Starting Gilenya

September 7th, 2011

Since summer of 2009 I have been on a mission to get any medication that did not involve interferon or any of the injectable preventative medicines. Including Copaxone, And Tysabri.

LDN was something I wanted to try, but by the miracles of US medical red tape no doctor wanted to sign off on it because if insurance reasons, and the FDA did not approve it for MS treatment.

So I waited, until I heard early 2010 that Novartis had a new drug coming out, Gilenya. An oral drug that I take everyday for the rest of my life… But it was not approved yet.
It finally got approved, but my doctors did not want me to take it because it. Was new and no real data was out about it, insurance companies were not covering it, and it was expensive as heck.

Well, it is 9 months later, fighting the system, and finally getting the red tape to work for me. Everything from long legal paperwork, and affidavits, tax returns, Opthamology exams, EKGs, blood work up the wazu, and a persistently patient attitude I got approved, and Novartis sent me my first 28 day pills.

Now I just had to wait for my date at the hospital so that they can monitor and observe my first treatment. Apparently this could be a scary thing, especially when I overheard a conversation I should not have had to hear about someone who just yesterday had a bad reaction to the pill.

Well since they are monitoring me, I may as well write about it. And I know everyone is different, and reactions are all different, but this is MY experience this far.

I was administered the drug finally at 9 am. The following will be updated for the next 6 hours.

08:59. 136/87-63
10:00. 117/78-60

At 10:30 my mouth is super dry, and I feel I need to eat, and my upper abdominal muscle seems like it is cramping.

… This WILL work.

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Memories in Scandals

August 8th, 2011

Scandals
A long time ago in the extremely small boring town of Eugene (Ducking for cover) “No pun intended. lol”, I was introduced to DJing by a mr. Evan Lim. It was a time I was young and eager to fit in, and he basically taught me how to DJ. There of course was mr. Eric S., Mike H., and Mike V, but my memories go to a new level of fascination.

You see, I am also looking back to my entry of Wrong Model, and though how bizarre it was in what triggers my vivid detailed memories of people, and/or events.

Last night was such a moment, where I was tired, and was trying to sleep, and could not. it was 3:15 am, my Mother was calling me to be sure I had enough food before I fasted today, and I could not for the life of me sleep. So, I picked up and old box, and found some Midi tapes. (Yeah, remember those?)

I found the player, stuck it in, and listened.
Half way through a song I heard a record skip. A little later a large jump in the track. followed by a quick sloppy mix into a song. Any other day I would have said “Wow I sucked!” but instead I started laughing, ’cause I remembered taking the CD out, and looking at it and the person who gave it to me saw my pissed off look and apologized for it still being scratched because it fell in the street.
I later became very close friends with them as they always brought in the newest Korean dance tracks for me to play.

Later, I heard another mix done a particular way, and in a particular order, and had a vision of remembering that feeling, what went on in my head, how I felt when the beats flawlessly matched, and the “WHOOHOO!” scream on the dance floor by my friend who loved the song!

And other mixes where I just kept going faster and faster, and people where wondering where I was going, and when the off beats started to match people in the back moved forward to take on the dance floor and the shift of the two very different styles of music made the swap.

I guess, everyone has it, there is that smell, or that photo, or that sentence that everyone has embedded somewhere in memory, that triggers the craziest of emotions, and call backs to great, and not so great experiences.

And moving that forward to today, and how that trickles into my acting teachings, I realized I can use that to put me emotionally into a scene, just by associating things with emotion.

Like right now listening to another mix tape, and realizing, yeah, I remember I was so done with that stupid Macarena song.

If you have similar experiences, don’t hesitate to contact me. Its fun to see what does it for other people.

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