IVIg is On & in My Main Vein: February

A Belated Update...ooops
This month's treatment (2/9-2/13) - 5 glorious home-bound(ish) days of 10-20,000 people's superior antibodies infused into my body - went by as quickly as any 5 days in the life of a neuro-gimp hoping for recovery.

In the week or 2 prior to this month's treatment, all I could do competently was sleep. Strangely enough (and in total opposition to my reaction to last month's treatment), I was on a 20K high - that is 20k people breast stroking (that's a nod to swimming...ahem) through my body. Now a sickly high is very different from a healthy high or the blessed, but illegal in this country, high, but it's a high none-the-less. And experience is relative, as are pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical narcotics.

Aside from headaches and nausea (possible side effects of the IVIg), the good news is, I feel as though I've finally stopped deteriorating. So, I'm hoping - which can be a bad thing to do, as it's no different from an expectation (i.e., major boo hoo potential)- that next month's treatment is going to mark the start of more noticeable improvements.

In my first few days following treatment, I was elated by a decrease in neuropathic and general pain, increased cognition and strength (but still no stamina), and a decrease in visual impairment. However, as my angry antibodies seem to be eating the yummy prey of the perfectly concocted and diluted serum, these improvements are feeling the bite.

A lot of the old frustrations are stubbornly sticking to my spinal chord, and February is proving its reputation as one of the shittiest months of the year; in my case, including several less than feel-good procedures, including a urodynamics test, cystoscopy, spinal tap, and possibly an EMG (the test that I had 10 years ago following a car accident that prepared me for any level of pain) and an MRI, as well as the typical bloodwork, and a humbling "sample".

Aside from all the crap I listed above, I'm feeling "good enough", and luckily neurological disorders don't make you look like you feel. Surprise! I'm sick inside.

The truth I have to deal with, is that despite all the IVIg in the world, Transverse Myelitis isn't curable, and whatever level of recovery I have, will be just that - a level - not back to normal or back to Old Mel. Still struggling with that, but as I type here and my arms are burning and my fingers are tiring, I am so F*CKING GRATEFUL that we BEAT AETA and that Ativan exists and is on my script list!

I can't imagine where I'd be without IVIg, and if monthly IVIg 5-day home-bound infusions mean status quo rather than improving or deteriorating, I'll take that, but I'm not going to settle for it easily.

So on that note, I should try to get to sleep. It's medicine I don't have to pay for.