Does it have to end?

We had such a great holiday, I don't want it to end! Sure, we had to work on Christmas Eve (which always feels pointless...) and a package with our gifts from my mom were to be delivered so we waited, and waited, and finally the FedEx guy showed, we opened our gifts and headed north...

We arrived at Tim's parents' place around midnight, and couldnt think of a better thing to do than to go ahead and open more gifts so we could sleep in on Christmas morning! So we did exactly that! Which is why we look so tired in these photos:

By the way, I invite you to view my Christmas and Disney World album here:

http://s198.photobucket.com/albums/aa120/Kekukila/Christmas%202008/








Christmas morning was a nice and relaxing one, had a delicious dinner at 1:30, played some Wii bowling, and made sure to get more sleep because the fam was going to DISNEY the next morning.

The nine of us headed to Orlando early Friday for the boys' first trip to the Magic Kingdom. I'm not sure who had more fun, the adults or the kids?

Just a few pics from the day (again, tons more pics in my online album which is located here: http://s198.photobucket.com/albums/aa120/Kekukila/Christmas%202008/ )

Immediate Post-Injection Reaction

This post is as much for me and my flaky mind (so I can remember when something happened) as it is for your education and enjoyment...

Monday night I experienced something that I knew was a risk of the injectable medication I take... thankfully I was prepared - but you're never really "prepared" for something like this.

Some patients have reported an immediate postinjection reaction characterized by flushing or chest tightness with heart palpitations, anxiety and difficulty breathing immediately after using COPAXONE. -- From Copaxone patient literature.

I was injecting my left thigh which is usually a comfortable and easy spot for me to do myself. I was actually pleased at how little the stick hurt and I was also pleased with my technique... but within seconds of injecting my chest and neck felt tight, my face and chest turned bright red. I then experienced chest pain and pain in my abs and lower back. My head felt like it was going to pop off my body. I can only imagine what my blood pressure must have been. Tim was right in the room and saw my face turn as red as the sharps container I use to discard the needles. He rushed over to take my pulse and turn on the A/C so I could get some relief. We both knew what was happening and I was surprisingly calm about the entire thing, even though it was a MAJOR situation of discomfort.

I sat and did slow deep breathing and did my best to relax but it was very, very scary. The whole thing lasted ten minutes. I felt a big thick band drawing tighter and tighter around my chest and around my pounding heart. Sometime after that, after the tightness and the pain and the sickness had subsided (yeah, did I mention the vomiting? No, ok then I won't ...) and I'd turned in for the night, the chills hit. I guess the sudden spike and fall of my body temperature brings on the shakes.

With MS you have so many strange things going on everyday with your body that you feel like a crazy person if you tell your doctor about every new thing that happens (and they look at you like you are crazy!). So I will call the nurse with the drug company support services to at least document that I am in the 10% of patients who experience this fun reaction...

Now, on the celebrate Christmas :)

Somehow the fun continues

My coworkers are a hoot - they had a little fun at my expense. I took off the Thursday, Friday and Monday surrounding my birthday but that didn't stop them...



And what's wrong with a little brownie for breakfast? I say "nothing!"

The account of my AWESOME 30th birthday

If getting old can be considered fun then I had the most fun possible to ring in the start to my 30th year of life. My celebrations really started on Wednesday night when I worked my last hours for that week, got to hostess at the Fort Lauderdale Christmas Pageant, and then crashed hard knowing I could sleep on Thursday until my body woke itself up. I needed sleep badly, as it appears by body had been slowly trying to tell me to slow down. Work has been so high stress lately (doing the job of 4 people tends to do that...)

After sleeping until well past 11am, I got up and really spent much of the day just working inside the house - laundry, cleaning, painting, and other random necessary tasks. I worked the show that night as well, and Friday Tim was home to hang with me - we did a bunch of errands, some more housework, but really just spent a lot of time together until it was time to work the pageant again.

Our family (Tim's parents) came down Friday night in time to catch the second act of the pageant which was a treat because my hostess duties were done and I snuck over to watch it with them.

Saturday we had nothing really planned, but knew we wanted to do few things in town before dinner and before the USF game on TV. I got out of the shower to see TWO boxes from 1-800-flowers -- my mom had sent 3 dozen red roses! She tried to get 30 roses sent - but they basically told her since you get 6 free, there was no way to only send 30 - a-ok with me! They are lovely (photos below)...

Saturday's dinner was at this neat authentic German restaurant - real German speaking staff, real German cooks and cuisine - and even the entertainment was legit. I even got a birthday serenade from the odd accordion player - how fun! It was really neat. (See photos below) - and the Black Forest Cake was pretty awesome.

The festivities continued at home with more cake - this time it was a cookie cake, my traditional choice. We watched the game (too bad our team lost!), had great laughs and a great night overall. After church Sunday morning the festivities had to end - our family had to return home to start their week (did I mention I'm off again tomorrow - yeah, I'm celebrating a 5-day birthday weekend!) but what fun we had!!!

Happy Anniervary to Us!

We seem to be creating a new annual tradition. For the second year in a row we've gone to Benihana on Miami Beach - had a private table in the downstairs dining area (where they dont cook in front of you and where you don't come out smelling like a hibachi)... tried some new food, also tried hot saki (acquired taste I suppose).

A very nice evening with my sweetie:


Then we went "sightseeing" into this neat older neighborhood to a place Tim knew about - great views of the downtown skyline with views all the way to South Beach. Super neat. Very Miami.