Accommodation

Fun fact: I AM A GIANT NERD.

You already knew this. Probably. Almost definitely. If not, welcome to me; I’m a giant nerd.

Most every Wednesday, I play a table top role-playing game with a group of guys that have become good friends. We are virtual murder hobos, adventuring and killing monsters and arguing amongst ourselves about which monsters need killing, and it’s a lot of fun. I absolutely adore the group. The only hitch at all is that my stupid disease gets in the way a lot – I’ve had to miss a lot of games because of appointments, or a couple of times I’ve fallen and hurt myself, or sometimes my mana is just too damn low to deal, or once or twice Sadbrain said nope. Luckily, they’re very cool about me missing games; they understand. We had a talk once to just make sure that it wasn’t that I was not enjoying the game but was too polite to say so, so I was making excuses; once they were assured that I absolutely enjoyed the game but my disease is stupid, we were all good.

Part of that hitch is getting to the place we game. It used to be at the storyteller’s house, which had two steps and no rail. It was…not fun getting inside. Luckily before that became an impossibility, we switched to another player’s house, which has just one step. Much easier. Still an effort, and some days a Herculean one, but better. This last Wednesday, I had low energy, and I sarcastically complained to J as we were heading over, “Tim needs to get a fucking ramp.” If J didn’t drive a little car, I’d probably have bought one of those portable ramps to just carry around with us for these occasions. It would definitely make things easier. I’d never actually expect someone to modify their home for me, obviously. But some days it probably would be the final straw in deciding if I had the energy to go to to game or not. Stupid disease.

We pulled up to the house, and everyone was standing around outside, which was…odd, because it was cold as hell. We usually start game at 5:30, but we were told tonight was a late start, so maybe everyone had just gotten there. I got out of the car, and they all kind off…turned to face me. Matt, the storyteller, told me that they all understood that I had hella circumstances and that it made it really hard for me to get to game sometimes. For a moment, I thought, “OH shit, they’re kicking me out of game because I’m unreliable. Well, I can’t really blame them.” He continued to say that they really appreciated the effort I made to show up, and that they all wanted to make sure that I’m able to continue doing it for as long as I can, so…they all parted to show me something behind them.

Guys.

GUYS.

THEY BOUGHT ME A FUCKING RAMP.

To get in to the house. A ramp. For me. And they even put stickers all over it.

For me.

One of the worst things about acquiring a disability is feeling like you’re a burden. Your friends and family have to make plans around your diminished abilities, suddenly old traditions have to be abandoned. Even though everyone insists – INSISTS – that you’re fine, they want you there, they’re happy to make the changes, you can’t help feel guilty that they’re missing out on cool things because of you. A lifetime of Sadbrain convincing me that I’m not worth the effort in the first place does not help the matter, and I’ve worked my whole life to make that voice be silent, with very mixed results. In the meantime, events are missed, changes are made, things are rearranged, and my friends and family do their best to accommodate me and tell me it’s alright.

Funny word, accommodate.

It can mean providing sufficient living space, or making a compromise, or adjusting to something new. It means somehow going out of your way for someone. In my world it’s usually got a slightly cynical sister word attached, “reasonable”, when dealing with work and places of business. Reasonable accommodation. Legally doing the absolute bare minimum in order to convince ADA enforcement laws that you’ve done …something. (I’m a little bitter, yes)

When it’s your friends, though, and you know they sure as shit didn’t HAVE to do anything, that they made an effort because they legitimately want you around, and here is absolute proof? Yeah I totally teared up. It was an amazing thing. A selfless thing. An important thing.

It makes dealing with it easier. It makes being alive easier.

It makes it WORTH it.

Welllp

Good thing we’re gonna go ahead and do the port; when the dressing was swapped out Thursday, my skin was all KINDS of pissed off. I was pretty sure I was having at least a mild reaction to the adhesive, because surely it shouldn’t be THAT itchy? Apparently no. It should not.

Soo we are trying a different adhesive that doesn’t adhere as well, I’m finding, and we will hopefully get the port installed soon.

Stuff Keeps Happening

So! Today is the last day of the first run of Radicava. I’m confident at this point that any side effects are tolerable, and I want to continue. The only potential things I’ve noticed is that there MAY be an uptick in the frequency/severity of my headaches, but it’s nothing I can’t tolerate, and there’s been a few times when there’s been a weird panick-attacky feeling, where my heart is beating in my throat, but that always goes away. Labs will be drawn to make sure I’m not experiencing anything serious, of course, but my own internal feeling is that everything’s GO for continuing.

Whether this is even doing any good, I won’t know until March, the next Clinic Day. But it’s not hurting anything, so we’ll keep it going. This also means I’ve asked to go ahead with the port install. It will be a vast relief to no longer have these tubes coming out of my arm that need babying, not least of which is because the adhesives that protect the PICC line itch like a MOFO.

Since my fall last Tuesday, I’ve noticed my hip hurting a bit, one spot particularly. I kept expecting a bruise to form, but it never did. Two nights ago, I was pushing on the spot, to figure out exactly where it hurt, and my fingers found a hard lump that rolled around a bit under my skin at the joint. And I remembered wayyyyyyyyyyy back at the beginning of my Godzilla Disease diagnosis attempts, how we initially thought the problem was in my hip, and then I got an MRI, and the MRI showed a small tumor thing in my hip meat. It was deemed medically uninteresting, though, and ruled out as the cause of my woes. I was told that it had probably been there, like, forever, and wouldn’t be a problem, but maybe keep an eye one things and recheck it in a few years.

I guess, yeah, it’s been a few years, so it’s time to get the dang thing rechecked. So THAT will be fun, as I can’t really get up into MRI machines these days. I’ll make an appointment soon. One more damn thing. I’m sure it’s fine, but dang, man.

I’ll let you all know when I get the port installed. 😀

Fall-ow up Post

Tuesday was not a good day.

It was the urology follow up, and the day began with a clear reminder of why the appointment was needed, followed by massively uncomfortable prep, and then the Lyft ride to the hospital. I was half an hour early, thankyewverymuch. Once inside, I don’t even know exactly what happened, only that my walker was moving faster than I was, and I didn’t have the strength to pull it back under me, and suddenly I was kneeling on the ground. Two older men noticed my plight, and asked if I needed help.

“Yes please?” The question mark was because I had serious doubts these two were going to be able to get me off the ground. Doubts well founded. They were not. A third, younger man assisted and we finally got me seated on the walker. They all left with my profuse, if a little breathless thanks. I wasn’t hurt at all. After catching my breath, I stood a little shakily (yay adrenaline!) and made my way to the urologist, who has a very heavy office door. A gentleman inside noticed I was having a hard time pushing the door open, and opened it for me.

…Only I was leaning on the door knob at the time. With my support pulled away from me, I lost my balance and landed on my back in the hallway.

Please ask if someone needs help before ‘accommodating’ them? This is the first time it’s actually caused a fall, but I’ve NEARLY been pushed or pulled off balance many times by someone trying to help. Please offer to help, but wait until I am aware of you and ready before doing the thing. Thanks.

I was surrounded by noisy, concerned people, including the really bitchy admin from last time who was actually quite sweet this time. One of the people who helped me up this time was one of the same older gentlemen from before. “If I’d known you were coming here, I’d have waited with you.” We got me seated again, and I was left to rest in the lobby, blissfully left to my own devices once everyone was sure I was OK.

The appointment itself was…uncomfortable. All sorts of probes and wires were inserted or otherwise attached, then my bladder was filled and i was instructed to bear down. Nothing leaked, which in retrospect was hardly a surprise because it’s only when I get UP that problems happen, but I didn’t have the presence of mind to point that out. The wires were disconnected, the doctor came in and looked at my results, and…instructed me to pee more often.

That’s it.

That’s her whole plan. Just get up every three hours and pee, maybe you won’t leak. Oh and keep doing those Kegels with muscles you no longer possess. She clearly does not speak ALS.

I left angry and frustrated, and took a Lyft home, only to find Amazon had delivered a package while I was gone. Right in front of my door. My case of Monster. My very heavy 24 count case of 20 ounce cans, right in front of the door. Annnnnnnnnnnd in trying to move it enough to get inside the door, I uh..yeah I fell again. Badly this time. Pain shot through my previously damaged knee and my freakin’ ankle that was broken. My mom, alerted by the noise of the fall (but not the swearing, oddly enough, she didn’t hear me yell), came out to try to help, but there wasn’t anything she could really do. Once I caught my breath and got my legs out from under me, I was able to shove the Amazon box out of my way and crawl inside. It was good to have my mom there this time; even though she could in no way help me up, she was able to get the walker out of my way and put our stepstool by my bed so I could use it to haul myself up.

Thank God I had taken an ativan that morning before leaving, or I’d have been a blubbery mess. As it was, I took a well deserved nap and was pretty sadbrained the rest of the day. Yesterday I was pretty dang sore all over and worked from home. Landing on your ass three times in 2 hours takes it out of a girl.

BUT! Yesterday was also the completion of my first week of Radicava! I think it’s going well. It maaaaaaayyyyyyyy be exacerbating my headaches though; I’m keeping an eye on it. It’s been an eventful and stressy week, so hopefully the coming one is kinder and a more useful baseline. I won’t know really if the meds are helping anything until March, the next Clinic day. I’m committed to keeping it going at least until then.

So now you’re up to date, and I’m gonna go play on the internet. <3

A Rad Update

Step 1. Gather the required materials.

One box of Radicava, which contains two 100ml bags. Two saline flush syringes. One package of IV tubing. At least two alcohol prep pads. One IV pole.

If we were taking labs, or redressing the PICC line, there would be so many more components. This, though, is the minimum. There will come a time when this is routine and second nature, but for now, everything is still double and triple checked. We lay things out like we’re preparing for surgery. It’s not far from the truth.

Step 2. Wash your hands.

There’s hand sanitizer, which also gets liberal use, but there’s no substitute for scrubbing your hands with soap and hot water. I find it almost impossible to wash my hands well these days, and drying is a nightmare, so I typically opt for the sanitizer only. If your hands work, though, go wash them.

Step 3. Open all the packaging.

The box of Radicava contains two trays of 100 ml bags of medicine, each with a silica bag and a little pink oxygen indicator. We peel back the lids on the bags, which each have a plastic seal over the input valve. We leave those intact until the last minute. We unwrap the two saline syringes, but leave the caps on. We open the first alcohol prep pad and set it aside. We unwrap the IV line and hang it over the IV pole. OK. I think we’re ready.

I’m appalled every day at how much waste this generates.

Step 4. Prep the line and bag.

We close the IV line, either through the clamp or dial, depending on the tubing style. Removing the bag’s seal and uncapping the IV line’s spike, we push the spike into the gray seal on the bag as straight as possible so as not to split the bag. It takes a surprising amount of force to do this. Because the line is clamped, nothing happens yet. We squeeze the tube’s chamber to fill it about half full of medicine. Carefully, slowly, we unclamp the line and allow the medicine to flow through the tube, stopping it just before it spills out of the end. We clamp it off and set it aside, dangling harmlessly from the IV pole for now.

Step 5. Sanitize the input valve on the PICC line.

The alcohol pad is scrubbed over the PICC’s blue input valve for 15 seconds. It doesn’t have a cap, so it’s out in the open all the time, well, tucked up under the sock against my skin, and must be cleaned carefully. We let it air dry.

Step 6. Saline Flush to clear the line.

Uncapping the saline syringe, the plunger is pushed juuuuuuust a little bit to push the air out. Or, you know, accidentally create a beautiful arc of saline in the air if you push too hard. The syringe is then coupled to the blue port on my PICC, twisted in place to secure it, and the saline injected a push at a time, to the rhythm of a heartbeat. Bublump. Bublump. On the second push, I feel the cold liquid in my vein, and a moment later, I smell and taste the saline in the back of my throat. It’s a hospital smell. The rest of the syringe is injected, decoupled, and disposed of in the biohazard bin.

Step 7. Insert tubing into PICC and begin infusion.

The IV tube is pushed into the blue PICC port, the little plastic collar screwed tight to secure the connection. The tube is unclamped or undialed, and the Radicava begins to flow into my vein. It feels like nothing. It’s not cold, like the saline, it has no taste, no burning like some antiseptics and anisthetics. There is no sensation at all, and the only reason I know I’m getting medicine is to watch the IV chamber steadily drip drip drip drip…

Step 8. Swap bags when the first one is empty.

The tricky part to this is allowing all of the medicine to drain out of the bag without letting the chamber empty, which will allow air down the line. Air in the line is bad. I have remedy available, if that should happen; it’s easy enough to use a saline syringe at the bottom of the line to force liquid back up into the chamber and clear air out. But it’s best to not let that happen. We swap the bags and sit back to wait some more. This is supposed to be a 1 hour infusion, but it’s taking closer to 2. A lot of the reason for this is an extension of the PICC line we added so that I can reach the ports myself, which bottlenecks the flow AND adds extra distance for the medicine to have to travel.

I can do a lot of this myself, except the coupling of the IV line to the PICC. Both ends are very floppy and you can’t touch the ends without having to start over and resterilize. Doing all these things, though, cause my hands to cramp up a lot and then be completely useless for the rest of the day, so I happily leave it to others when I can. J’s been doing it the last couple days, which is marvelously helpful.

Step 9. Bleed the line carefully.

Once the bag is empty, we play a game of chicken with the medicine, allowing it to drain down the line until the air is allllllllllllllmost to the PICC line. We don’t want air in my line, obviously, but we also want every last drop of the insanely expensive medicine in my veins and not in the trash. Once the line’s drained as far as we dare, the line is clamped, decoupled, and the entire bag and IV line is discarded. More trash.

Step 10. Saline flush.

Hands are washed and sanitized again. After another scrub of the port, the second saline syringe is rid of air pockets, attached to the blue port, and screwed in. More heartbeat push, more cold, more hospital smell and taste. Yummy. The syringe goes in the biohazard bin, even though it never really touched my fluids. Quite the opposite.

Step 11. Redress and cleanup.

We’re done! Everything is thrown out, the IV pole is collapsed and stowed, and the PICC line is coiled up and tucked under the itchy fishnet sock around my arm keeping everything covered.

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Today will be day 5. Fortunately, it is not time sensitive in application like an antibiotic might be, so as long as I do it sometime on that day, it’s fine, it doesn’t need strict scheduling. Last night’s dose began around 8; tonight will be closer to 10 or 11, my first ever dose was 9 AM. For the second round, I have to do 10 infusions over 14 days, and I can also pick and choose dates and times. If I want to do Monday through Friday and skip weekends, I can. If I want to do all 10 days up front and get it done, I can. It’s up to me.

The main problem I’ve had so far has been dealing with the PICC, in that it’s inconvenient as hell (I miss showering – I can only shower if I take these huge complicated precautions to wrap it all up watertight and I just can’t pull it off on my own) and itchy AF. The bandage tape is itchy, the sock is itchy, the lines are tickly and like to snake their way out of the sock and say hi to the world from under my sleeve. It’s convenient as hell for not having to have an IV poked in every single time, but everything else about it sucks. I’ve already decided to get the port-a-cath installed once I’m done with this round.

I’m tolerating the drug just fine. I *think* it’s exacerbating my headaches, but nothing unbearable, and it may be causing night sweats, but I have to research that to find out if it’s even a thing that might happen. Otherwise I’m doing good. We’ll find out in March if it’s affected my decline in the least bit.

So that’s everything so far about radicava, darlings. It’s going well. I’m still terribly excited about all of this.