A new picture of the family.

Throwing Caution to the Wind

This morning when I got up, my spasms were much worse than they usually are in the mornings. Since I was obviously going to have to do something about it, Bob told me to go ahead and take the morning dose of my new medication, rather than waiting until tomorrow to start it.

I did, and the spasms stopped exactly twenty minutes later! It was just like a switch was flipped - they stopped almost that suddenly, and were real close to being completely gone. For the first time in over a year, I sat in Sunday School with my hands casually relaxed in my lap and my eyes focused on the speaker (Just imagine - that trip to Philly could have been avoided if I had tried this medication earlier...It sure was a fun trip, though). My head did not bob up and down, so I made sure to let the pastor know that didn't mean I suddenly stopped agreeing with him, though. ;-) It was simply amazing and a huge blessing to be in church the first morning I tried this medication in the morning (God's timing, of course).

The medication wore off at precisely 3 hours, 40 minutes after I took it, but those were some precious moments and now I know there IS a treatment.

Please pray that I will be able to handle the side effects of the medication (need to make sure that the chest pains I had were gastro related, for one thing...) and that this may help the doctors narrow down the specific type of dystonia I have. I will be taking this medication at least four times per day and I will always have "off" times, but this is sure a lot more relief than I have had in the past!

I am hereby no longer "cautiously optimistic". I throw caution to the wind and praise to the Lord!