Chemical Defendants, See.

March 26, 2015March 26, 2015 tragerstreitLeave a comment

I imagine a lot of people out there share my weekly regime of tipping pills from many bottles into little plastic containers that mark the days by day and night. Times were, I took nothing (though my recurrent anemia said I really ought to be taking iron, and my living in Oregon says some vitamin D would be good). Occasionally I’d get a wild hair and buy some supplements and taking them maybe a week or two before I tired of it. I don’t have the luxury of tiring of it and setting the pills aside anymore, so once a week, I pull many bottles off of the apothecary shelves, and count them out into little daily pods.

9 in the morning. Gabapentin (twitches/cramps), riluzole (the only ALS drug), buproprion (for depression), armodafinil (for energy), citalopram (for anxiety), ranitidine (for heartburn caused by these pills), vitamin D (for missed sunshine), coconut oil (because maybe it helps, studies are out). Usually magnesium (for muscles and nerves), but I’m out of it just now.

At 2PM, another gabapentin.

When I get home, another riluzole and buproprion. Also vitamin C, iron, and a multivitamin (because you know why). Yes that is a children’s chewable. Deal with it.

At 10PM, another gabapentin.

5 of these are to deal with effects of ALS. One is to counter the effects of the drugs I take to deal with the effects of ALS. And then supplements, because my body needs all the help it can get. So many pills, and I have never calculated how much this costs me per day. Maybe I ought to. I’d probably be afraid. And then there’s the three optionals I have; cyclobenzaprine (for really bad headaches and stress tightness), lorazepam (for when I start to freak out), and zolpidem tartrate (for when I can’t sleep). I don’t take those very often. The cyclobenzaprine (flexeril) is an emergency maneuver – I’m prone to headaches and this is for when they last for days and for fucks’ sake I just want to relax and sleep. The lorazepam (ativan) is usually taken as a preventative when I am going in to a stressful situation (why hello, legal paperwork regarding my death) or when I have panic attacks. And I’ve had the zolpidem tartrate (ambien) on prescription for ages because I sleep for SHIT. But I rarely ever take it, one bottle of 30 of them lasted me nearly 6 months. They’re also an emergency maneuver (hello, trying to fall asleep with CPAP for the first time), reactionary rather than preventative.

And there is another one out there. A possible addition to my chemical combination.

It’s called GM604. There has been a very limited trial, it’s still crazy early, but they’ve shown it to slow the progression of the disease, and even one specific trial showed a minor return of ability. As you might expect, there are a lot of people trying to get it fast-tracked through FDA approval. There’s a petition here, and a Google Group here. The company producing it is called Genervon, which sounds like something Transformers use to make new Transformers. They’ve been keeping the world aware of their progress through press releases.

At the moment, Genervon is awaiting a decision from the FDA. If they’re approved, GM604 will be available and covered by insurance. If they’re not, they must continue through Phase 3 trials, which even at an accelerated rate that the FDA has promised will still take 3 years. Which means most of the people alive with ALS today will not live to see it. There really hasn’t been enough evidence, though, that it works. There’s enough evidence to prove that they should keep studying it, and have further trials, definitely. But not enough to prove it works.

The MS/ALS news magazine, the ALS Therapy Development Institute, and The Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins (yeah I totally cut and pasted that from the website) and many many others are watching this with cautious optimism, but not committing to either endorsing or condemning the drug. They want more trials to make certain it’s safe.

“Wait and see.”

“But we QUITE LITERALLY DO NOT HAVE THE TIME TO WAIT,” says just about everyone with ALS or caretaking someone or in the Silk Circle somehow. “GIVE US THE DRUG.”

“We don’t have enough tests to prove it’s safe,” says the FDA.

“What’s it gonna do,” ALS peeps say, “kill us!?”

And so the world waits. Maybe this is a miracle drug. It’s certainly not a cure, but it may be a substantial step.

Next stop: someone stealing the formula from Genervon and producing it in Mexico. Cue many, many ALS peeps taking vacations in Mexico. Because they just want to live awhile longer and will risk anything to get it. Their life is literally on the line.

I don’t know how I feel about it either way, to be honest. My progression might be slow enough that I’ll live to see the results of that trial. But I also fully identify with wanting to take a chance, if it means more time. More ability. More quality of shortened life. I’ve already said I would participate in trials, and I meant it. If I can create clinical data for this drug by taking it and checking in with doctors, sign me up. If it kills me faster, well, now you have a data point. And if it doesn’t, you also have a data point. From a medical trial standpoint, you win either way. From my standpoint, I might come out better than I went in. Or I might die, which I was going to do anyway. I definitely want to see more testing. Either controlled by the FDA or released into the wild and see what happens.

I’m excited that there is SOMETHING happening, in any case. Even if it’s potentially one more pill in my cases.

Bad Days

March 23, 2015March 23, 2015 tragerstreitLeave a comment

I’m having a bad day.

Some days are fine, some days are normal, and some days it all just fucking gets to me.

I found out today that a dear friend has stage 4 cancer and was given 4 – 8 weeks. Maybe 9 months with chemo. And he and his wife are wonderful, amazing people and they don’t deserve this at all and just, just..

FUCK.

And I offered what assistance I can offer, what I’ve learned about the bureaucracy of dying, and just..fuck, man. It’s been weird and wonderful to watch the sudden outpouring of love on them, see the support network spring up ‘out of nowhere’ that I knew was there all along because I’m on the outside of this. Aching because I know the inside and it’s super shitty and they don’t deserve this. Angry, so fucking ANGRY that this is happening and I am powerless to stop it. And I know that panic, and that scramble, and that wait wait wait while you know time is ticking. I didn’t deserve this. They definitely do not deserve this.

No one does. No one ever deserves to be told they’ll be dead in a year. Or soon. The roadmap to life is complicated and strange, and it’s unexpectedly horrifying to see the end of that journey, and count the mile markers on that road. And sometimes you ride in the car and the scenery is pretty and you space out and things are okay. And sometimes, like today, there are potholes and horrific accidents and you just want to pull the fuck over and breathe for a minute, but you can’t. The car keeps driving. Time keeps ticking.

And so sometimes, like today, you lock yourself in the bathroom at work and cry for a little bit. About your friends, but about you, too. About everything. And then on the way home, you buy all of the junk food and sit in front of your computer and eat everything bad for you and play Skyrim and try to tune it out for awhile. Tomorrow will be better. But today is a bad day.

I think bad days are an evil gift, because they give you permission to fall apart for a while. It’s like a valve release, or some days like a punctured balloon. Permission, a reason, an excuse to just completely lose your shit and release all of the FUCK THIS SHIT IT SUCKS SO BAD FUCK EVERYTHING WHY THE FUCK IS IT HAPPENING THIS IS SO FUCKING UNFAIR and embrace the grief and face it down and acknowledge it, and then put your big girl panties back on and live your life. Tomorrow. Until the next time. And the bad days are cathartic and good, and yeah. Necessary, maybe. But it sucks to be having one, feeling like you’re in a nightmare and it’s going to get so much worse. Knowing I’ll feel better tomorrow does not help me tonight, as I eat birthday cake Oreos and cry in my now-practically empty office in a house I don’t get to stay in while my digital persona steals from random barrels and kills skeevers and dragons. Pretending that the world can stop for a bit, committing yourself to losing a night to escapism because it was a bad day. As though it somehow makes up for it when all it does is cost me more precious time.

Just..bad day. Tomorrow will resume my usual dealing-with-grace and optimism and humor. But tonight it all just sucks so much ass. And while it’s okay, normal, expected to have days like this, it feels unnatural and awful and I don’t like BEING sad and angry and pessimistic. It’s not me. I hate this. I hate being emo, I hate that people I love are going through trauma, I hate that I don’t always have the strength and grace to smile. I hate that I can’t always find humor in the dark. Especially when it’s darkness around people I love. I hate this.

I hate bad days.

Final Days in the Zombie Tramp House

March 20, 2015 tragerstreitLeave a comment

Things are coming together. I have a schedule. I should be able to put the house up on the market in about 2 weeks. I have nearly everything upstairs packed up that doesn’t need to go with me to the transition apartment. I have just the kitchen stuff to go through now, and squirrel away what I don’t need. From here, I’ll shift everything into the garage and eventually into storage, and then ‘stage’ my house as best as I can. Primarily this includes turning the ‘den’ back into a den and not an extension of my kitchen, the way it has been.

It’s been…an interesting exercise. To say the least. There’s the melancholy duty of going through my things with a very different moving mindset. You know, typically there’s the “have I used this in the last year? Do I really need this?” sorting, but mine’s had an additional “Am I ever going to use this again, and do I want to keep it anyway for sentimental purposes and have my family have to throw it away later?” There’s a fine walking line between “center circle, bitches! Keep ALL THE THINGS! It’s not my problem to deal with it later, I’ll be DEAD!” and “my death’s hard enough business for them, I should make it easier as much as I can”. I don’t want to sacrifice my current enjoyment of life in the interest of making things easier when I’m gone. But at the expense of a little time now, I can save grief later. It’s a hard business, going through someone’s things when they’re gone. So much crap, so many things important to me that are meaningless to anyone else. Do I let them go now? Or do I keep them, even though I know I’ll never look at them again and in all probability they’ll stay here in this box until someone throws them away.

There’s a sort of freedom that comes with this, too, a relief of obligation. I don’t have to hold on to this anymore. There’s no reason. I can give this up, it’s okay.

But the kitchen.

I had such plans, and dreams, and schemes. A professional workbench, a partitioned off section for chocolatiering, baker’s racks for projects..

and now I can’t. Because I know damned WELL I’m never going to be able to do that stuff. I can still bake, for now, and make candy, but nowhere near on the scale I wanted to. So in going through my kitchen gear, there’s the extra bitter edge to it. “Am I going to use this ever again?” “NO. Because I CAN’T. And that is SUPER SHITTY.” It’s the second major physical concession I’ve had to make, the first being the sale of the house in the first place. But I know there’s no point to outfitting my new kitchen like a professional workspace, because I’ll never be able to use it to its capacity. And that sucks.

BUT!

It also means I am no longer obligated to bring the cake.

“Oh we don’t need a Safeway cake or anything, Vashti can make one.”

“Um. I’m kinda busy that weekend, though. I’m not sure I’ll have the time.”

“Well, I guess we can just grab one from Costco.”

“FUCK THAT I WILL MAKE YOU A CAKE. Such a cake you will never have SEEN. Because FUCK Costco cake.”

It also means no more random experiments like the Meatcake, at least not as frequently as I did. That might be better for humanity. No one should wield that kind of power.

So this weekend I hope to finish packing up the kitchen unneededs. Over this coming week I’ll finish up my office and everything upstairs. Next weekend staging. And then…put the house on the market and see what happens. I don’t expect to have problems selling. Hopefully I won’t have problems finding a temporary apartment. Or a new home.

Right now, though, I’d like to find a nap.

Awww yeah, she’s a Sleep Machine!

March 17, 2015March 17, 2015 tragerstreitLeave a comment

So I got the CPAP machine yesterday! It’s pretty. It’s The AirSense 10 Autoset by ResMed. Or maybe the Elite. I don’t remember. It’s a lot smaller than I expected it to be. The sleep study put this expectation in my brain that it was going to be this massive machine next to my head, when it turned out to be the size of an alarm clock. With a hose.

That heats up!

My respiratory therapist (I have a respiratory therapist! I forget how many that makes in my Medical Posse) showed me how everything works, how to run the morning report, how to clean everything, how often to clean it, when to reorder supplies. And then I signed a contract that said yes I promise I will use this at least 21 days over the next 30 to show I’m SRS BZNS about CPAPpage. No, really, I had to do that. Or pay for the whole thing out of pocket ($1900!) after 30 days or return it to Providence. Weird. And then we fitted me for a mask, and I got one called “Wisp” because it was less strappy-constraint around my noggin. I’m at a relatively low pressure setting, I guess, which is good for beginners. Yay for me. The whole thing fits into a small case, like, I had school binders bigger than this thing, probably. I could put a vandalized Pee-Chee in here and feel nostalgic. But for now it’s just a softcover case, totally would fit in my backpack like it ain’t no thang when I travel.

The first night was challenging as I expected. I took an ambien to make sure I was able to sleep at all. It took a long time to stop feeling like I was suffocating and forcing myself to breathe out. The cats flipped out. I knew they would. When I laid down to sleep, Molly crawled up my torso like she was stalking a beast, pupils wide as saucers, jumping away when I touched her. Ianto was having NONE of that thank you very much, and slept in the hallway, and Parmesan, well. He’s 22 years old. He settled in next to my face as usual. And the awesome thing about the CPAP is that he was flopped over on my face and I could still breathe for a change! It was like…kitty scuba diving. With the only fishes being the ones on his breath. That I couldn’t smell. Because CPAP! It’s MAGIC!

I slept pretty hard, but I don’t know if that was CPAPpage or Ambien-ce. I took the mask off at like, 5:30, I think. I don’t remember. I remember being glad it has auto shutoff. My morning report said I used it for 7 hours and had an average of .4 ‘incidents’ an hour. Which I guess meant I stopped breathing? All of this will be sent to my doctor. By the built-in cell modem. Which I will be honest? Freaks me out a little. It’s like, Big Brother is Watching You Sleep. Fantastic if it helps, but it still feels like I’ve got a little snitch on my bedside. With a heated coil tube and a humidifier. Snitches…have switches?

I don’t even know where I was going with that.

ANYWAY. So I have this thing now, and it’s probably going to be part of my life from here out. Until it’s swapped out with a different breathing machine, I expect. It will eventually become routine to me. I can teach myself to get used to this.

Not sure about the cats, though.

“It’s a beastly, undignified business.”

March 13, 2015 tragerstreitLeave a comment

Terry Pratchett died yesterday. He was 66 and suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s disease. He was a brilliant mind, and the world is so much poorer for his absence.

In 2011, three years after his diagnosis, he made a film called Choosing to Die. He met with an extremely British man, Peter Smedley, who had motor neurone disease – known here in the States as ALS. Peter was about the same stage as I am when he chose to die, weakness in his legs that made it difficult to walk and get up out of chairs. He had a very bright mind, and saw clearly the end of his path. He didn’t want his story to end that way, so he went to Switzerland and wrote his own exit. His wife was immaculate and also extremely British and very “keep calm and carry on”. They both kept a very strong face through it all.

I did not expect to actually see the man die.

I am glad they filmed it. It was a very good and honest look at the mechanics of the assisted death. And even though it was hard to watch, I am grateful that he shared his story. It was surreal to see someone at the same stage as I, with the same mindset, take the steps. Earlier than I would ever have. So much earlier. But he knew where he was going and did not want that undignified end, and so he took the poison and his wife stroked his hand and he fell asleep and died.

And he had to go to Switzerland to do it.

I am so, so grateful, again, to live in a state where it’s legal. How anyone can deny someone the right to die comfortably in their own homes on their own terms is quite beyond me.

It is, indeed, a beastly, undignified business.

Clearing Out

March 11, 2015 tragerstreitLeave a comment

We had a huge moving/charity thingy sale last weekend. We could NOT have asked for better weather for it. It was warm, sunny, and beautiful. In the course of our three day sale, I learned some things:

1. People like slowly driving by sales and magically determining that your sale has nothing to offer. And sometimes even if they stop, they don’t bother turning the car off.
2. People will haggle over a $1 item, even at a charity sale.
3. If I had a dollar for everyone who inquired if my ladder were for sale, I could have bought a new one.
4. Dude who offered me “like, around twenny bux” for a $300 collectible KNOWS about Masterworks Replicas, man. He KNOWS.

Also, I was shown, yet again, that I have an amazing support network. Folks I haven’t seen in person in years showed up. People I’ve only known online showed up. Friends donated things to the sale AND bought stuff. After three days, we were exhausted and done and a little bit richer and a lot lighter in stuff.

In between the chaos and crowds, I watched things that used to belong to me become someone else’s. And rather than melancholy, it made me happy. It made me happy to see my Wishbone plushie go to a girl who knew who he was. It made me happy to watch a kid’s face light up when his mom said, yes, he can have that. To watch a woman buy a set of manga – in Japanese! – that I was sure no one else would want. At the end of each day, I looked at the garage, less full, and looked at my friend Danielle, running the show and doing ALL THE THINGS, and was so, so grateful.

The sale was born of grief and hardship. It is to offset the upcoming cost of a horrible thing, and to lighten my load for the move(s) to come. It was hard – SO HARD – to go through my things and decide if didn’t need that thing anymore, with the added implication of, “I don’t want someone to have to deal with this when I die so I’ll get rid of it now.” And I gave up some of my treasures because I knew they were useless treasures to me anymore, and they might become someone else’s. A new life instead of shoved in a box until my brother goes through my stuff when I’m dead. And so I let things go.

And I watched the teenager walk away, hugging Wishbone, and was content with my choices.

ALS : FTS

Seriously, Fuck This Disease.

Month: March 2015

Chemical Defendants, See.

Bad Days

Awww yeah, she’s a Sleep Machine!

“It’s a beastly, undignified business.”

Clearing Out