Update on Brett

Nothing new for those of you I talk to regularly (Kimberly), but, for those curious that I don't talk to everyone minute of the day...here's the latest on my hubby.

Brett is still not considered recovered yet. His last visit to the rheumatologist came with a diagnosis that his arthritis is more chronic than temporary. Which made us sad. His doctor prescribed Humira for him, a very intense arthritis medicine. The cost is INCREDIBLY high ($1200/month) and it means two injections a month for at least the next 6 months. We'll have to have a nurse come to our house and teach us both how to inject him. It has some potentially serious side effects (can cause lymphoma - it's rare, but, something to think about before taking)so we're debating what the best thing to do is. He has an appointment with the Chief of Rheumatology at the University of Chicago on the 15th...and after that, we'll see what happens. We don't want to start this Humira process until it's confirmed by "the best" that he needs it. We know it'll help him, but, we'd like a second opinion before taking on something so serious.

Brett's been having a hard time dealing with the fact that he needs a medication of this nature. For as much as we've wanted the doctors to start treating the actual arthritis, rather than just dulling the pain, it's hard for him. He hates the thought of being on something like this for the rest of his life. It's not necessarily something he'll be on forever, but, he could be. We're hoping it'll only be the 6 months the initial trial is for, but, no one has any idea. No doctor can tell us for sure because of the rarity of his condition. They're still saying it's reactionary rheumatoid arthritis. I believe this is what it is, but, because not many people have it, the doctors can't tell us much. They can only tell us what they've read in books. Again, this is why we're going to see the Dr. at U of C. Hopefully, he'll have had more experience with this type of illness.

On the upside, Brett's actually physically feeling a lot better. He has a lot more energy and has moved back down to the Vicodin pain medication, rather than Percocet and a very strong pain patch called Fentanyl. I hated him being on the Percocet and Fentanyl. I was worried about him getting addicted to it. But, now he's back down to Vicodin and only takes it maybe, once every two days, which is great. He still doesn't have use of his right arm, but, other than that, he seems to have full mobility of his body again. We'll take one arm in place of an arm, a hip, a knee and an ankle and random things that would pop up daily.

Brett's been a lot more active at home lately. We've been able to get a lot of the wedding gifts put away (I needed his help with a lot of it, so, it's just been sitting there in boxes until this week) and we've been doing a LOT of cleaning. Our house cleaning has really been suffering too....I couldn't really vacuum as often as I wanted, because he'd been sleeping constantly. Not wanting to wake him, things like vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen suffered a lot (he camped out in our living room, right off of the kitchen). So, we've been doing a lot of what we've fallen behind with. And it's SO nice to have a full clean house again.

Another upside to this whole thing....about 2 weeks ago, our travel agent (the woman who helped plan our wedding) e-mailed to wish us a Merry Christmas. She asked how Brett was doing. I told her he was still sick and she said that our travel insurance might cover some of the medical costs for us, since his illness started in Jamaica. We followed through and yes, in fact, our travel insurance will cover up to $5000 of what our primary insurance doesn't cover. We're so incredibly excited! With his medical bills being so high and mine on top of it, even $5K helps. It will definitely help with the Humira bills.

Anyway, things are looking up for my dear husband. Things were getting pretty rough for a while...depression was starting to kick in, pain was getting no better. It seems there might be an upswing on the horizon.

But, I won't get too excited yet. Upswings don't seem to happen to us very often. =)