Foot drop

Talked with the UHC contact today and she said she hadn't heard from the committee on Friday. They had emailed her asking for a few more things, which she had sent them, but no word back. She said, "You need to realize that yours is not the only case they're meeting on," which really bugged me. Yes, of course I KNOW I'm not the only case. But she said she'd call me on Friday either way to let me know the status of things, and she didn't, so I don't think it's that unreasonable for me to make one phone call today. Maybe she didn't mean it in a snide way, but it annoyed me. Anyway, the news is that there is no news. She said she'd call me when she heard anything.

I also got a call from MD Anderson from someone in the business office telling me UHC had sent them a notice saying that they are my *secondary* insurance, and would I please let them know who my primary insurance was with. GRRRRRRRRRRRR. UHC is our ONLY insurance, and I've been dealing with UHC claims people since my hospitalization a YEAR ago, and they should KNOW that by now. So I called UHC and the girl on the phone just said, "Oh, ok, I'll make that change right now." Ugh. Someone must have changed that very recently, because when I asked the UHC transplant person about it, she said that there was nothing in her paperwork that indicated UHC was my secondary insurance. How can someone at UHC just change that? It's kind of a big thing! A mistake like that could potentially mean delays and more delays, which would not be a good thing for me! But Annette (the UHC transplant contact) said that she is sure everything is cool with the committee as far as that goes, as it would have been the very first thing they asked her about weeks ago. I hope so.

I think the steroids are not working so well this time. Maybe I'm just impatient, because I know there is some delayed benefit for a while after the steroids are discontinued, but I'm just not seeing that much improvement. It is very disappointing. I have what is called "foot drop" in my right foot. It's significantly worse today than it has been. I don't think you're supposed to see *worsening* if you're still getting benefit from the steroids. Anyway, foot drop is when the muscle that flexes your foot stops working, so every time you lift your foot to walk, it drops toward the ground. Over the years that I've been walking (about 30 now...) I've gotten accustomed to my foot working properly, and when I walk, my leg automatically knows how far to lift itself so that my foot can actually clear the ground, but not so much that I look like I'm marching. But now if I take a step without consciously thinking about it, I'll trip right on my own foot. It is annoying and embarrassing. I still have slight movement with that muscle; if I lift my leg and let my foot drop completely down, I can raise it a tiny bit, but I can't get it even close to 90 degrees to my ankle, so it doesn't help with the walking.

Whine whine, groan groan.

I'm feeling a little sorry for myself tonight. While he was getting his PJ's on tonight, Joseph said, "I wish you didn't have MS, mom." I said, "ME TOO!" and then asked him why he said that. He said, "Because if you didn't have MS you could go ice skating with us and go on bike rides with us and do fun stuff with us." Yeah, there's a stab in the heart. We went to Chuck E Cheese tonight for FHE, and I sat at our table the whole time while Ben went around with the boys playing games with them and stuff. I felt... pretty irrelevant I guess. Sometimes this MS thing really stinks.

On the positive side, the sun broke through late this afternoon after two days of clouds and rain, and I think tomorrow is supposed to be a nice sunny day. And I did get two loads of laundry folded and put away, plus the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded. Small victories.