Getting an Early Start on Gardening

I was planning on the beginning of March be the start of my gardening season—meaning, I would start some seeds indoors to be transplanted into my garden after a couple months.  I did start some seeds: tomatoes and several types of peppers.  I also put some lettuce seeds in a container, to hopefully get an early crop of baby greens.  I was planning on doing the first actual sowing in my garden in the beginning of April, but with 70-80 degree temperatures over the past week or so, I got an early start--in fact, I started my garden a whole month earlier than last year!  I planted some peas and carrots the other day – one small row of each in my little garden.  I will do a follow up planting in another week or so to try to stagger the harvest a bit.  

Fruit of the Spirit: Self-Control

Well, I decided it was finally time to finish my Fruit of the Spirit study.  We never quite finished it in small group, as we moved on to other topics, but I at least wanted to wrap it up here.  We are now down to the last fruit: self-control.  What is self-control?  I like the description Matthew Henry gives in his commentary, although the word “temperance” is used there:

“temperance, in meat and drink, and other enjoyments of life, so as not to be excessive and immoderate in the use of them…”

Tracking My Progress

A couple months ago, I decided to get serious about keeping track of my medical records and really taking ownership in the management of my health care. It is my body, after all.  This led to me requesting files from several doctors, the creation of at least one spreadsheet and a chart (because what are spreadsheets without charts?!) to track my ESR (sed rate).  And, thus began The Sed Rate Saga.  

Humira Evaluation – Building the Doctor-Patient Relationship

Today I had my follow-up appointment with my rheumatologist to evaluate how well Humira was working after three months.  I switched to Humira in December of 2011 from Enbrel, because my sed rate and inflammation were high, and my disease was not well enough controlled in my doctor’s opinion.  He was seeing joint space narrowing in my wrists, and we decided it was time for a change.  This was a hard decision for me, but I had promised myself that I would try to be transparent with my doctor and trust his judgment as well.  After a month on Humira and no change in symptoms or sed rate, we increased the dosage to weekly instead of bi-weekly injections.

Three Months of Humira

My next appointment to see my rheumatologist is on Tuesday.  We’re going to have to evaluate how well Humira is working to try to determine whether to continue the treatment course I’m on or to change it up some how.  If you’ve been following my Humira story, you’ll know it’s been kind of hard for me to determine how well it’s working.  At this point, three months into my new treatment, I feel like I am pretty stable and I know what to expect most days.  That’s good.  The bad thing is that I have stabilized at a higher level of disease activity than I had even a year ago.  

Winter House Project: Take Two

It appears that last year’s winter house project has also turned into this year’s winter house project.  Last year, we successfully painted the trim in almost our entire house white and changed out 7 interior doors: hollow, scratched up darkish-pine doors, replaced with solid pine 6-panel doors painted white.  It took forever.  To be honest, the trim was not all that bad – just a lot of taping.  We left it on rather than trying to remove it without damaging it.  The doors were somewhat of a nightmare.  

My Take on RA Treatments & Decisions

After reading RA Warrior’s blog today and finding a link to this article, I found myself in some interesting thoughts and conversations about drugs and treatment for RA/RAD.  Firstly, although a digression from my main point here, I do want to address some of the problems I had with the article as relates to the Rheumatoid Arthritis section: