Caught a Virus

Not only am I immunosuppressed, but apparently my computer is, too.  How fitting that this particular virus attacks and removes drivers, leaving the computer with all its physical components, but limited ability to make do what they’re supposed to do.

My apologies for not replying to comments that people have been leaving, and EXTRA apologies if you’re one of the people in my “real” address book since that might put you at risk of the computer deciding to send out messages on its own.  If we’ve only ever corresponded via the WarmSocks address, then you shouldn’t be at risk.

Once my computer starts behaving again, I’ll try to get caught up on posts from all my wonderful cyber friends whom I’ve been missing terribly.

Hope your life is running more smoothly than mine has been lately!

Merry Christmas

This will be my third Christmas with an RA diagnosis.

The first year, we visited my in-laws, and I insisted on washing all the dishes so that I could soak my aching hands in hot water.  I had just started my first DMARD (plaquenil), but it hadn’t taken effect yet.

Last year we got to stay home and host all the relatives who cared to come visit.  It’s much easier to have twenty people invade my house than it is to travel and walk on egg-shells in another person’s home.  A full year into the RA dx, in addition to the plaquenil, I was also taking sulfasalazine and methotrexate.  Knowing that my ability to fight infection was diminished, I told people that we’d love to see them, but they should stay home if anyone was sick.  One family stayed home, and the rest of us had a great time.  I remember that my rheumatologist wanted to start me on a biologic in early December so that I’d feel better by Christmas, but I was afraid.  Afraid to give myself shots.  Afraid of the potential side effects (this drug might cause cancer?!).  Afraid of what would happen if the biologic didn’t work.  Afraid of getting sick and being unable to recover.

This Christmas it’s back to the in-laws house.  I’m concerned.  One year I was pregnant and someone came with two kids who had chicken pox!  Every year somebody in that branch of the family is sick.  Every year, when everyone arrives, they announce that the sick person stayed home so as not to get everyone else sick.  And every year, a couple hours later, the sick person shows up anyhow, because they didn’t want to miss out on seeing everyone and thought that if they could just sit in the corner, the germs would sit there with them and not float around the room infecting everyone else.  It never works.  It will be nice to see family, but not so nice to spend all my time paranoid that I’m going to end up sick because someone else couldn’t bear to miss the festivities.

Holidays.  The time of year when families get together and share germs.

I’d like to improve my chances of surviving this Christmas without getting sick:  lots of hand washing, a bottle of Purell in my pocket.  I wonder how offended people would be if I used Lysol to spray down all the furniture?  Definitely not as much as if I spray it in the face of anyone who sneezes at me!

Have a very healthy, Merry Christmas.

Veteran’s Day

My grandfather received a college scholarship to play baseball.  He was never drafted, and could have stayed home while others went to do the fighting during WWII.  Instead, he volunteered.  His country needed him.

Like most people his generation, he didn’t say much about the war.  A few stories, though, we loved.  Once he was assigned to teach the non-swimming recruits how to swim.  In the middle of the desert.  With no water.  When he questioned his superiors as to how they proposed he could undertake such a possibility, the swift response was, “That’s your problem, Sargeant!”

Only the army would try to teach soldiers how to swim without any water. 

Never one to let details stand in his way, Grandpa lined up rows of benches on the parade grounds.  The men lay atop them and learned the arm, leg, and breathing motions they’d need when they hit the water.  Over and over again, out there in the 110 degree heat, those soldiers practiced and practiced until the day they got orders to their next destination.  Grandpa later heard back that every one of them was able to swim when the time came.

Not all his service was stateside.  He trained with paratroopers in England.  Due to an injury, though, he was in the hospital when everyone shipped out.  Not a single person on that mission survived.

Later he marched through Europe.  He was at the Battle of the Bulge – something he never spoke of other than to acknowledge that he’d been there.

He was injured, and I never heard the details of when or where or how, but doctors told him he’d never walk again.  He proved them wrong.

What incredible things he saw.  What incredible sacrifices he and others like him made.

He chose to go to war, to fight for his country, when he didn’t have to.  Unlike so many others, after the war he got to come home.  His scholarship was no longer available, though, and there was no money for school.  He married, worked hard, and raised a family – on a lot less money than he would have had if he’d attended college.  Life’s goal isn’t to see who can accumulate the most money.  It’s what’s inside that counts.  Grandpa knew that.

Today is Veteran’s Day.  Honor a vet.