my sparkling best, but for possibly the best of reasons.
Confusing, eh?
Well the surge in positivity has much to do with a couple of things that the Seated Perspective household’s collective breath has been well and truly bated over for a while now. One of these things is of the building bent. The other, a mite more medicinal.
Access Some Areas
I’ll start, if I may, with the construction work. This is something that myself and my sainted wife, Tina, have had to be very, very patient regarding, and, as I’m talking nearly a whole years worth of patience here, you can probably add another very or two in there for good measure.
To clarify, the work in question is not some vanity project. There’s no shades of Changing Rooms or Grand designs here. It is in fact work requested from, and paid by, the local council, and it is purely and simply designed to allow me to better access my own home.
You see, the house that we bought last October, is in many respects, our dream home. It is exactly the right size for one married couple plus occasional step-daughter, and, once spruced up meant we have our very own relatively calm little oasis in the midst of life’s unremitting turbulence. It’s also bought rather than rented so it really is ours (well ours and the bank’s anyway).
There were of course little bugbears, as there will be with any new property, and chief among these were the sizeable step outside the front door and the three equally daunting obstacles that led out into the back garden. The one at the front is just about navigable, on a good day, with a bit of luck and a following wind, but I am still, almost a year later, to actually visit my own back yard.
Down Tools
However. With my shiny new diagnosis of MS (see here), the lady at the access thingy has proceeded to prod some buttock, and, this Tuesday, finally, work began. Sadly, this was also the day that work ended, at least thus far, but I guess you can’t have everything.
There is half a bridge built spanning the gap between the back steps and the raised portion of the garden which would be my main attempted destination. There’s also enough building supplies to keep Bob and co happy for a couple of months strewn across both front and back garden, alongside a cement mixer in the garage, but so far that is it. If they don’t turn up tomorrow then a phone call could well be in the offing, just to provide a gentle reminder you understand, it is, after all, difficult to complain when your not paying for the work.
So, in the absence of any burly chaps, drinking strong sweet tea and showing far too much bum cleavage we must draw a veil over matters building related and change subject. This takes us to the murky world of medicine.
For The Record
As the late, great Roy Castle very nearly sang, medication is what I need (if you wanna be a record breaker… yeah!). It is absolutely vital, in my case, to aid in the warding off of further MS attacks.
Being in the relapsing/remitting camp of MS, the great risk is not just that the symptoms I am suffering from at the moment could progress unchecked, but that I could suffer a further attack, much akin to the one I had in June. As this put me in hospital, and very nearly off the road (in both senses of the term), I’m sure you can understand that such a relapse would be less than ideal.
No, what we want is a good long period of remittance. That is, a time where there are no further flare ups, where life can start to progress in a much more predictable and manageable manner, without waiting for the MS bogeyman to jump out and rob me of some function or other.
Guided Medication
To this end, Friday saw me start a course of a drug called Plegridy (although I’ve called it everything from plegradine to plagiarism). This is a self administered drug, delivered by way of a ‘pen’ that is not unlike that used for diabetes. In my case it will be injected either into my stomach (still plenty of room there) or either thigh, and will alternate between these sites every two weeks for the rest of my life. It can reduce the chance of a relapse by up to 30%.
My first injection was guided by a Plegridy nurse, and the process is, if truth be told, neither that hard nor that traumatic. I started with a quarter dose, which probably tells you something about the strength of the stuff and my next, unguided injection will be at half a dose. I can fully understand why.
A Lot On The Side
To say that it put me on my backside would be an understatement. The stated major side effects of Plegridy are flu like symptoms and within three hours these had properly kicked in. A throbbing headache was accompanied by a general all over achiness and a raging temperature. The haunting fatigue that seems to be part and parcel of life at the moment was turned up to eleven, or possibly twenty three. I was, to be perfectly honest, zonked. Four hours of that afternoon were spent in bed, and not just dozing but in a deep and dreamless sleep.
Time has of course passed, and some 48 hours later these symptoms seem to have abated pretty much completely. A fact for which I am immensely grateful. It’s twelve days until my next Plegridy adventure and I’m hopeful that overall, the side effects will be worth it. If it reduces the chance of a relapse and maybe, just maybe, helps me to manage everyday life (a lessening of the aforementioned fatigue would be lovely) then I’ll take anything it can throw at me with a song in my heart and a smile on my lips.
I’ll be sure to keep you posted.
Until next time...
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