IV Solumedrol: Day Three

The third one was not the charm. I had a pretty nasty headache throughout most of the evening, falling asleep right after I ate dinner and almost sleeping through pushing the go button to record Grey's Anatomy for my daughter. We have a DVD recorder and you can't watch one channel while recording another and I always use the flexible record mode so that each program is in the highest viewable quality possible. Hubby thought I had it set up to the point of just pushing a button, but I needed to set up the flexible recording time still and shot up out of a dead sleep at 8:59 and almost didn't get it started in time. Britt doesn't have cable in her apartment, one less added expense for a college student who isn't home much anyway, so I record G A for her each week. Just a small token of my love for her.

Yesterday my jaws hurt terribly all day. I don't know if it had so much to do with the steroids as maybe with my gum chewing to camouflage the taste in my mouth from the steroids. I will try and stay away from the gum today. I have Life Savers and Altoids that I can stick with today if the taste is still there.

Three days of steroids took three days of starting new IV sites. Each day the nurses would look at my arm and think mmm, good veins (which by the way is because I am transparent and not because they are really such good veins). Then they would stick the needle in only to find they had to chase my vein down once they got in there. Each nurse would almost tisk-tisk the nurse the day before when I would tell them that she had trouble once she had the needle in me, then they would realize that it was happening to them too. The third nurse decided that I may have spastic veins that literally run from the needle or something like that. She finally decided she was in, even though she was getting no blood return and sure enough as soon as she went ahead and hooked up the IV it started to flow just fine.

Today I start the oral steroid taper. It will last for 12 days. Wish me luck. Oral steroids gave me tremors in 2000. My new she-Neuro put me on a different type. I was on Prednisone in 2000. This time I am on Dexamethasone.

Since the head isn't pounding too hard this morning I need to try and get some editing done. I'll check back in later and let you know how the oral steroids are treating me, no pun intended.