I’m writing again this summer despite urgest from medical professionals not to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of what I’m hitting on, and this really started as I was languishing in a casino hotel in Biloxi, is a track of thinki9ng about accuracy in language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I subscribe to several email lists the focus on vocabulary. I don’t know that I can count the number of times where I’ve written something, then, on re-reading, changing a single word really doubles the effect of the sentence; one word makes a big difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of that was a flashback to something I’d posted in the Virginian Pilot<\/em> comments years ago, where I initially typed that I can sympathize with an article subject. No, sympany wasn’t really the correct word. Yes, I was sympathetic, but I was also empathetic, as the subject’s conditions were very similar to the ones I experience with MS. . <\/p>\n\n\n\n No, I don’t understand exactly what the subject is experiencing. But I do understand better than someone who doesn’t experience the same symptoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I started down on the number of human emotions. Is there a defined number? Hmm. Yeah, Berkeley has a list. Discuss with a psychologist, and the take is different. Yes, the words are different, but they’re really the same emotions. Is there a big difference between nervousness and general anxiety?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don'[t know, and that’s caused me to really rethink what I’m doing, in this binge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Things have calmed down a lot, I think, in the past couple of weeks, professionally. Medically, on the other hand, I’m still in a bit of a state of flux. I don’t know if I wrote about my anxiety about starting Tysabri back in 2015, but I was scared<\/span><\/em><\/strong> to start it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After being on it for a while, I’d gotten accustomed to the medication. The highs and lows were certainly less-pronounced than they were early in my time on it, and I wasn’t worried about dying every time I took it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some of the dangers that had me so nervous at the start were surrounding PML<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They fiddled around with the dosing schedules, etc., but THE SCIENCE<\/strong>, (and hattip to Dr. Fauci at Georgetown…). They instituted an hour-long post-infusion observation period. They implemented every-four-month blood tests to see if you had antibodies to JCV<\/a>, the observation period was cut to 30 minutes, then they were going to start letting it be administered via home infusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I was scheduled to start home infusion with my next infusion on 1 August. The weekend before my last infusion, I went to a facility for a JCV test. Though I didn’t have an appointment, and was there on a walk-in, it was pretty uneventful. Tuesday I went for my last Tysabri infusion at the place I’d been going for about a year and a half. Nothing terribly interesting to report, though I was noting some vision weirdness here and there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But I was preparing to travel down to see my mother, a bit concerned about my employment status, but ready to travel and do the things I’d intended to do on vacation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got the information back on the blood test a week after the test, and three days after the Tysabri infusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Positive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh fuck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What to do now? (And please excuse the foul language; I’m trying to watch my use of worty dirds….I think that you can actually be more effective without using “gutter language.”)<\/p>\n\n\n\n I got in touch with my neurologist, and scheduled an appointment for when I got back from Biloxi. My next DMT is Kesympta.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n We’ll see where it goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am feeling better than I was before I went to Biloxi, but I’m still not okay. My eyes are weird. I’m having trouble sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I need to get an MRI to see if any damage has happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thankfully, it seems like the possible work issues are resolved. We’ll see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n