CAthie:'


I burst out laughing, when I read what you wrote about Alan standing still, afaid to move. You gave me a good laugh.

Because I'm scared to death about his lympocyte numbers. I just posted a topic question on that subject.

Hopefully one of you smarties will know what I'm asking!!

Mel

Glad you enjoyed that, Mel. Sorry, I have not posted more, I am planning to continue as I can, but the last two days have been terrible from burning pain...

I don't know what is different. My new Rheumatologist is planning to try me on new medication, but I didn't want to start it until my husband gets back from Brazil... Meanwhile, this stuff has cranked up severely....

Cathie

Cathie. I'm so sorry your in pain. I will email you. Thanks for not leaving me out too.

Cathie:

Do you get the burning when it's going to rain?? Last night, outside, the weather was like it didn't know what it wanted to do. Didn' know if it wanted to pour, or just drizzle. The sky was cloudy, the air was thick. You could cut it with a knife. Alan and I, well let's just say, he didn't go to bed until I massaged him so hard, and he had to take his alprazolam. Then it rained cats and dogs and he promptly fell asleep and woke up at 10:30 this morning. He was extremely well rested.

I had the ants crawling over your body kind of feeling last night, along with the burning. I'm nowhere near his severity with the PN. I really felt for him last night. He couldn't lay down, he couldn't sit. It drove him crazy. Then when the downpour came, he fell deeply asleep.

Isn't it nuts how the barometer affects many of us???

I've read the reason for this (on the boards) but it never fails to amaze me how the weather affects Alan's PN. And he really thinks the IVIG is helping him.
I said to him last night: 'I thought you said the IVIG is helping, and he goes, "well, look at the weather, it's not helping me right now".

I just don't know. But it's his decision to keep on with the IVIG.

Melody

Sorry gang, I just haven't felt up to writing movie parts. Will continue playing soon though.

Mel, yes the weather does affect my burning. I assume that my sensory nerves must be inflammed, but don't know this for sure. I could tell the weatherman that it was going to rain before he even had a clue...

Cathie

I think many of us could have second occupations
as TV Weather Personalities.(natural meteorologists)

lol

The other night I was sitting around the corner on my friend's porch, with several other neighbors. It was about 6:30 p.m. They were all shooting the breeze and saying "you think it's going to rain, you think we'll get a thunderstorm?"

I just calmly said "in 30 minutes or less". They looked at me like I was nuts and the 75 year old lady said "now how the heck do you know that?" I said 'my wrist just told me' and we all laughed.

Then I said "no, it's not going to be 30 minutes, more like 15". Then they really got spooked. Then my right knee did a thing that made me stand up and say "I'm going home, I don't want to be caught". Well, as I got off the porch, the rain started.

Ever see people burst out laughing, scratch their heads and go "oh my god".

I just said "when you have arthritis, believe me, you are the next weatherman for Eyewitness News"

Never fails. But the worst time is when the weathe (and I know I'm talking about the weather like it's alive or something) but the past few days, that's exactly what's been happening.

My skin has been itchy, (forget about my knees and wrists), but the body just reacts to the ozone, or whatever the air is pumping out.

Take for example yesterday. It rained cats and dogs in the morning and I had to go to the post office wearing a heavy sweater because it was chilly.
Then the sun came out and you could have roasted a chicken. That was when I was able to stand upright and go for my power walk, wearing my ipod. No problem. Then two hours later, the clouds came out and it rained and I got caught in another downpour.

And this morning I couldn't bend my left wrist. So I just put my splint on it and went out. Got to keep moving or I'll never move. That's how I look at my arthritis and PN and whatever the else nature throws at me.

I've had arthritis since I"m 40, scoliosis since I'm 50 and god knows what they'll tell me I have when I'm 65. But I'll still be me and taking my B-12 methyl. That's how I fight it.

Yeah, my feet burn when the weather doesn't know what it wants to do. I walk in the living room and say "Alan, are your feet on fire?" and he goes "oh my god, yes". Then we look outside and it's cloudy and thick with humidity.
We really should move to the desert.

But since I can't stand any kind of bugs and I'll probably die if I saw one, and all our doctors are here, well, here we will stay.

The other night I went into the bathroom, and I was brushing my teeth when all of a sudden I saw a big brown thing with legs right on top of my faucet. Now I'm 60 years old, not a small woman, but why on earth did i react the way I did. Is it a girly thing??? I have no answer for what happened next.

I had tunnel vision. When I looked at the faucet, I saw only the waterbug. My eyes only saw IT!!! Not the toilet bowl, not the sink, not even my toothbrush, my eyes just saw the bug and I started screaming. I ran out of the bathroom and Alan came running into the kitchen. He thought I fell or had a heart attack because I had my hands over my chest. Now the irony was that my heart was not beating out of my chest. I have never had a panic attack, never got short of breath in my life, or had difficulty breathing. That is not what happened. I just remained in the kitchen saying over and over "oh, oh, oh". Alan said "what happened" and I just blurted out "get in that bathroom and kill that thing".

Alan starts lauging and goes into the bathroom and says 'where is it?" I said 'what do you mean, where is it, it's on the faucet" and he goes "Oh there's the sucker, it's under the faucet", I got it, it's gone".

Think I was alright after that?? No, I remained in the kitchen saying "oh oh oh". I took a can of bug spray and sprayed the drains, the pipes, the crooks and corners. I told Alan to open up the bottom of the bathroom cabinet and he goes "I'm not opening up anything, what if they start coming out, I have to go to work (this happened at 9:55 p.m. on Friday night.)

So I opened up the cabinet with the can of bug spray in my hand ready to do battle and there was nothing there. I sprayed all over the place and closed the cabinet.

Since that happened, when I get up, I tip toe in the bathroom and I won't do anything until I check the bathtub, and the sink, and everywhere.

Now what is wrong with me?? It was s stupid waterbug for goodness sake.

I haven't had one of those in my home for quite a few years but people do get a waterbug once in a while. But I have a thing about bugs. I kept sayng "if he's the grandfather, he's never seeing his family again, there will be no family reunion". My neighbors were hysterical on the porch because as I walked Alan out the door I stayed on the porch with my neighbors and I wouldn't go back in the house for 30 minutes.

What is this, some kind of anxiety disorder about waterbugs, or am I so neurotic that I over -reacted.

I bet plenty of you, the ones who go fishing and clean your own fish, and bait your own hooks, I bet you would just kill the stupid bug and be done with it. I'm still walking around my house on tip toes.

Alan kept laughing and saying "Oh, these waterbugs are like my army buddies when I was in the barracks. We had things flying over our heads so big, I thought I was in the movie "THEM".

Believe me, if I was in an army barracks, and something flew over my head, I would die right there on the spot.

Any of you feel like I do about bugs???

Melody

Melody I have a bug phobia too. A long time ago before we could afford an exterminator we had cockroaches that would show up on the kitchen floor when the lights were off for the night. (this was our old house that we lived in many years ago)

Anyway one night I turned on the light and there were two cockroaches right by the sink on the floor. I threw shoes at them trying to get that lucky shot from across the room. Never did kill them and in fact I think they were laughing at me.

My hubby was working the night shift at the time and I was scared those two bugs would come into my room if I didn't watch them. Now my bug man is my best friend and he is well worth the money. In fact he is coming today...Sue

PS your stories are hilarious and I think you should write a book about all your escapades.

I'm glad I make SOMEONE laugh!!! Believe me, the other night when I saw that big brown thing with all it's legs, sitting on my faucet, I was not laughing. I'm just curious as to exactly what happened to my brain, because as I was brushing my teeth, my mind was elsewhere and as soon as I spotted Mr. Waterbug sitting on my faucet, all I saw was the bug. It's like my eyes zoomed into him and everything else went out of focus.

I have never had that happen to me in my entire life. I mean, we have all seen bugs, here and there, on the floor, (I have a white ceramic tile floor) and believe me, when you walk into the living room from the outside and you see something black on the floor, well, you know it's not something that was there when you left the house.

This only happened about 15 years ago when we first moved in. There's a basement underneath my house and it was not finished. Well, I started to get waterbugs. I told my landlord he better spray. He did and that was that.

But the best was when they finished the whole basement and a nice couple in their late 70's (who do not speak a word of english), moved in around 5 years ago. Now, they are both 80 or 81. He just learned how to use a dsl line (guess who installed it for them) so we have a very nice relationship. So one day, in the front of my house, near the radiator, I kept seeing ants. Every day, there would be two or three ants. I would tell Alan, "we have an infestation" and he would burst out laughing and say "Melody, 3 or 4 ants is not an infestation" and I would reply "when it happens every day, it's an infestation. So I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. I sprayed the outside window sill. I sprayed inside the radiator, etc.

So I said to myself "go downstairs and check right underneath this radiator. So I got this special bug spray with a long thin nozzle (that you can stick into crevices". I go and knock on their door and they smile and welcome me. I explained in italian that I have ants and I want to check where they might be coming in. Now this whole conversation is in italian and I'm not too familiar with the word ANT in italian so I just show them the bug spray can and point to the bug.

She understood and took me into the back of her basement, which is underneath the front of my house. Well, what do you think stared me in the face??? She has a supply room in the back of her basement that was never pannelled or finished. The whole other part of the basement has been wood panneled. But in this supply room is the original foundation of the house, the bricks, the dirt, etc. And this is directly underneath the front of my living room.

So I'm looking around and sure enough I see some ants on the bricks. I excitedly point them out to her, expecting her to do an OH MY GOD moment. She does not. She just says "oh, formiga" (I gather that is ant in italian). And she picks it up and it's in her hand. I thought she was absolutely nuts but she's smiling and saying to me "this little thing bothers you?"

jeez........ So I just take my trusty can of spray and went into every nook and cranny and crevice. I sprayed the corners. I sprayed up into the ceiling (which was the bottom of my radiator) She never goes into this room. It's a storage room.

So I did what I had to do, she's all smiles, she killed the stupid ant that was in her hand, I went upstairs. I sealed off the radiator with plastic, sealing up all edges, so nothing could come into my house.

So years later, what do I see in my bathroom?? Mr. Waterbug.

Let me tell you, he's one lonely Waterbug. He's never seeing his family again.

Why the heck were they created anyway???

ick!!!!!

melody

Mel:

I do fish and I bait my own hooks, but I HATE bugs with a passion. You can imagine how big the bugs in Texas are-everyone says everything is bigger in Texas. When I lived on the coast, I was stunned at the size of these humongous waterbugs. We lived right off of the bay. They would congregate in huge numbers outside of the front door at night, and when you walked out, they would open a line up through the middle so you could walk through... Ugh!!! I think I could send you a picture though if you would like...

Bob:

I notice your posts are getting a little shorter... Please don't be worried that I am collecting info to write a book, although the overall information presented from everyone here would no doubt be a hilarious bestseller. Actually, what could be happening here, is that Doc Richard is reading all of our crazy posts and is considering a textbook on the Mental Effects of Chronic PN or something along that line...

Cathie