Oh, Gabapentin, you silly goose!

If you read the last post about the snafu in my medicine refill, you also know that I have a brand new bottle of Gabapentin on its way to me.

Except there's a problem...

In the time I was tapering myself off the Gabapentin because I was running out, I discovered that it was making me swell up. How? Because as I was taking less and less of it, I was swelling less and less till I wasn't swelling hardly at all. Now, I already have an issue with "unexplained edema", so I didn't realize that the Gabapentin was causing me to swell more. When I got to the point where I was taking 200 mgs once a day, I went three straight days without swelling. And I'd even had potato chips with lunch one day.

So, I called the VA hospital, left a message with the human at the phone and within the hour the doctor herself called back! I know! I was shocked too! She asked if I still had any of the Cyclobenzaprine (muscle relaxer) and I did. So I'm back on that for now and I have a follow-up in June. From there we'll go with either Lyrica or Cymbalta. Whichever one of those the VA says I can have. I've been off the Gabapentin for almost a week and I've only swelled up like a normal person who stood too long would.

Last weekend was the Janesville Ren Faire and I went both days (small, two-day faire; no jousting). I worked the first day from 10 to 4 and spent about an hour walking around talking to people before going home. The second day, my daughter, Ceej, went with me. We were there from before opening (we were about 20 minutes early) till almost 5 PM. We had a good time, of course. The first day was cloudy with a tad bit of rain. The second day, the clouds disappeared, the sun came out, but it remained incredibly windy.

I did good. My feet were the only problem. My body didn't ache too much. Till Monday. On Monday, we had to go to Ceej's college for her orientation/scheduling/boring thing. I was not only exhausted, but so sore I could barely stand. The pain in my right foot was so horrible that I had to elevate it on a chair during the "boring" part of the day. We went from there to my other daughter's home (she lives in the same town) and had dinner then went home.

Tuesday- pure pain hell for me. My feet (the right one, especially) were screaming. My body was the "thrown-from-horse" all-over sore. Today, the rain came back and so I've got that exhaustion thing going on too.

But, the weekend was good. We had a good time. I took almost 120 photos, three videos and bought two CDs. I also saw lots of faire friends and was quite surprised when a couple of them remembered me from other faires. One in particular, because he must meet a hundred new people every day he's at a faire.

~Link to Flickr Photos~

~2 Merry Men on Facebook~ (one of my CD purchases)

~Water Street Bridge~ (the other CD purchase)

This is part of what you miss when you don't go to the ren faire.



So, the next time you think to yourself: "Bah, ren faires are for NERDS!" remember, the nerds are getting to ogle boobshelves of all shapes and sizes. And you're not. Go to the ren faire, you'll have fun.