Baby Steps

I (finally) had my follow up appointment with my neurologist on Tuesday. My husband came with me, mostly because I am still not allowed to drive, but also as support. I like it when he tags along because he is one of my biggest advocates. He is all about helping me communicate with the doctors to try to move forward and find a solution to my problems.

As it turns out, there only three medications out there that can help with the neuro-pathic pain I have on my right side. I have tried all three. Amitriptyline I can no longer take because one of the side effects is seizures. Well, I already have those. Don't think I would like to have any more. Lyrica, the second one, is one I have taken before and complained about endlessly. I took Lyrica about two years ago when I was trying to finish my Bachelor's degree. I didn't like the initial side effects. It made me very loopy for a very long time, until I got used to it. Then it made me gain a lot of weight. My previous doctor took me off of it because he thought it was responsible for my memory problems. It wasn't. There was no change to my short term memory issues after we changed my medications around. Neurontin is the third medication for the pain. It isn't working at all. The Lyrica did it's job. When I think back on things, I remember being much more active than I am now. I was in less pain. Not pain free, but better off than I am now. I think that is a better place to be. So we decided to try the Lyrica again.

I have to go through the loopy stages, which I really hate, but I hope and pray that it will be worth it. One of the added benefits is that it is also an anti-seizure medication. So if all goes well, I may even have a reduction in the amount of seizures I have. It's hard not to get my hopes up about it, but it sure would be nice to be able to take myself to the grocery store, the library, the mall, my friends' houses, anywhere really. I even had hopes of going back to work, but I know that is probably not ever really going to happen. So I'll just keep on keeping on with the writing.

I got the courage up to submit two shorts to a competition recently. Mine weren't chosen, but it was fun writing them. I also participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November. I didn't make it to the desired 50,000 words in 30 days. In fact, I only wrote 6,337 but it was a lot of fun writing it. And I'm not finished, just distracted. I will complete my novel and continue on to finish my non-fiction piece as well. I am finally feeing good about things.