What A Week!

This is my first weekend after working my new shift. I really like the changes, the biggest ones are being home at night (I even went to Wal-Mart a couple of times), and being able to sleep. Our days start pretty early since I'm up by 6:30, but it's worth it to me. It's nice to be here at night for the kids and to get everything ready for the next day. I have Wednesdays off, but this past week I had to take the kids and Kenny to doctor's appointments, so it was a little busy, but it's great having a day off in the middle of the week to get stuff done. I'm going to miss Fridays off, but this set up is much better in so many ways.

One crappy thing about this week is that we found out Kenny might have Lupus. He's been sick on and off since I've known him, and it was only this week we've found a doctor who has made sense of what Kenny has been going through all these years. It is very difficult to diagnose, and there's no one "Lupus test" that can be taken to determine yes or no whether someone has it or not. I'm sure it will be a while before we have a definite answer, but in the meantime he's really suffering. He's in pain all the time, and the only thing he can do right now is take pain killers like Advil or Tylenol. If the testing comes back positive, Lupus is normally treated with prednizone, which is a steroid, which has some pretty horrible side effects. It's not the greatest drug to be on, but it works for Lupus symptoms. There is no cure for Lupus, but it can be managed. The trick is to figure out what causes flare ups so those triggers can be avoided. I don't know much about it yet, but I've been looking around on the web to see what I can find out, and all the information is pretty much the same. No cure, no definite or consistent symptoms, everyone who has it goes through something different, and it's managed with steriods. I'll keep looking and trying to find out what I can. The worst part is seeing Kenny going through this. He's really limited as to what he can do in a day, including work. It's hard sometimes seeing him in so much pain and there's not a thing I can do to alleviate it for him. He can be fine when he first gets up, but as the day progresses, the symptoms start setting in, and they move around from his hands and feet to his back and thighs, and so on. The pain seems to find new places to come out every day. He just needs alot of understanding and support, but I wish I could do more. Hopefully one day soon he'll have some answers, but for now we just have to try and get through this rough spot until more tests can be run.


http://www.lupuscanada.org/