The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Yikes, 11 days since last post.  Clearly  I’ve slacked off for a little while with the blog.  My house, on the other hand, is looking much cleaner and I got a bunch of updates done on my website.  Everything’s a tradeoff, I guess.

Lots going on this past week.  SB left her first drops of blood on the pavement at Freedom Park.  Kurt and I celebrated three years of wedded bliss.  We all (and I mean “all” as in the whole population of Mecklenburg County)  celebrated another festive St. Patrick’s Day with a crazy long parade in Charlotte and a crazy crowded festival.  Oh, and I got diagnosed with a potentially debilitating disease.  So the week had its ups and downs, I guess you could say. 

Let’s start with the good news.  3 years!  On our wedding day, we had 5 bottles of wine, dated for each of the subsequent 5 years, for our guests to sign.  Each year on our Anniversary, we open up the year’s bottle and toast to our marital success.  Cheers to us! We celebrated at Fiamma (duh, of course) and had a wonderful meal, just the three of us.  Yes, SB joined us for our anniversary dinner.  She loves the pesto there so how could we leave her at home? 

Also in the “good” column:  St Patrick’s Day.  Holy cow was the weather perfect on Saturday.  My parents came down for the celebration and were duly impressed by the 100+  minutes of Irish entertainment that marched down Tryon Street.  Ok, so the Irish origins of certain participants may have been questionable.  Like the African-American Cowboys, for example.  Or the Charlotte Roller Girls.  But they were so cool I don’t think St. Patrick would mind.  There were legitimate Catholic school floats with kids, snakes, and St. Pat himself blessing the crowd.  The Budweiser Clydesdales were there, complete with Dalmatian riding on the horse-drawn truck.  There were also scantily clad women in tiny kilts.  Giant Great Danes (hmmm…”Dane,” not Irish either) wearing green top hats and tutus.  Weird clowns riding unicycles.  Something for everyone at the Charlotte St Pat’s Day Parade.  SB had not been feeling well the day before, but she rallied for the parade, sporting her “Irish Princess” dress and green hair bow.  (I realize that this would be a great place to insert a picture of said outfit, but I am a bad photographer and didn’t bring my camera.  By the time we got home we were exhausted and Mommy discovered that SB had passed along her germs and I was out for the count for the rest of the weekend.  So that’s my long-winded excuse.)

So moving on to the bad news.  First catastrophe:  SB’s face meets concrete at Freedom Park.  I was in the middle of a photo shoot when I got a call from Kurt.  Then I got a second call.  I figured that was not good so I answered, and sure enough, Kurt had taken SB to the park and she took off running down a sloped walkway and hit the ground with her face.  She usually will catch herself but this time the ground beat her to it.  Poor thing had road rash on her face, a bloody nose, split lip, and she chipped her tooth a little bit.  Kurt said she cried for about 30 seconds and moved on.  No lasting scars a week later.  Kurt, however, is still recovering, and he is definitely scarred for life.

And the piece du resistance in the bad news column…

I know I’ve complained on the blog at least a few times about how lugging around a heavy baby is killing me.  I’ve had some joint swelling in a few fingers and some foot problems which I attributed to carrying huge baby and walking around on hardwoods in bare feet.  So this has been going on for about 6 months and I finally started seeing some doctors.  Today my rheumatologist informed me he was 99.99 percent sure that I had Rheumatoid Arthritis.  Great.  Just Great.  Isn’t that a disease that elderly ladies have that turns twists their hands into deformed knots?  Um, yeah that would be the one.  Seriously, I am probably still in denial about this even though the “RA” term has been kicking around my head since I first noticed the joint issues.  So the good news, if you can call it that, is that I caught it in the earliest stages and they can put me on meds to help with the symptoms and prevent permanent joint damage (aka the twisted old lady hands.)  But the bad news is they want to put me on medication for the rest of my life.  That does not sit well with me.  I’d have to be tested every 2 months to make sure the drugs aren’t wrecking my liver.  And I absolutely under no circumstances can get knocked up while on this medication or the baby would have like 3 heads or something.   Oh and it suppresses the immune system so I’d be more prone to infections.  Wow, this is sounding great, isn’t it?  So needless to say we’re not rushing over to the pharmacy to fill this prescription until I do a little more research on my options.  I’ve never ever had a real deal health problem before, so this whole thing of doctors and medications and tests is new to me.  The doctor I’m seeing currently is not the least bit into a more holistic approach to the disease.  I asked about diet and he basically shrugged his shoulders, so I am looking for someone who will not just write a prescription, but look at things like nutrition and exercise other natural ways to treat the patient, not just treat the disease.   Overall, not a great day, I’d say.  But when I got back from the doctor’s office my little girl was delighted to see me and play patty cake with her Mommy’s hands, regardless of what they look like, so I know I’ll be ok, I just need to find the right path for me to take.