Work and Play

We have come a long way since the middle of May.  We reached a few milestones this week.  Big Guy worked for the first time on Wednesday and Friday with Son1 as a helper. Yesterday, all four of us went together to swim and have a cookout.  Big Guy drove.  I can tell that today will need to be a resting day after such an active week. I am making progress in shifting my view of Big Guy as a sick person (sick in bed!) to a person who can go do normal stuff some or most of the time.  This has been a big challenge.  I can still see that IV pole in our bedroom and imagine him peeing in a bottle.  But BG is so much more than his MS.  I need to work on how to shift appropriately from someone in a nursing type role to someone in a spouse role.  I usually have a foot in each role.  I am aware of watching, monitoring, analyzing.Thinking about the medication. Watching for injection site reactions.  And of course we get calls from the special pharmacy and the Rebif people so there is no way to "forget" what is going on in Big Guy's brain.

Rebif: BG has two more 22mcg injections before moving up to the maintenance 44 mcg dose. So far the injections have not been too bad.  BG refuses to let me do any, so I guess I'll be on duty for that if/when BG is  too sick to do his own.  I know one thing.  I'd much prefer to do straight injections but BG can't stand the sight of a needle.  He is also resistant to using parts other than his stomach for injections.  I'm sure he'll need to rotate more over time.  A caution to those of you using the Rebif Rebiject II. Remember the step where you remove the cap from the syringe or you may end up with a dose of  medicine on your floor.  Yes it happened here.  Even though you may not think you need it, use the flip chart of instructions every time for a while.  If you are nervous, tired or rattled, you may make an error like this that you would never normally make.  BG is a perfectionist and has no problem with gadgets and tools.  Yet he screwed up. I was trying to relax and deal with my own general anxiety at the time (hot pack, eyes closed, Meditation Oasis guided relaxation on iPod) when I heard a lot of swearing!