Introduction & Early Stages

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May 2001

Tuesday, May 08, 2001

With classes over a week ago and two finals in the coming days, I ran home this past weekend. I needed a quick dose of mother’s cooking, a quiet bedroom and a hot bath. You just can’t get a good, relaxing bath in college. Funny how I would never think to miss a bath until I didn’t have one at my fingertips.

All I have to do is get past the next four days. Today and tomorrow should* be spent studying for accounting, but I doubt that will happen. I printed out review sheets, which is as far as I think I’m going to get for one day. Tomorrow I’ll make an effort to read them. Then maybe Thursday (day of exam) I’ll study those sheets. It’s really quite a good system that has taken me four college semesters to perfect!

In other news, the weather is just glorious. Not that “glorious” is a word I use on a regular basis, but I do save it for days like today. Weather in Boston is sunny and 68 degrees. Doesn’t get better than that.

I spent the morning writing to my Congressman and two Senators. And of course I didn’t fail to leave out the big salami himself. Last night Peter Jennings told me (and 10 million other people) that the HMO’s are trying to pressure the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) into making allergy medicine over-the-counter drugs. I take Zyrtec (after flirting with Allegra for a season) for pollen allergies which are SO ANNOYING. I think I finally found a drug I can take when I wake up that keeps me comfortable all day and all night. Now I hear that we might have to pay for these at retail prices out of our pocket. So I looked up the pricing online, and Zyrtec is $250 for 30 days! That would run me $1000 for a bad allergy season!

After I contacted all of my representatives and the FDA pleading that they keep allergy medicine prescription only, I emailed everyone I knew who took allergy medicine to get them to do it too! I wound up emailing every other person in my address book, for better or for worse.

Jennings definitely put the bee in my bonnet today. For once it wasn’t my arthritis I was complaining about.

Tuesday, May 15, 2001

Two years of college is complete. Hard to believe that I’m two years away from graduating. Seems like just yesterday that I was getting ready to find out my scores on the SAT’s. Now I’m almost ready for the LSAT’s (that is, if I wanted to become a lawyer, but the day that happens is the day I can fly my car to the mall).

lling up the driveway after the trip back from Boston with a car packed with old notes, worn bed sheets, my desk lamp and boxes of junk that seemingly appeared throughout the year, I began to feel some strange emotions. Could I really be half done with college already? Has it gone by that fast? What have I done? Do I have time to do everything I want to do before I graduate?

Needless to say, it was strange to walk through the door, back from school. It felt like I went away to college two years ago not realizing just how good I had it. I realized when I got a hello hug from my parents that I am a really lucky guy. Something clicked – though I’m not sure what it was, as I’ve gotten hundreds, thousands of hugs from them – about that afternoon. When you weigh the positives and negatives of life, sometimes it’s okay not to feel 100% healthy. Sometimes it’s okay to have to sit sports out, or not to be able to drink in college like everyone else. Sometimes it’s okay to have difficulty climbing stairs or walking in the morning. It’s what you focus on. You can either dwell on what you don’t have, or be thankful for what you do have.

There wasn’t any life-changing incident that had happened over the last four months of school. Nor was there anything that I can point to for causing this feeling. It was the fact that I had been away from home for a while that made me realize just how lucky I am.

And now that I think about it, it may stink that I can’t do a lot of things – and other things I can’t do without pain. But in contrast to all of the things that I do have – like a loving family, a caring girlfriend, the chance to go to college – I really don’t have such a bad life. I’m going to make the best of my summer vacation, and take it one day at a time. Careful not to overdo it, but more importantly, careful not to lose sight of all the things I am blessed to have.

Tuesday, May 29, 2001

When you have arthritis, you’re working a full-time job AND going to college, chances are you don’t have a whole lot of time to kick back and relax. I realized this fact last week when I finally got a chance to do just that. My parents – realizing that their exclusive time with me (without, say, a wife) is limited – decided to take me and my younger brother Justin on vacation. So down to Florida we went for a little Caribbean cruise. Since we both have girlfriends, we weren’t on the lookout for ‘girl-friends’. Instead the two of us made a conscious effort to do nothing but relax together.

In retrospect, I did all of the things I wasn’t supposed to do. For starters, I laid out in the sun every day. When you take Azulphadine, in big letters on the bottle it says “no prolonged sun exposure”. I never bothered to ask why. I was tired of being transparent, and I needed the Vitamin D from the sun. So I got it.

Then I stayed up late. I went to bed early by some standards, but those are the people who wake up and exercise. Two days of the week I saw the sun rise on my way to bed. Slept a couple hours, and was outside by lunch time. My body was beyond achy at that point. In fact, I found time for an extra dose of medicine (if I needed it) around midnight – 1 A.M. But of course I didn’t take anything. I’m good like that.

Then there’s the little secret that down there, the drinking age is 18. Plus I look 22. Now I went a whole year (both semesters) not drinking one single thing. I didn’t want that to screw me up, plus they thought I had that ulcer a couple months ago, yada yada yada. Going to the hospital for this or that; whatever. My philosophy for the week was ‘be smart, be responsible, and don’t worry, you’re not driving’. So long story short, well, I had fun. But it wasn’t until half way into the week that I called home to check my messages and there was a call from my doctors office. They got the lab reports from my blood test back a week before I had left. Apparently my liver enzymes were high. This is caused by the medicine that I take. Kim’s message said DON’T DRINK THIS WEEK (or ever, for that matter, but especially not this week). I immediately called her, had a chat with her. She made it clear that while it probably wasn’t a DEFCON 1 situation, a liver transplant isn’t something that I needed to deal with anytime soon. I hung up the phone, looked around and said D’OH. And that was the end of that for the week. I went back to my book, back to going to sleep at a reasonable time, and back to reality.

At least I got it ‘out of my system’ by putting stress ON my system. But it was well worth it, well deserved and something I don’t plan on doing again for a long time. Until next weekend. Just kidding. I’m just lucky I had the chance to spend a week with my family, to relax, have fun and be safe. And I’m sure my liver enzymes will go down. There’s got to be a pill for that…I’m looking for a lucky 13th pill a day to take anyway.

Thursday, May 31, 2001

Headed back, on yet another airplane, I think back to the two days I spent in North Carolina. It seems like the trip down here was the biggest hassle of the week so far. I remember packing Tuesday morning at 3:30 a.m. right before I rolled out. Bag was packed; clothes were ironed. Everything but my pills. So I went downstairs to the pharmacy (that’s what we call the kitchen cabinet that houses the family medication) to pack just two days worth of drugs. As if it were slow motion, I opened one of my pill cases and out dropped the two remaining pills. Knowing I would need at least 12 to make it through the trip, I was in trouble. This was a nightmare that every person with arthritis (who relies on medicine) tries to avoid at all costs. “How could I be so irresponsible?” I thought to myself. “What am I going to do?” A crisis like that at 3:45 in the morning was the last thing that I needed. Cursing myself out, I started checking all of my other bottles. I finally found a stash of about a week’s worth that I had saved up from various occasions. They were old and chalky, but I didn’t care. They did the trick. Saved by my mom, once again.

We went down to be a part of the Mobic event in Pinehurst before the USGA golf tournament. The trip was great. I got to meet so many “interesting” people in North Carolina. Like the guy from the car rental place. His name was THURL, and he was the first person to greet us. Realizing we had left our North Carolinian translator at home, we decided to go with the flow and take in as much of the southern hospitality as possible. Thurl almost made it into my will.

The theme of the trip, naturally, was golf. I felt pretty badly though, because I used to love to play golf all the time. I was reminded of how peaceful it is; how much fun it can be. I was also reminded of how well I used to play. Sometimes more than 18 holes at a time. Then again I was a little boy with all the energy in the world. A very good golfing little boy. Now golf holds only a memory of good times I had with my brother. At least he can still play, right? And who knows, maybe one day I’ll be back to Pinehurst to play a round or two or three myself. I loved it down there, and can’t wait to come back after they’ve cured this disease.