slow and steady

I don't notice how many times I wake up in the middle of the night anymore, only that I'm nauseous and unenthused when my alarm goes off, and I'm wearing different sweaty layers of pajamas than I began with.

I'm noticing for the first time how much of my day is spent cleaning up after the trail of hair I leave wherever I move -- off of my clothes, off of the floor, off of my office chair, off of the sink after I lean over it to wash my hands, off of my head to prevent it from falling in larger quantities.  There is a reason I'm letting h.b. (hungry brother) do most of the cooking while he is here, and it's not soley because he is a master chef.  And I marvel at the ill apparent betrayals of balding... thank you, M&D.

And I'm noticing that often when H.B. and h.b. want to play games or cook feasts, all I want to do is sit on the couch and work on my paper or watch the Olympics.  It's not the wipe-out kind of fatigue from hormone deficiency, it's more the kind of fatigue that follows an evening of sitting on the toilet in pain (or waking up myriad times each night).  Only, I'm not in pain.  Not that kind of pain; my baseline irritation level is just more intense than it once was.

Here is the good news.

I convinced my doctor that despite the small degree to which my RBC count is low and my MCV/MCH are high, it would still behoove me to get off of one of my PPR team players.  I suggested getting rid of the 6MP -- which is what failed me this summer after 8 years -- while I still had a small regimen of Prednisone as a back-up.  He agreed.  One more down, only one more to go.

I am down to 3mg/d Prednisone.  Things seem to be going more smoothly this time.  I still have episodes of P.M., but they are infrequent as compared to past weeks.

More good news to come, I promise.  With graphs, no less...