Brad's Basketball Game

Before all the craziness started with my surgery and disease, Matt and I went up to Logan to watch Brad play basketball. Randy is coaching his team this year and it was so much fun! Brad is getting better and better. We love spending time with the kids and Randy and Jenny of course!

Passing the ball in was always difficult... who should he pass it to?


Harrison did so well in the loud gym! I got to hold him the whole game!


Uncle Matt taught Claire how to dunk!

Incision Pictures

I have been asking Matt to take pictures of my incision on my head every once in a while so I can see for myself what it looks like. Here are all those pictures now that this is all over!

The day after my surgery (January 11)


The day my staples came out at the doctor's office (January 20)


The day my staples came out- after cleaning it up (January 20)


About a week after my staples came out (End of January)


About a week ago (Beginning of February)


As you can see, it is healing up really well and my hair is growing back. I still feel a little bruising around the incision, but other than that it is doing great!

MS Treatment

I apologize for not posting sooner. I guess I figured that things have settled down and that everyone knew what was going on... Here is the update for those of you who I haven't seen: My doctor has started me on a treatment called Avonex. It is an intramuscular injection that I give myself once a week. I can inject in my thigh, or Matt or my mom can inject in my shoulder (not that that will ever happen!). This treatment does NOT treat my symptoms, which means that it will not directly improve the numbness in my body. It treats the progression of the disease and lengthens the amount of time between relapses. Once the damage is done in the nervous system (in my case, in my brain), it will stay damaged, which is why we cannot "fix" the damage. There are other types of treatment: steroid treatment is used to speed up the healing process if you are having severe symptoms-this is not used often as it is not good for your body, or they will also do specific treatments for symptoms. My symptoms (numbness) are considered "minor" and not severe enough to treat. Compared to other symptoms, I have the good end of the deal for sure.

My first injection was preceded by a training with a nurse who showed me how to do everything and helped me practice and eventually do the injection. I did my first injection in my numb leg and didn't feel a thing. Three hours later I started feeling achy and could tell my temperature was rising. About two hours after that, I definitely had a fever. I went to bed at that point, after taking a sleeping pill, and had an awful night fighting the fever and trying to stay asleep. I woke up the next morning feeling fine.

My second injection went much better. I waited until about 7:00 to give myself the shot and I pumped a ton of water into my body. Like hundreds of ounces of water, gatorade and propel before and after my shot. We had friends over, and when they left around 10:00, I still wasn't really feeling anything. At 10:30 I took some Nyquil, which helps me sleep better than the other medicine I took last week, and went to bed at 11:00 still feeling pretty good. I slept fine and woke up feeling good! I was pretty tired the next day, but what a difference!

My shot and the two needles. I of course only use one needle, but I have a prescription needle that is different than the one it comes with...


My needle is the smaller of the two. My doctor prescribed it for me. It is 1/4 inch shorter and a bit thinner than the other needle.

Normal... which is weird

According to my neurologist, all my tests came back normal... which is weird. I guess we always knew that I am "special." Usually MS patients have more than one lesion- I just have one huge lesion in my brain (which is why they thought it was a tumor), putting me in the 1% of "special" MS patients. We are going to get started on treatment, which means I will be giving myself a shot once a week, as soon as everything gets cleared through my insurance and we get our financial aid set up. It is so nice to finally have some answers and a plan.

I love plans.