Pain and more pain

I had to make an appointment to see my dear old Dr B on Wednesday. I don't know if it is because I have tapered down to a low dose on the steroids, and I am not taking anything else (normally I would be on an immune suppressant as well), but I have been having all kinds of assorted pain pop up. My face still hurts, my old hip pain is back, my ribs are really tender, and what really worries me is a new pain over both areas where the kidneys are. My teeth even hurt! That, I know, is a side effect of the steroids...

It just seems my whole body is flaring up a little. It has been very hard to sleep, with all the pain and the diarrhea going on. I sure hope the Remicade will do some good, not that I have very high hopes... I think it might be time to ask for some pain killers again, I have held off for about 7 months asking for them. Pain pills scare me a little, since you hear so many scary stories of people getting hooked, but I think that would be far fetched.

I have had to take various pain pills over the years, and I have never had any problems with only taking when needed and then stop. I have however, it seems, a sensitivity to morphine when given as an injection in the hospital. It has given me an anxiety attack twice (and I have only had three attacks in my life).

But if I am going to be traveling for 24 hours I would like to have a back up plan if the pain gets really bad. I rather be all happy and over loving (that is me on "happy pill") than grumpy, cranky and ready t tear someones head off! Plus, a good nights sleep would be appreciated...

Glad

Jag satt och planerade lite på allt vi ska göra hemma på Gotland i juli, vi vill ju gärna hinna med så mycket som möjligt, vila kan vi ju göra när vi kommer hem!

Dessutom är det ju bra att kolla med den uppsjö av släktingar och vänner som jag vill träffa när det passar dem bäst, alla är ju inte på semester (även om det nog kan verka så i Sverige i juli!) Så vad som har växt fram är ett litet löst schema med saker som ska göras och personer som ska besökas! Konstigt, för normalt när jag är i Sverige så bara är jag, inget speciellt planerat, som hemma ungefär. Det är nog för att det brukade vara hemma... men mindre så numera...

Men denna gång blir det mer som en semester. Maken och dotter har aldrig varit i Sverige, och med tanke på att vi har varit tillsammans i 10 år så är det ju på tiden att K får se vart jag kommer ifrån... Det är ganska kul att planera alla möjliga "turistiga saker" att göra! En del grejer har jag inte gjort sedan jag var liten, och en del saker har det aldrig blivit av att jag gjort/besökt, som Stora Karlsö, t.ex.! Ska bli intressant...

Sista gången jag var i Sverige var sommaren 1998, vi gifte oss inte förens senare under december, så de flesta har inte ens sett mig som gift!

Året efter hade jag precis tagit examen och börjat jobba, så det var svårt att ta ledigt. Nästa sommar var jag i fullt sjå med att starta eget, så då blev det inget heller… Och 2001, ja då hade vi så mycket svenskt besök och vi jobbade mycket båda två… Och 2002 höll vi på och flyttade, och 2003 hade jag precis fått barn. 2004 hade vi just pungat ut med en hel del pengar när vi köpte huset, så då var det skralt… 2005, ja då försökte vi, men det var tufft för K att ta ledigt över huvud taget… 2006 jobbade jag på två långa projekt över sommaren, så då fick vi ju nöja oss med svenskt besök här i stället!

Och så har jag ju varit lite för sjuk sedan S föddes 2003 för att egentligen kunna ge mig iväg… Vi får väl hoppas på det bästa den här gången! Suck ja! Nu kan ju maken i alla fall inte skylla så mycket på att han måste jobba, eftersom han installerade en ny server i helgen och nu kan använda den bärbara datorn i Sverige som om han vore på sitt kontor på jobbet…

Eftersom det har gått 9 år sedan förra Sverige-besöket så känns det som om jag åker dit i form av turist. En besökare. Hu…

Sweden

Remind me again why I moved away from Sweden?

Fun & Games

If you ever need to let out some steam or just have fun with the kids, i can recommend the AirZooka! We got this many years ago, but it never stops being fun... It is a toy using simple mechanics you use to shoot off harmless puffs of air.

Airzooka - Air Bazooka

The Airzooka, air bazooka, is destined to become a classic! Airzooka has a unique hand-held system that shoots a harmless "ball of air" towards objects and people. Watch folks howl with amazement as the Airzooka, seemingly from nowhere, messes up someone's hair, ruffles shirts or just blows them away from up to 40 feet!

Drive your dog or cat CRAZY!!! Aim at squirrels with your Airzooka. Best of all, the AirZooka uses no batteries, so you'll never run out of ammo. An air bazooka, invented by Brian Walker, is a tube with a flexible plastic cover on one end, named for its appearance after the bazooka. By pulling back the cover, the person using the air bazooka draws air into the tube. When let go, pneumatic pressure snaps the cover forward, launching a massive amount of air at the target that the tube is being pointed at.

Bob the dog hates it, Stan doesn't seem to mind too much. The daughter LOVES it. great exercise for mom chasing after her!

Home movie

Since I will have a few hours on my hands stuck in a chair with a needle in my arm on Thursday, I was trying to come up with some suitable project I can work on on the laptop. I don't think I want to actually work, since I would be too frustrated if I can't get on the Internet.

But I want to make a nice movie about where we live and our home. I don't have a video camera, since our Sony Mavica store everything on CD and you can actually make up to a 30 minute movie on it. I was thinking about making several smaller segments and then put it all together using Microsoft Movie Maker, which I have on both my regular compute rand the laptop. I just don't know how to use it yet, so I figured Thursday would be a good time to play around with it and figure it out.

While I was looking through a few old movie clips I came across a little 10 minute movie I made when we had just moved into our larger apartment 5 years ago, in July of 2002. This was pre-daughter, and just look how neat and uncluttered everything was! I thought some of you might get a kick out of seeing how we used to live! I will try to post the new movie as well when I get around to making it.

Just click here to watch the clip!

Butterfly update #4

Today the weather is nice again - just a little windy - so we decided to release the butterflies. After all, they only live for 2 weeks, so we don't want them to be stuck in a little cage for any long part of that time!

We lucked out and was able to witness the last butterfly emerge from its chrysalis - pretty amazing!

Here they are, getting ready to fly off in the free:

Tropical Storm Barry

This is really odd - Tropical Storm Barry is expecting to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area between noon and 3 PM, and you would have to search really hard to find someone who is not happy about this fact!!!


A tropical storm is usually cause for great concern, since you can expect torrential rains, flooding, wind damage and tornadoes. But in this case the benefits (heavy rain BADLY needed in draught ravage Florida) outweighs the risks.

It has pretty much rained non-stop since 1 PM yesterday. Right now we are in between feeder bands. A feeder band is one of the bands reaching out from a storm, and when it moves in its clock-wise motion these feeder bands reach out light tentacles on an octopus. Meaning that in even the most intense storm you can get short periods of calm and no rain. (This is usually when you take your dog out for a walk).

I am not expecting any problems from this storm, just rain, rain and more rain! Yay!

And the fun is over...

I have very slowly decreased the dose of Prednisone every 4 weeks. As soon as I came down to 20 mg I started to notice not so pleasant symptoms coming back. Just a little bit at a time. Then last weekend I felt as if I lived in the bathroom with very bad diarrhea. This past week I have not gotten much sleep, just constantly having to go to the bathroom. I am back to my old exhausted self again. Yesterday I had some pretty bad bleeding too.

Yesterday I did manage to go for a 45 minute walk, so it is not quite back to square one. Yet.

I guess my hope is now the Remicade infusions which will start on Thursday next week, unless they re-schedule again...

This is so frustrating. I hate ulcerative colitis.

Jag HATAR ULCERÖS COLIT!!!

Butterfly update #3

We named this one Bengt.

We have butterflies! I just happened to glance over there, and three had hatched! S and I got into a mad scramble to fix them some food, since I don't know how long they have been out. The instructions said to make sugar water and sprinkle on flowers, but we don't have any flowers and it is raining outside, so the alternative was to make little balls of facial tissue and soak them in the sugar water. You can also give them fresh cut slices of oranges to drink from, which we did.

Two more are still to hatch, pretty exciting!

In case you wonder, that red stuff is not blood, just secretions from the butterflies when they burst out of the chrysalis.

We have RAIN!

It is not a huge amount, no torrential downpour, but it was enough to get us really wet when we walked the dog, and Bob even did his happy rain dance, which he only does when he gets really wet... It is not enough by a long shot, but at least there is hope! More please!

Oh, and we changed our domestic flight in Sweden, so we are now leaving at 12:20 PM instead of 10:00 AM... Hopefully the plane will be at least an hour late from Philly as predicted, otherwise I will feel bad about having paid extra to change the tickets ;-)!