Toad in the Hole

August 18, 2010

Then Again,

Or maybe it’s just homegrown volcanoes.

Posted by Ron Sullivan | 5 comments already...

August 15, 2010

Ask Me About My Monoclonal Antibodies

I’m almost afraid to say it out loud (though I’ve been interjecting it into conversations when I myself least expect it) for fear of jinx.

But.

Apparently Blue Cross will pay enough of the cost of Xolair to make it within my means. I’ll theoretically have a co-pay of about $65 every three months; they’ll send the stuff to my doc’s office. There’s also the bill for the allergist’s services (i.e., sticking big loads of fluid into both deltoids every two weeks) but that’s doable too, which is not to say “cheap.” I’m getting weekly “regular allergy shots” too, four subcutaneous pokes of some of my various allergens. It mounts up. It’s worth it.

The other day I began to suspect that it’s working, though I might be being uncharacteristically optimistic. I’d spent last weekend romping with—OK, skritching and fluffing and being licked on by—assorted dogs at Len and Ingrid’s wedding picnic; then getting into the incredibly dusty stuff in the storage unit. All this, and I’d run out of both the steroid inhalers I take prophylactically twice a day. And I was nevertheless still breathing, and without great blasts of albuterol.

I’ve reloaded the steroid inhalers of course, but I’m hoping to be able to reduce those doses eventually. Between that and the perfectly miraculous work that the perfectly marvelous Jim Romano is doing on various parts of my body, I’m having flashes of hope that little things like, oh, knees and back will get back to working. Maybe even less painfully. Maybe I’ll be able to walk uphill again. Maybe it won’t even hurt.

After I’d talked to the nice lady from Whoever-Medco, which will supply the Xolair, it took the rest of the day to sink in that there was hope. I found myself in tears that night, talking it over with Joe, realizing just how terminal and depressed I’d been feeling for the past couple of years only now that I was feeling otherwise. Maybe it’s overdoing it, but I feel I’ve been handed my life back.

Posted by Ron Sullivan | 9 comments already...

August 12, 2010

“These deaths CAN AND SHOULD be avenged ... ”

“These deaths CAN AND SHOULD be avenged by the insistence of the American populace to strip corporations of their power to continually exploit the “workers” in order to gain a few more dollars of profit.”

For the specs on a too-common crime, and a situation that strikes me as familiar emotionally and politically, read the rest of the post and comment string on The Pump Handle, a Sciblogs sci blog. .

Posted by Ron Sullivan | No comments yet...