Read from the start.
I sat in my usual chair.
“The thing is, Dr Gravy…”
“Yes?”
“It’s just been…”
I can’t imagine how hard it is to be a doctor, or a nurse. You’re probably way overworked, way underpaid, but you’re in that field because you want to help people.
And you’re trying your best with what you have and sometimes you—
“You poor thing”, Dr Gravy said, yes, and yes, she said it while looking over her sunset glasses, which she then took off, and held in her hand.
“There’s a new medicine we could start you on, but we need to apply for funding because it’s very expensive.”
And when she told me the amount it costs I was shocked, but then she said, “Oh believe me. This saves us money in the long run.”
Just like my very first visit, I spent most of that day sitting in hospital waiting rooms, and occasionally getting scanned and prodded.
In the blah blah department, I asked the blood test nurse how many vials of blood he would take. I always ask this because it lets me emotionally prepare for how long I need to look away.
“Six.”
Six! That’s quite a lot. And remembered back to that first visit when I got eight done that time.
“Ha! Eight! That’s nothing”, said the nurse. “I did twenty once!”
“What!? Twenty? That must take forever!?!!”
“No, it’s no problem, I do them very fast. Watch this.”
And then he proceeded to demonstrate to me how fast he could get through six vials. And for the first time in my life, I watched a man speedrun a blood test, adjusting the strap even tighter than usual for a couple frames increase.
“See? Fast.”
And then I hobbled along to my usual spot.
“Hello again”, said the server. And she pointed out that they had a new vegetarian filling, vegan steak, and I should try it out. And I did, and it was nice, and it became my regular go-to.
Dear reader, Subway’s vegan steak option was recently discontinued because not enough people bought it. You only have yourself to blame for not picking meat-free options.
Again, a nurse came to visit my home to show me how to inject the new medicine, adalim— aladmu— alalamim— I can’t spell it.
She told me how awful cushion can be, and she was pleased I was starting on something new. And she sat with me in our flat for thirty minutes afterwards, to make sure I didn’t collapse or die or anything.
Luckily, I didn’t, so she left, and she wished me all the best.
“Good luck with the new job.”
Adlumina— The new medicine works completely differently. I have to keep it in the fridge, and it—
It targets my joints and stuff directly. It doesn’t affect my immune system very widely, no. No, uhh, it targets the actual problem itself! The actual problem parts! And it stops my body’s, um, signals(?) that it sends out, to tell itself to attack itself, uhh, or something. This one I understand way, uhh, it confuses me. It was way more complicated.
Yes, these meetings with the nurse. They were always, um, I learned a lot about, um, in those little one-on-one one-hour lectures, I learned all about these different types of medicines, and how they interact with my body, and my immune system.
And I feel like I should have taken notes. Then maybe I’d be able to write something more accurate here.
Adalimamu— adamadi— has no side effects for me.
Sure, there’s a slight pain when I inject myself, but it’s super easy and I can’t see the needle. It’s a pen. I just click it, and I wait for it to click back. I don’t even need to hold the button down like I did with cushion.
You take it every two weeks, instead of every week, which is what cushion was. And I thought that would be easier at first, but, as the nurse says:
“Every two weeks is harder. Because you forget.”
And it’s true, I sometimes forget, and I’ve forgotten enough that the stash in the fridge is a bit too large so I might need to send some back.
But it works and it works really well and its effects are immediate, although it costs the NHS a lot of money.
For the past eighteen months, I have had no nausea and (nearly) no psoriatic arthritis! It just flares back occasionally when I get ill, or I run out of medicine.
Hooray!
Continue to the ending.