Thursday, October 25, 2007

Nonchalant!

It's amazing how nonchalant everyone I've had to deal with this in the medical profession is. That is the Neurologist's office and the Avonex company who promises to send out a Nurse to teach with the drug. Oh we'll be contacting you in about 3 to 4 business days. Has anyone else experienced this during diagnosis? They have no follow up appointments set up and said that I don't need to unless I have problems with the Interferon beta 1a and no lab work until I've been on it for a month. Is this how it all begins? My regular Doc has been a saint. She has ordered me some Valium so that I can muscle relax at bed time and promised me that if I was a big enough baby about giving myself the IM injection, she would order me some emla cream. See I am an RN, but a critical care pediatric one. However, it does baffle me how flip they all are. I've gone ahead and changed my work schedule to accommodate this MS, which I think should stand for monkey shit. Now let's just get the damned ball rolling!

1 comment:

LindseyO said...

Yep, I've had that experience. They're so used to seeing MSers that I think they sometimes forget that it's new and scary and a big UNKNOWN for those of us newly diagnosed.

Someone commented on my blog once that the only useful thing about a neurologist for MS patients is the diagnosis. After that they're a pain in the rump. :)

But as for the Avonex: yes, you'll need to be on it for a month before they do blood/urine tests. Then every 3 months thereafter to be sure your liver is behaving itself. Also, you'll probably need to have another MRI of your brain after you've been on Avonex a year - as sort of a baseline. (At least, that's what they did with me...)