If I could have more kids I’d name the next one Prednisone.
I’m feeling better – breathing clearer than I’ve breathed in months. Since I chat about my asthma (at least I do a lot lately – it’s been a large part of my traveling and teaching life) I feel I do owe it to those who have so kindly offered advice on medication to let you in on what I’ve been taking…
Advair – Yes, I do take this! For a long time I couldn’t afford it, my prescription was about $200/month. At that time I applied to the drug manufacturer for the special needs help (no insurance) and was accepted for the program. But a form filled out wrong by my doctor cut me out of the program and made me start at point zero again. This is the part that the drug companies don’t talk about a lot on their happy ads. They tout that they’re helping low income and uninsured folks with their meds, and say how many thousands of patients they’ve signed up, but don’t mention that the hurdles are so easy to trip over that the patients lose these benefits quite easily. At least that’s what happened with me, and I wasn’t allowed to reapply for a specified amount of time.
Now that I have insurance again I can get this drug, and I get it for 3 months at a time, but it still runs me about $70/month. My insurance isn’t great.
I find that the advair helps, but it’s not the miracle drug that it seems to be for many other asthma sufferers. Perhaps this has been because my own asthma’s been so severe in the past year that I need to get back to a certain base level for the advair to really achieve it’s best effect. I’m hopeful that it will help me improve this year!
Prednisone – I don’t take this often – I don’t even take a course of it once a year! The last time I had it was over 16 months ago because it’s not the best medicine to take for several reasons. It has a strong impact on my blood pressure, makes me swell up and can make me a little jumpy and depressed. But when I weigh that against breathing, I’ll take breathing!
Serevent & Flonase – I took these a few years ago, but since the advent of Advair I haven’t had them.
Albuterol – In a perfect world this would be for emergencies only – and usually for me it is! But when one can’t breathe, then one can’t breathe. My (over) use of this med in the past few months has been a source of worry, but you can’t just will yourself to stop using albuterol because you know you shouldn’t. Since starting the prednisone a few days ago I’ve used my albuterol inhaler exactly 3 times, and not at all since Friday.
And I didn’t mention the doctor’s name in the earlier post – but I will now – THANK YOU NANCY!!! I am very grateful to you – thank you!
KNITTING
I’ve been finishing up some projects, getting things together and adding doggie versions of sweaters to men versions to send off on Monday. I received the nicest letter from the editor at Lark regarding the stuff I’ve sent in so far, she loves the designs and the work(wo/)manship (thanks so much knitters!!!) and they’ll be photographing a few of the projects early to add to their catalog. They are as excited about this book as I am – what an excellent feeling!
I’ve been working up some sock patterns for the book – these are an afterthought, I hadn’t planned on them – but I do want to have some doggie mutt-lucks in the book, so some socks or slipper socks for men seems like a no-brainer. The happier the editor is with the projects I’ve sent, the more freedom I feel to add something that I feel strongly as we near the end of the project process. What an education this whole book thing is!
Today I teach in Montclair – at Modern Yarn. My first trip back to Montclair to teach since another shop in the same town forgot they’d hired me back in October. Or didn’t. Who knows what their story is this week… I’ve been so busy this fall I just sort of bagged on the idea of a small claim – so much effort. And I hate to feel litigious. But I hate it when shops run themselves unprofessionally (something I run into VERY infrequently!)