Feet and medicine

So here's the short of it,
My feet are about the same; I have a change in medication (again), and I'm feeling stronger.


And here's the long

Today while I was in the lab getting my PT/INR done, Dr. Schlabach came by to see me.  We talked a little about the side effects of the Neurontin; I had finally decided that the best way to describe it was like walking through water.  He says that neither the Elavil nor the Neurontin will help the feeling return - only time will make that happen.  The Elavil or Neurontin are to manage pain and I don't really know if I'm having pain or not because I haven't been off them since I first began to have that awful burning when the neuropathy first started. My symptoms are feet that feel asleep and don't have good positional perception.  He knew exactly what I was talking about!  He says that is really pretty unusual for the drugs I was taking, and that the fix is mostly just time. He suggested I come off of both the Neurontin and the Elavil and see what happens.  If I have pain I'll go back to the Elavil instead of the Neurontin.  In the meantime, he suggested that anything that stimulates my feet could be helpful. So my instinct about massaging my feet every night was right.  Of course, I didn't do it every night just every once in awhile.  But I'm going to get more serious about that. 

Also those funky shoes that they sell for the pool that have the rubber nubbies in the bottom - I'm going to look for those as well and wear them around the house. 

The Herceptin routine is going great - treatment # 35 is done!  Lori is just using the butterfly each time - it goes in just fine, today it was in the vein on top of my hand over on the left side. I just have to be very careful not to move my hand and/or arm during the time of the infusion.  That means I can't mess around with any of my cool Apps on my phone.  Oh well. 

There is a Tennessee special education conference going on in Nashville next week and I hadn't even had it in my head that I'd be feeling well enough to go, but the last couple of weeks I've felt so much better.... I asked Lori about going out of town, and she said there's not any reason at all for me to not go.  So if I can get it approved at this late date, I'll be planning to go to Nashville for a couple of days next week.  I won't drive this time, which will be very unusual for me - I've always been the designated driver.  We have a new supervisor at the state level and I'm very eager to make contact with her.  The conference is in the hotel where we'll be staying and there's a restaurant on the premises.  I know I'll get tired, but I'll be able to go to the room and just take a nap if I need to and won't really have to go anywhere.  In some ways it's like another step toward the return to a more normal life.

I'm very tired tonight.  I think it's the Neurontin.  Alan and I went out for dinner with Valdis, and Alan remarked when we got home that I was very chatty.  I think that might have been the pills talking. Anyway, I'll go to sleep easily tonight I think.  By the way, my PT/INR was up? down? anyway it showed that my blood is a bit too thin even though my medication was reduced last week.  So I get another reduction in Coumadin for this week. I have all these charts posted in the kitchen so that I can keep up with how much of what I'm supposed to take. Today I put 5 mg on all my days til next Wednesday for Coumadin.  There will come a day when I don't have to have those charts!