Drug companies give you cool toys.

I went to a meeting of the National MS Society's Northern California Chapter in Sacramento last night.  The meeting was for newly diagnosed patients.  I wasn't expecting much, maybe to just talk to a nurse, ask a few questions and leave.  But I have to say, I was very very impressed.  There was a nurse from Kaiser and another nurse who works for the NMSS.  I liked them both a lot.  The NMSS nurse was no-bullshit, funny and informative-finally!  Plus I got to hear slander about all of the neurologists that people are seeing.

So one of the cool things about having a disease that drug companies are pouring billions of dollars into is that you get free shit.  A lot of free shit.  I got this cool ice pack last night, a book, I've gotten pens, free medication, people calling to check up on me...I had a nurse make a house call, etc.  And what's more, as an athlete and someone who "looks really good right now" (i.e. "doesn't look sick", there is potential for me to be a drug company whore: you speak publicly for...ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER SPEECH!!!

So...it's something to think about in terms of making money in the future.  But I guess I have to be motivational rather than morbid.  Perhaps I should work on that.

I switched interferon treatments from one that was 30mcg 1x a week to one that is a higher dose and administered every other day.  Since the interferon lasts in your body for 48 hrs, I'll have a more even blood level, so hopefully my hand will decide to come back into the fold rather than continuing to rebel.  I mean, I can appreciate a little rebellion and all, but this is ridiculous. I thought we were a team!  I feel so betrayed.  But I digress.  The new injection comes with a little autoject device that is pretty neat.  It injects you AND plunges in the medicine.  I find that this is far preferable to the intra-muscular large needles that I manually inserted and plunged into my muffin tops.  

Hopefully this medication (Betaseron: beta interferon 1b) will prevent my brain from having "black holes", like in the picture above.  These black spots begin as white spots, which are "active lesions" where my T-cells are attacking the myelin.  Hopefully the immune response stop so that my body can re-myelinate.  I checked out a few textbooks (Clinical Neuroimmunology, Immunobiology) to further educate myself about the disease process and the drugs.  Maybe I'll cure myself.

whoa!  A nurse from a Betaseron support program called Beta Plus just called me to check up on me.  Crazy.