The Latest

So much for life slowing down during the summer!  Lol!  No, actually it HAS slowed down, but we've still been busy enough to keep me from blogging.  We just got back from a trip to the Oregon coast for eight nights.  It was a lot of fun, and I'll be posting about it!

Shortly after we went to the air show in my previous post, I broke out in a rash on my face and arms where the sun had touched.  I'd been in the sun for three days straight and thought for sure I had developed photosensitivity, which is common in people with autoimmune diseases.  It was pretty depressing right before a vacation!  We scrambled to find a sun hat with good protection and an all natural sunblock.  Lots of praying!  I tried not to panic but felt pretty stressed about the whole thing.  That rash took about a week to completely go away, and I stayed inside with the blinds drawn the entire time.  A couple ladies suggested it might be the sunblock I used the two days before the rash. 

On top of that, I had an arthritic flare up in my upper body, probably from the stress.  It was such short notice, I didn't have time to make an appointment to see my doctor.  I had some prednisone "just in case."  So I started taking that at a low dosage, hoping it would end the flare up.  Thus, I started the trip worried about sun exposure, uncomfortable from arthritis, and mentally off from the prednisone.  Prednisone causes me to look like I have a slight mustache, gives me a double chin, increases my appetite so that I'm hungry all the time and likely to gain weight, makes me irritable, and - at high dosages - causes insomnia.  In addition, this was the first trip I've ever worried about my diet.  Greg stayed up late into the night cooking enough food to last me a week.  I asked several friends to pray for me just before leaving.

After the first couple days, my flare up died down.  I decreased the prednisone to a very low dosage and was able to feel pretty good!  I also experimented with straying off my diet and didn't have any increase in symptoms.  That was a relief, although it meant Greg's cooking wasn't necessary.  Poor guy.  I was pretty careful about sunlight, but near the end I got a slight burn on my face.  No rash!  So now I think the rash was from the sunblock.  I'm so thankful!  I am still taking a very small dosage of prednisone and will try going off it soon to see what happens.  It looks like I will need to take something even with the strict diet, but hopefully it can be at a low dosage.  We'll see.

We all came back from the trip with a virus, so for the next few days we'll be focusing on recovering.  Greg and Kylen got hit hardest.  I'm working on unpacking and laundry.  We have several things coming up on the calendar, so I hope we are all feeling good soon!