Good rheumatology appointment

I have successfully tapered off all of the prednisolone steroids and am still moving around well. The doctors are keeping me on what they consider a low dose of NSAID (5 ml naproxen), and ranitidine (stomach liner) so they can be cautious with me. My labs are trending improvement… not completely back to normal, but definitely much better. The doctors are pleased with my progress. Let’s hope that I can be completely medicine free soon! In the meantime, my moon face is slowly waning and I am practically back to my regular skinny self again.

I love the Beatles!

Better than karaoke is Beatles Rock Band! Yellow Submarine is my favorite song!

duCK!

My speech pathologist Shelly and I have been working hard in speech therapy class. Now that I am very talkative (at home at least…), we are less focused on getting me to speak, but rather, on working on my pronunciation of “k” and “g”. These syllables both require that I open my mouth really wide in order to say them. Typically I “front” these sounds, substituting a “d” sound instead of the “k” and “g”. My Mom believes that an arthritic flare in my jaw was attributing to my difficulty making these sounds. Therefore, as the arthritis improves, my speech will continue to improve as well. Well, today I actually said “duCK”! (instead of “dud”)! What progress!