GIRLS DON”T POO...

If you haven’t seen this product or the ad…it really IS a must watch! 

On to “real” business, how am I doing?  What’s been happening since I last visited, wearing my adult diaper for all to see?   Well I am still full of shit, BUT not quite so much shit at the moment….and here is WHY.  Last week, just after the nurse on the Active Voices Hotline assured my that they had NO record of ANYONE else complaining of constipation as a side-effect of Tecfidera, I decided that I had had enough, and that I needed to do SOMETHING to resolve the issue.  I did NOT take my 2 pills for 2 days and GUESS WHAT happened on day three!!!!

I ACTUALLY & FINALLY took a dump.  AND a “good one” too.  A real,live, genuine poop!!!!

WHICH just reinforced my thought that it was the medication.  BUT “they” said it wasn’t, that it couldn’t be….SO, I started taking it again, and once again, there was NO poop “activity” over the next 4 days….

Once again, I stopped taking it…..and the very next day?……

HELLO POOP!  I was ready to have myself a genuine POOP PARTY!

NOW, I am NOT a medical doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but it seems to me that IF we look at the “evidence,” it appears that it IS the TECFIDERA that is causing me to be constipated!  I don’t know IF there is ANYONE else out there in the whole wide world that has experienced the same problem, OR if it is JUST ME!  But either way, it seems it IS a side-effect for ME!

I am now faced with a decision.  Do I continue to take Tecfidera, in a valiant effort to ward off the inevitable progression of the disease, OR do I stop taking this disease modifying drug (DMD) to enable my body to return to a slight sense of “normalcy” (AKA taking a dump every day.) After my scarey episode with Tysabri, I was on NO DMD, because I had run out of options.  For 3 years I took NOTHING and I didn’t know what was going on inside my body, because I declined offers and then pleas from my neurologist to have an MRI.  I was not rebelling, and I was not in denial.  I knew and accepted that I had MS, I just didn’t see the value in the doctor having a “little looksy’  when there wasn’t anything that could be done (or given to me) IF the results showed massive progression (new lesions EVERY WHERE.)

But, once the FDA approved Tecfidera, I willingly had the MRI – and as I said, the results were FANTASTIC (The Results Are IN)- other than being told that the disease had just mysteriously DISAPPEARED – it was the BEST results I could ask for – NO PROGRESSION – no new lesions and no active lesions!  WHOOP WHOOP!

Deciding to start taking Tecfidera was NOT a simple “no-brainer” thing for me.  I spent a lot of time thinking about it, talking with Shawn , and reading information I could find on the internet (NOT always the GREATEST idea, but I did want to know more.)  Eventually I did decide to go for it, as I explained, IF I had decided to NOT take it, and the disease progressed, I would be SUPER PISSED at myself, BUT, IF I decided to take it and it progressed, then I could be PISSED at the drug itself, or even the pharmaceutical company!  The reality is that the disease WILL progress no matter what, and I am just trying to buy time, which is something that most of us want in someway or another.

But now…I just don’t know….do I continue taking it, and spend the rest of my life FULL of SHIT and trying to come up with solutions to help with the fact that I am SO bloated that none of my jeans fit me…

OR

Do I simply STOP taking it, chalk it up to yet another disease modifying drug (DMD) that doesn’t work for me.

THAT would make it THREE….Avonex, Tysabri and NOW Tecfidera

3 strikes and you’re out?!?!?!

I don’t know what I am going to decide.  But I can assure you that you will be the first to know!

There is another piece to this dilemma.  Last week, I was screened and approved to become a Patient Advocate for Biogen Idec…..WHICH means that I will be giving speeches to people with MS….WHICH if you have tinkered around here on my blog, you know THAT is my ULTIMATE GOAL….to do motivational speaking!!!!  AND here it is – being offered to me.  Hell, I am supposed to fly to Bozeman Montana NEXT week!  ME – traveling – staying in a hotel – writing and then GIVING  a speech!  That’s like GROWN-UP shit!  I’m over the moon!!!!

BUT…

IF I am no longer taking their new “miracle” pill, will they fire me?  I don’t know the answer to that question, and truthfully I am scared to ask because IF the answer is YES and that oppotunity is taken away, I will be devasted.  I just want to go out and tell people that they are NOT ALONE – and that EVERYONE has “stuff”….issues, problems, skeletons in their closet, doubts, fears….ALL that SHIT – EVERYONE has “imperfections” but what makes EVERYONE “perfect” is being their own unique SELF!

I want the chance to tell people that, and all the funny things I talk about here on my blog.  But if I decide that Tecfidera does NOT work for me – and that I can’t live with being full of shit – am I going to loose out on that chance?

SHIT – I hate having to make tough decisions!!!!