I had my first follow up visit today since being released from the hospital. My neph was pretty excited to show me a slip of paper with a giant N for negative written next to protein. "You're fixed, see ya next month," he said with a smile. That's right, I'm in full remission and hanging on to all the protein I've been scarfing down for the last couple weeks. We celebrated with a meat-filled dinner...beef tacos with a side of beef-filled chili rellenos and beef quesadillas. Actually, now that I think about it, all that beef (and cheese) probably won't bode well for the cholesterol test I have to take first thing in the morning. So much for getting rid of the Lipitor pill :) He also told me I'm tapering completely off the prednisone over the next 4 weeks which is nearly as exciting as not losing protein...well almost. Even the thought of putting that small 5 mg pill in my box instead of 1/2 of a 20 mg pill had me so excited I had to refill the whole week's worth.
Now onward to the day I can throw that box away...
That's really great news! Congrats! Careful not to wean off too quickly... ask the other girls-- from what I've read & heard from them, the biggest factor of success in staying in remission seems to be how slow you come off the pred. 4 weeks seems really fast! Even for just 20 mg! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks Alisha! I'm able to come off a little quicker than is typical because of the acthar. I was actually at 60 mg as of the end of March and have dropped 10 mg per week since. He gave me a new Rx today to keep me from cutting pills into quarters. Now I need to figure out what to do with all the pills in my no longer in use box :) I LOVE putting pills in that box though I do try not to look up what the copay was for each bottle. Good luck as you continue your own taper!!
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