Long time no see!

Sorry it's been about 8 months since I last updated.
Life has been pretty mundane and rudimentary that I just forget to come here and post.

However, with such a long absence, there is quite a bit to update as I have had several appointments and changes.

At the end of February, My depression was getting to a point that I had to do something. I was not seeing a single bit of evidence that my hand was making any progress and I feared that if I didn't do something to allow me to play something again, I might kill myself.

So I sent my saxophone to be converted to a one-handed mechanism. it's a process that takes about a year and costs as much as a decent American sedan, but I had to do it. I'm not giving up on my hand, but I need to be able to play something until my hand functions and I can return to playing a normal instrument again. or *if* my hand never functions at a level that I can return to playing, I need to be able to play in some way and have a backup plan.

The tech that is modifying my instrument helped design the system he is putting on it,.. He received my sax on arch 2nd, but it was mid April before he was able to start work on it.

I have to say that since sending my instrument off, my moods have been MUCH better, and the suicidal thoughts have gone completely away... and as an added bonus, I'm starting to see some progress in my hand!!! (Huzzah!)

Around April or May, I stopped using my walking stick completely. I now walk with no assistance at all. In May, we found out that Medicaid hadn't been paying my therapy bills for months and we had about a $5,000 tab. the director of the therapy place I've been going to since January, decided to drop my write off my bill and I'm now paying my therapy sessions a la carte, only at a greatly reduced fee that I can actually afford. Because my walking has improved so much , my physical therapist decided that since I'm having to pay for my therapy myself, we could take a hiatus from PT unless I decided I needed a refresher.


Now as far as doctor's appointments.
In April, I had another MRI. Everything was still clear, so my next scan and visit with my oncologist is in December.. Every visit, he extends the length of time between scans... at first it was three months, then he moved it to six months, and nw 8 months. That's a good sign. :-)


I've had a few visits with Dr. C. Viral load is still "undetectable" and CD4 has been around 150 the last couple of labs. next visit is in October. If I can get it up to 200 for a couple of months or so, I'll be able to drop the last antibiotic. I don't mind taking the Bactrim, as it doesn't give me any side effects

I just hadanother round of Botox about two weeks ago. My doctor has been concentrating most of the injections on my arm and hand, since that is still where the tone is the worst. This time one of her doctors in residence did the injections while she supervised. There was one muscle on my arm that they had a hell of a time finding, and they had to stick me about four or five times in the same general area before being able to inject. a couple of days later I noticed one nasty looking bruise in that spot.

Thankfully, even though the procedure took longer than usual, the pain level was about the same as I'm used to... It's still nothing as painful as the first time I had Botox when I was in the hospital. But as I tell everyone, it's still not something I enjoy having to go through every three or four months.

I recently reconnected with my old high school band directors on Facebook.. it's been nice talking to my head director again. I had communicated with him via e-mail a couple of times after coming home from the hospital and getting situated, but the e-mails stopped after two or the exchanges. I had found my assistant director a few weeks ago and when he confirmed my friend request, I saw he was friends with my head director, so I sent him a request too. Turned out, he had just recently joined up on FB a week or two prior, which was why I hadn't found him on there before. :-)

I'm sure there's more.. but I will save that for a post in a few days.