A Hymn for Humira

               At my lowest weight I was 84 lbs.  My hair was falling out, my potassium was so low that my heart was in danger of stopping, and I was hardly able to take in more than 500 calories a day on the good days.  I had been seeing a new doctor for about a year, and they were at their wits end trying to find a medication that would keep me alive.  Luckily, the new doc doesn't give up without one hell of a fight.


               They decided to put me on Humira, which was originally intended for patients with Rheumatoid arthritis.  It was an injection that I would have to get every week.  Many people give it to themselves, but the doc wanted to closely monitor the situation, so my mother, sometimes my father, and I would make the hour long drive every week.  The first trip down I was a nervous wreck.

               I can remember most of the truly scary moments in my life, but hands down, the scariest in my life has to be that day.  I was sitting in the little room of the doctor's office, that sterile paper crunching underneath my minuscule buttocks, and I was terrified.  Terrified that it wouldn't work.  Terrified that without it I would just waste away and disappear.   The nurse came in and started preparing the injection.  I wish she would have prepared me for how much it was going to hurt.  Having Crohn's disease, one develops a pretty high pain tolerance, but I was sorely equipped to handle that burn. 

               The injection went pretty smoothly, despite my white knuckle ride on the examination table.  I didn't feel any different, but after the appointment my father and I went to eat at a chain restaurant that specializes in bbq and being famous.  I was actually able to eat!  It was satisfying and I was ecstatic.  The drive back home was long, but it was definitely hopeful.  Hopeful that the fear would go away, and that I could start doing something that I hadn't in a long while:  start living.