I’m gonna say it…

I think my RA is in remission. I’ve been holding off saying anything for a couple of weeks because I didn’t want to jinx it, but now I can say it. I”m in REMISSION!

Life is soooo much easier when you feel half-way decent. 

The Invisible,

S.

Was that dream supposed to make sense?

I had a crazy dream last night. It was so crazy, that part way through I woke up because my mind realized how very little sense the dream made. One of those dreams where you wake up thinking…What the…?!?!

The dream…

I was standing near the front of a line, in front of a door, getting ready to go into a Seether concert. (How many people stand in line in their dreams? Obviously I do.) Maybe 15 ft away, in front of another door, is a group of five guys. I realize they’re the opening band, so I stare at them. (In the dream the band had a name, but I can’t remember it now. They might have been a real band for all I know) At first, I think the short one with spiky, blue hair is looking at me, but then I realize he’s staring at the girl behind me. Next thing I know…he runs over and starts making out with her. Right next to me. (In the dream, I am completely shocked and offended by this as I know they’ve never met before.) She breaks the kiss and runs away from him. He screams, “But I’m in love with you!” and runs after her.

Suddenly, two vans (the kind with no windows) drops off (pushes out) a bunch of people in tan work uniforms with white stitched-on name tags. Me, the people in line, the band, and the new uniformed people just stare at each other in confusion. The tires squeal as the vans race out of the parking lot. As they leave, I’m screaming at them at the top of my lungs, “You can’t do this! You can’t just leave these people here! They work for the United States government! You have to take them to their homes!” Which is weird because in my dream I know (you know how you just know things in dreams) they’re not government employees…they’re illegal immigrants from Mexico.

This is when I wake up. What exactly was that dream supposed to mean?

The Invisible,

S.

You know you’re addicted when…

As you all know, I’m addicted to Disney. To get my fix I read other people’s trip reports. I found this trip report that had me laughing hysterically. Out loud. Real LOL. This women has a gift for writing.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, at least read her section about the jiggler. It doesn’t really have anything to do with Disney. It made me laugh so hard I cried.

The Invisible,

S.

It wasn’t the transmission.

Nope…it was…. the parking brake. Yep. My husband said the parking brake must have gotten stuck on, and yes, that was one of the things I checked for yesterday. Sometimes the parking brake on our car does that. You release the brake, but the indicator light still stays on so you know that it’s not all the way released. Not so yesterday. The indicator light was off. Hmmmm. Oh well…now I look like a goober.

Everything is now fine with the car. Hooray!

Life is still funny.

The Invisible,

S.

Hahahaha

LOL. Life is so damn funny. Here I just posted about how boring my life is and when I went out to drive my car…it broke. I put it in reverse and…CLUNK…my car doesn’t move. It’s got to be the transmission. Thank the Lord I have an extended warranty.

My husband it going to look at the car when he gets home from work, but I’m sure it’s the transmission.

Hahahahah.

The Invisible,

S.

Why haven’t I been posting?

Well I’m sure you must think it’s something super exciting, but the truth is….my life is beyond boring right now. No reason to bore you too.

The Invisible,

S.

I signed up.

I just signed up for the AHDI RMT prep assessment course. I’ll find out on 4/1 what it’s really all about. That’s when my course starts. I’ll keep everyone posted on what the course is like.

The Invisible,

S.

Good Question

One of my readers Y asked me a very good question, so I thought I would create a post out of it and my reply.

Good luck with your RMT exam!
Why do you think you will need help to pass it?

Y.

 

My response:

Thanks.
I think I need the help because I looked at the sample questions (page 12) that AHDI gives you of what would be on the exam. I didn’t know very many of them off the top of my head. I certainly know how to look them up, but I don’t have all that memorized yet.
I felt it was better for me to pay the extra $75 to be prepared than to spend $130 and possibly fail the exam and then have to pay the $130 again to take it a second time.

 

The Invisible,

S.

Rethinking the RMT

My rheumatoid arthritis week didn’t turn out so well. Sorry for the lack of posts. I guess I didn’t have that much to say about my RA. I’ve been feeling really good, so I don’t think about it as much.

I think I’ve decided to go ahead and get my RMT certification. I applied at Transcription Matchmaker yesterday, and even they didn’t want me. Yikes! They do not have any entry-level positions. Their suggestion…get my RMT.

I’ve looked into it on AHDI and they offer a prep course that is $75 dollars for AHDI members. The next 4-week course starts on April 1st. I think I will sign up for that one. I know I’m going to need help to pass the RMT exam.

Then there is the $10 exam application fee. The exam fee is $120. Total cost…priceless. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say? Whatever it takes to get my career in medical transcription started…right?  ;)  Actual total cost will be $205.

Since I’m not making very much money working for my brother-in-law (I only get about 6-8 hrs/week), and it’s going to be at least 2 months before I can start looking for an MT job again, I have to start looking for a “real” job. Sucks! I’m on the job hunt again.

Wish me luck.

The Invisible,

S.

The Fourth Appointment aka The “Probably” Appointment

The fourth appointment in my journey to rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis was actually my first appointment with my rheumatologist. Ihad to wait almost three months for my appointment with her, but fortunately my PCP had given me a prescription for Feldene (piroxicam) anNSAID to help with the pain and stiffness in my hands and feet to hold me over until I saw her. It helped quite a bit, but I still wasn’t 100% like I had been when I took the prednisone.

The drive ended up being almost two hours to her office and this was not because of traffic. It was straight driving for two hours. Sadly, there are no rheumatologists in the town where I live, but my doctor does come down here once a month for followups. Just my first appointment was required to be at her main office. I have a fear of driving, so I am very grateful that she comes here.

I got to her office, which is in a large complex, and walked into the waiting room. It barely looked like a waiting room! Other than the receptionist’s desk, it looked like someone’s fancy living room in their house. A couple of plush, flowered chairs and love seats. Cute little end tables. It looked nothing like the doctor’s offices I was used to seeing with their generic chairs and cold decor.

She also spaces out her appointments. There were never more than two patients in her waiting room at one time. How awesome is that! I’m so used to the cattle call that most doctor’s waiting rooms are.

I got my clipboard o’paperwork from the receptionist and sat down on the comfortable love seat. I fill out the first page which is pretty much just name and address, emergency contact, stuff like that. Hardly anything. I go to the next page. Just something to read and sign. Next page…read and sign. Next page…read and sign. I go through the paperwork again thinking I must have missed a back page or something. Where was the medical history? Where was the insurance info? Where was my whole life history questionnaire? I went up the the receptionist to let her know I was missing pages. She said, “Nope. That’s all you have to fill out. Can I have your insurance card.” WHAT? This had never happened before, and I’ve been to other types of specialists.

It ends up that my rheumatologist understands how difficult and painful it can be for some people with arthritis (of all kinds) to fill out pages and pages of paperwork. She (her staff) does all the work of gathering the information from your referring doctor and gets the rest of it during your appointment. How completely awesome is that?!

When I get in to see her, she asks me lots of questions. My symptoms, how long it’s been going on for, have I had any unusual illnesses or infections, etc. She then examined my joints including ones that weren’t bothering me. I was having a good day (anyone with RA will tell you that you always have a good day when you have a doctor appointment-they never get to see you when are in a ton of pain and can barely move ) so was feeling defensive when she was examining my hands and they barely hurt. I kept telling her, “They use to be a lot worse.” I’m so used to never being believed by doctors that I didn’t want her to ignore that fact and tell me there was nothing wrong with me just based on this one good day I was having.

Thankfully, she’s a good doctor. She tells me I “probably” have rheumatoid arthritis and gives me a prescription for Plaquenil and some samples of Celebrex. She also gives me paperwork for some bloodwork I needed to have done and to have x-rays taken of my feet (my PCP had only had x-rays of my hands done).

After scheduling an appointment for two months later, I leave her office feeling saddened (that I “probably” had RA) and relieved (that someone believed me and was going to fix me).

The Invisible,

S.

My RA Update

I realized yesterday that I hadn’t really talked about my rheumatoid arthritis in awhile, so I’ve decided that this will be RA week. I’m going to post something each day this week that has to do with RA. Today will be an update on how my RA has been.

Since I started the methotrexate (mtx) about six weeks ago, I had really started to feel that my NSAID (piroxicam) wasn’t working anymore. All of the side benefits I had gotten from taking it seemed to go away. Besides my RA, the NSAID had helped my chronic tendonitis and my IBS. Everything started getting bad again when I began taking the mtx. It sucked.

Anyway, last week I could feel the inflammation in my joints flaring up, and it was in joints I wasn’t used to having problems with like my wrists and ankles. To me that feeling feels like a wedge is being pushed into the joint, slowly spreading it apart. That’s the best that I can describe it. When I feel that, I know my inflammation is getting worse and I need to do something about it.

When that feeling started last week, I thought uh-oh. Inflammation = bad. Inflammation =  joint damage. So I broke out the big guns. The bottle of prednisone my rheumatologist had given me for emergencies. I hate taking prednisone because of the side effects, but I knew I needed to take care of the inflammation quickly. If you have been reading my blog, then you know the last time I took prednisone it was like a miracle drug. I went from really bad to normal overnight. I was hoping for this again.

Alas, my disease has progressed, so it didn’t quite happen that way. I decided to take 1/2 pill (5 mg) for six days. This was a similar dose to what I had taken before. After a couple of days, I finally started to notice improvement, and every day since then has been a little better.

Tomorrow is my last dose. It will be interesting to see how long the benefits of the drug lasts this time. Last time it lasted for over two weeks.

I am definitely doing better. I noticed that yesterday was the first Sunday since starting the mtx that I didn’t lay on the couch reading or watching TV all day. I only did it half the day.   I actually had a bit of energy. That was exciting! Every good day is.  

The Invisible,

S.

The Dreaded Nodules

Anyone who has rheumatoid arthritis dreads getting nodules. I happen to be one of the 25% of RA patients that gets them. When I first became aware that I might have RA and that the lump on the bottom of my left foot might be a nodule, I started researching nodules. What I found is that it’s really hard to find good information about them. This is pretty much the extent of what you get. So I thought I’d tell you about my experience with RA nodules.

 

The first nodule I got was on the bottom of my left foot.

 

Left Foot w/ Nodule

Right Foot

Right foot pic is so you can see what the bottom of my left foot USE to look like.

 

It doesn’t look very big in the picture, but it’s really about the size of a marble and it’s hard like a marble. It’s in the tissue under the skin, not in the skin itself. When I first wake up in the morning, I can’t walk on my left foot. I have to walk on the side of my foot. When I do try to walk on my foot, it feels like I’m pinching a nerve (kinda tingly). It’s not too painful, but it’s also not a pleasant feeling. Slowing I start applying my weight to the foot, and from what I can tell, the nodule kinda nestles itself between a couple of the bones in my foot. I can see that my middle toe lays at kind of a weird angle once it does this, so the nodule must be fitting itself between the foot bones connected to that toe and my second toe. Once it does that, I can start to walk on my foot like a normal person. I can still feel it when I walk barefoot, but it doesn’t hurt or feel tingly anymore.

 

The actual nodule doesn’t hurt anymore; although, it did hurt when I first got it. From what I’ve read, that seems to be typical for most people who have them. They tend to be sore only when they’re growing.

 

The second nodule I got was on the side of my right thumb and was about the size of a pea. It was kind of like a blister when it first started and then continued to grow and get harder. After a week or so, it only hurt if a lot of pressure was applied to it. A few times it happened and I almost screamed from the sudden pain. I was shocked by how bad it hurt. My foot one never hurts like that, but I guess that’s because it has more padding to protect it.

  

The thumb nodule thankfully only lasted for about three weeks. I hated that one because people could see it. I don’t tell people about my health problems, so I was always afraid that someone would see the nodule and ask me what happened. Thankfully no one ever noticed it. I don’t have any pictures of it and really kick myself for it. I still have a slight calluse where the nodule use to be, but it won’t show up in a picture. I can just feel it.

  

So that’s my nodule story. Thanks for looking at my weird feet pictures.   I hope this post helps someone else. Feel free to post any questions you might have in the comments. I’ll answer anything I can.

 

 

The Invisible,

S.

No Disney

We made the final decision to not go to Disney last night. It was the smart decision, but a part of me still wishes I was getting in a car tomorrow to begin our vacation.    I love Disneyland.

Actually, I just love traveling of any kind. If I had a choice, I would never stay in one place for very long. I’m one of those people that is perfectly capable of living out of a single suitcase, and some day I will do it again. Yes, I said again. I have done it before. For about a year. Traveling the US, a banged up suitcase, cheap hotels, two weeks living in an abandoned house. Ahhh, memories.   Someday I shall write a book.

The Invisible,

S.

A Tattoo?

I had a dream I got a tattoo last night. A little purple heart on my lower stomach right over my left hip bone. The tattoo was given by this really nice, large guy with a shaved head and lots of tattoos. Kind of your stereotypical tattoo guy I guess. Getting the tattoo didn’t hurt at all.

I don’t know why I dreamed about getting a tattoo. I don’t currently have any and will probably never get one. My reasoning always being that I don’t like anything enough to display it permanently on my body.

Dreams are weird.

The Invisible,

S.

I got my diploma!

Yes, it is official. I am a graduate of At-Home Professions Professional Medical Transcription Course. I shall frame it and hang it and look at it every day to remind myself of my accomplishment and to research things fully before I jump into them. How I wish I had chosen one of the top three schools. I’m terrified that I’m not prepared and won’t get a job.

They also sent me a letter saying my GPA was 95%. I wish it was higher.

I think I will e-mail L that I met at the New Year’s party and let her know that I officially graduated. Maybe that will lead somewhere. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this post and this one.

The Invisible,

S.

Disney Dream

I thought the dream of going to Disneyland the first week of March for my husband’s birthday had died. Obviously not. I got an e-mail (that’s how we communicate) from my husband saying that the hotel we wanted to stay at was available again for the nights we wanted to go. Great! It took everything I had to say no the first time I said it. I don’t know if I have enough strength to do it again.

The Invisible,

S.

My AAMT Book of Style came today!

I’m so excited. There is a TON of information in it. I going to start reading a little bit of it every day until I finish. There are 536 pages so it’s going to take a while. Some of it I’ll just scan over so I’ll have it in my brain that it’s in my book for when I have a question.

For some reason, I thought it was going to be mostly report format samples. There aren’t any. Make sure you keep those format samples from your schooling!

The Invisible,

S.

 

Update: I take it back. It does have a short section on format samples.

RA took away…

RA took away jogging from me. No, that’s not quite true. I was still physically able to jog; my Rheumatologist took it away from me. No way Jose she told me when I asked her if I was still allowed to run. I really thought she was going to say it was okay or I never would have asked her. Yoga was recommended. Bleh, I’ve been doing yoga on and off since I was 15. It never holds my interest.

Running was the first exercise I actually liked and looked forward to doing. To me, runners were cool. When I see them out running in the rain, snow, or at night, I think about how hardcore they are. I wanted to be hardcore. So I took up running (slogging) about four months before my Rheumatologist told me I had to stop. I wasn’t great at it, but I loved it. I loved how the muscles in my legs felt. I felt sexier. I looked forward to each jog even though I would feel like I was dying by the time I was done.

One time I ran in the rain (technically it was sprinkling) and I felt like a bad ass. I was hardcore. Oh yeah!

I’m still tempted to buy myself a high-end treadmill and run on that. There would be less damage to my joints. Then I think about wheelchairs and walkers, and yoga doesn’t look so bad.

The Invisible,

S.

No chemistry?

I had a dream about Shaun Morgan of Seether last night. For some reason I was in a classroom with many other people and we were getting to interview Shaun. In the dream, Shaun is sitting sideways in the desk in front of me. I’m looking at him and I think, “Hmm, there’s no chemistry between us.” The dream then goes into me waiting for their concert to begin with people I went to high school with.

The no chemistry thing is very possible since what I’m attracted to is the rockstar image of Shaun. The bad boy with the sensitive and damaged inner self. I have no idea what the REAL Shaun is like.  In real life, I probably wouldn’t like him, at least not for very long. Or maybe we’d have incredible chemistry. Either way, I still enjoy my little crush on him.

The Invisible,

S.

RMT?

I received a comment from Y. regarding the RMT certification.

Hi!
Congratulations!
I am finding interesting what you say about MT studying. I am having the same course at At-Home Professions now. recently I realized that they don’t have AAMT accreditation (as i see that can be a problem when looking for a job). What do you think about taking RMT exam?
Y.

Well, I’m considering it, but I’m definitely going to wait awhile. I’d like to see if I can get a job first (I’m hoping to start applying to places this week) and get some experience before going through the hassle of getting certified. If I can’t get a job, then I will seriously consider getting my RMT certification. It’s either that or going back to school with one of the top 3 MT schools. The certification would be cheaper as long as I pass. I really want to be an MT so I’ll do what it takes. I just wish I had done more research before I chose a school.

I signed up with AHDI. I’m hoping that being a member will help me get a job. I also just purchased the AAMT Book of Style, 3rd edition yesterday. Because I’m a member of AHDI, I got it for $50. I’m going to really study that once I get it. It should improve my skills.

I think deciding to take the RMT exam will be different for everyone. If I can get a job, I don’t think it’s necessary since from what I’ve read, you don’t get any kind of pay raise for it. After two years, I do plan on becoming a CMT though. That will be worth the time and effort financially.

Good luck with your studies Y. 

The Invisible,

S.