Sure, there were parts of Christmas that were a lot of fun, like watching Lucy open her presents, but the rest of it was pretty darn miserable.

The Tuesday before Christmas, I had a Reclast infusion. Reclast is a medicine for osteoporosis, and as a once-a-year medicine, I was happy to choose that over the weekly pills. I sat in the infusion room and played on my iPhone for about 45 minutes, and then it was off to the lab to have 15 — yes, FIFTEEN — vials of blood drawn.

Then, I headed home. I was feeling fairly light-headed, which I attributed to the fact that I had just had FIFTEEN vials of blood drawn on an empty stomach (I kind of didn’t have any time before my appointment to eat). I grabbed some french fries and a Coke to see if that would help, and relaxed on the couch when I got home.

The next day, I still felt bad. I would get very light-headed and dizzy, and I started to get nauseous. That night, I spiked a fever. We called my rheumatologist’s office and were told that if the symptoms lasted several days post-infusion to call my primary care doctor. We thought for sure I’d be feeling better by Thursday.

Unfortunately, I was much worse. By then, I couldn’t even sit up without feeling like I was going to pass out. My primary care doctor worked me in, and we headed off soon after I got up. I almost passed out sitting in the chair to have my vitals taken, and they sent me directly to the ER. They offered to call an ambulance, but Joe said he would drive me. I kind of wish we’d taken them up on the ambulance because then I would have gone right back!

We waited for a while (no surprise there) before finally being called back. I was feeling H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E. A friend of ours came to get Lucy (so grateful!), and we settled in for the day. Because we were there the WHOLE day. I had a chest x-ray done (during which I almost passed out because I had to stand), I had a CT scan done, I had a EKG done and I had blood drawn. The best part was the IV meds (although the nurse took out the IV from where she originally placed it and moved it, which kind of sucked). The zofran really helped with my nausea, and the morphine eased some of the EXCRUTIATING pain in my joints and muscles (what? I didn’t mention that before? Yeah, apparently that’s one of the side effects, too). However, nothing seemed to help the light-headedness and dizziness.

When we got home, I walked Joe through some of the things I needed to do as guest editor for one of the Patch sites (and, yes, I had been working from my phone while in the ER) and just rested. The ER doctor gave me a prescription to help with the dizziness, and it really did work. It was a lifesaver. We laid low at the house, and Joe helped me with work again on Friday. Because he’s awesome like that.

On Saturday, we headed up to my parents’ house. I was feeling OK, but I would start to feel bad again if I’d been on my feet too long. After our traditional Christmas eve dinner, I was feeling pretty dizzy, so I took a pill. However, it knocked me out. As in, I could barely keep my eyes open while we opened presents. I was so tired it was painful. It hadn’t done that the previous day, so I was pretty surprised.

I went to bed for the night around 8:30 p.m., and the pill knocked me out so much that I didn’t even hear Lucy and her
cousins running around the door to my parents’ living room for 30 minutes. Wow.

Sunday was a little better in the respect that I wasn’t super tired because I chose dizziness over being knocked out and missing Christmas dinner. I ended up taking a pill after dinner, and I slept the whole way home. Heaven.

Oh, and did I mention my dad was in pain from hurting his shoulder (for which he’ll be having surgery next week), and knocked out at times from pain meds? Yeah. He missed all of Christmas eve, which sucked because it is his favorite night of the year.

Now, I seem to be pretty much back to normal, and I couldn’t be happier. I won’t be taking Reclast again, though. My doctor and I will have to come up with another plan next year. My next post will be much more upbeat — Christmas pictures!