Milestones

Happy Birthday to my nephew T.J.!!! he is one year old today. Wish I could be with him to celebrate.

Another HUGE milestone was reached today....December 22, 2009 marks one year since Brett's Reactionary Rheumatiod Arthritis went away. A year ago today, we went to see the rheumatologist and we took the necessary steps to get him on daily Arthritis medicine. It was going to involve weekly shots, in home training by a nurse, and it could very well have caused Brett to get cancer. (One of the side effects of the drug was the possibility of contracting Lymphoma.) But, we had to do something, as it didn't look like the pain was going to leave anytime soon. After the appt., we went to try to see T.J. in the hospital. Brigid wasn't out of recovery yet and we had to get on the road because we were going to Iowa for Christmas and there was going to be some bad weather. So, we left flowers at the nurses station and headed on our way.

7 hours later, we got to Sioux City, got out of the car and Brett felt better. SIGNIFICANTLY better. That morning was the last time he experienced chronic, severe pain. He had twinges here and there and still stayed on the simple medications for another few weeks, but, the horrible pain was gone. **Poof!** Like magic. It was like his body knew it was going to be attacked by strong medicines and it gave up fighting against him. We couldn't have been more relieved.

Other than some random tightness in his shoulder, Brett has no residual effects from his illness. He still gets VERY nervous every time he gets sick though. The doctors say the RRA can come back at any time....we'll just never know when/if it will hit again. We're hoping it never does, but, we'll see what the future holds.