Pittsburgh

I never get a window seat but this time the plane was full and I had no choice. I have to say I really enjoyed the sun coming up and the beautiful clouds.

I was never so exhausted when I arrived in Pittsburgh. First time I stayed at this hotel right in the heart of all the Medical Centers. This will be my Hotel from now on. It has it's own restaurant and each room has a balcony. Before heading to my room I grabbed a bag of food because I knew after I hit the room nothing was going to make me leave.

The sandwich was Tomato, cheese and spinach with an expresso and cherry pastry which I ate first..sweets are a real weakness! I limped onto the balcony and took photo's of all the Medical Centers surrounding the Hotel.

It was just past noon but it felt so good slipping into my Pj's and sliding into bed where I stayed until 4 in the morning! It always takes hours to get my body going in the morning but by 8:am I was ready for a breakfast sandwich and another sweet pastry before packing up and heading to the RA Center.

Back in December they were busy taking down the old Children's hopital and expanding the parking. The new construction sticks out set in the center of the older buildings.

Pain does terrible things to the way you look in general. I realized this when my doctor walked into the room, put his arm around me and said, "Why didn't you call me". We had a good talk and he noted all the new huge nodules on most of my joints. This makes it really hard to walk when you have marble sized nodules on your heels and toes. Clearly the RA was being pretty agressive, but I already new that. We talked about the hip surgery and back surgery I was suppose to have but the bone density tests showed the lack of good solid bone to work with...I had already decided not to have the surgeries because of this after doing some of my own research on the problems that could happen if I went forward with it. Controling the pain will be a problem but I've been dealing with that for sometime now. Compared to the RA pain it's really nothing.

After he checks with the liver specialist we hope to start a new round of medicine in a week. With liver disease I am limited to what drugs I can take for RA. Next visit in October I'll need to see the Liver Doc and the Kidney Doc. By the way, my RA doc is a Hottie!  He's so bookish I don't think he even realizes it! My liver doc is Arab. He looks like a movie star. East Coast doctors are just so professional looking, scrubbed and suited up in the lastest shirts and ties with starched white lab coats...I think you see this in University Hospitals in the east more then anywhere else.

Because UPMC is a teaching hospital I always allow the students to examine me. They ask hundreds of questions relating to the disease. I had to sign to allow them to read my file and see my test results. After all the Xrays and blood tests I stepped outside of the hospital door and grabbed the Airport bus.

This is a very strange bus. The seats fold up to make room for suitcases. It was packed with students sitting atop of all the back packs and luggage. They all were busy on cell phones or other new pads of one kind or another. The bus is equipped with computer access! I didn't have my camera handy but it would have made a neat photo..next time I'll remember to not pack the camera!

I flew out on American Airlines and back on Delta. I can see why AA has put in a rush order to replace it's ageing aircraft. The plane from San Antonio to Atlanta was in poor condition. I felt very uneasy until it landed. The next plane was newer but also aged. Coming back I had upgraded seating that was well worth it and I really needed the extra space after the past two days. My ankles were swollen so bad I had to wrap them with elastic bandages before boarding the plane. I don't even know how I managed to get off in San Antonio. I'm sitting here with both ankles and feet wrapped in ice packs.

I hope the insurance company just puts the new order through. It shouldn't be a problem since the new drugs cost half of what they are putting out right now. It'll take 3 to 4 weeks to see if the new meds are helping..what do they say? It has to get worse before it gets better!