April 2007: Retinology appointment, Switch meds

Denise turned 34 this month, and to celebrate we went to the Napa Rose restaurant at Disneyland (sorry about the grainy camera phone picture). The food was stellar, as was our company (a really neat brother & sister; the brother had a long hospital stay after a nasty accident, and the family set up a blog). But the best part was getting to spend a special birthday evening with my 34-year-old wife, whom we thought we were going to lose at age 32. I'm one blessed man!

Here are the developments from this month...
We had an appointment with a retinologist that's new to the office we've been going to, but he was quite familiar with cocci and the effects that it can have on vision. Bonus: Other doctors that have patients with cocci-related vision damage seek his opinion! So we're confident that we have the right guy. He found that the optic nerve is no longer swollen (indicating that there is no infection), however there is still retinal scarring. In spite of that, Denise's vision has improved! Where there used to be an area of darkness (the cocci caused her to go partially blind in one eye), now there's just an area of slight blurring. We have to go back again for a fluorescein angioplasty so he can really take a look at what's going on with her eyes.
We paid a visit to a doctor that a friend from the kids' preschool recommended. He switched out the Risperdal in favor of Abilify (it's for a different primary condition, but he thought it would benefit Denise). She likes it so far and has felt more energetic (Risperdal causes drowsiness), no signs of manic behavior, no signs of seizure. The new med doesn't have the effects of increased appetite & slowing the metabolism. She's all excited about starting to return to her pre-illness weight. Just tonight she showed me how her pants are starting to fit loose and sag. I'm tempted to ask the doctor for a prescription for myself. :O) The doctor that had Denise try the Abilify also thought that she could eventually go off of that and the anti-seizure med as well, since they're both in such low doses. So we'll see what happens.
On a sad note, my dad died a year ago on the 18th of April. Easter was a little difficult for me this time, more than Christmas or Thanksgiving for some reason. My guess is that it's because in my mind, his passing revolved around Easter last year. I drove him to the hospital going into Easter weekend and we lost him two days after Easter. Time heals.
Ending on a lighter note, Denise's blog crossed the 130,000 hits mark in April! I'm glad that the hits have slowed down... things are normalizing and there's just not as much reason for anyone to check this blog frequently anymore. I'm also glad that the hits still trickle in... thanks for caring enough to check up once in a while.

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