November 2004 - Downhill FAST

From this point the disease; Dermatomyositis progressed very quickly. It was eating away at my body and my life.

11/2004 - My first visit with the rheumatologist. After speaking to him about what I have, I told the Dr. "Great, just give me a pill, and I will be on my way back home." Little did I know there was no cure for Dermatomyositis. He did put me on 60 mgs of Prednisone. Prednisone is a love/hate drug that we will talk about in the future.

11/10/2004 - Had my first of many CAT scans. When the scan came back the Dr. commented that my leg muscles looked that of an 80 year old man.

11/21/2004 - Had a muscle biopsy. The Drs. wanted to see if they could view the disease. They took a muscle biopsy from my left leg. Unfortunately the biopsy showed them nothing.

I was feeling very sick, in fact in my journal repeated the word "sick" three times. This was the worse pain that I have ever felt in my life, it would not go away. On a positive note, the amount of people that were gathered and started to pray for me was neat. I could already see that through this sickness, God was being glorified.

11/24/2004 - I did a Bible Study in the morning, then worked 12 hours at work; Family Christian Stores. When I came home it was the worse pain I have felt. On the drive home, I just cried in my car, crawled up the stairs, and curled up in Kim's arms. Any little movement took ever bit of energy that I had, I was a snap away from being in a wheelchair.

I was very worried for Kim. I was scared, and I could see that she was scared. It was stressful time, as a man, I wanted to be there for her, but I was fighting for my life.

11/27/2004 - Lost my job. I could no longer perform the duties as manager, I took a short term leave, that turned into a long term leave, that turned into permanent leave. I am still in a lot of pain, taking tons of pain medication. At this point I because very discouraged and depressed.

11/29/2004 - I was anointed by my pastor and the elders of the church. They laid hands on me and prayed over me. I left the pastors program.

During this time my condition became very bad, very quickly.

• I could not get up from the toilet. I did not have the leg strength. It is a very scary feeling knowing that if you are alone, and if you have to #2, you cannot get up.
• I could barley walk.
• I was losing my ability to speak.
• I was losing my ability to swallow.
• I could not get myself out of bed, or turn over in bed.
• I could not walk upstairs.
• I could not drive.

You get the picture. I was slowly becoming wheelchair bound, not able to move a muscle in my body. Kim would get my up in the morning, she would sit me in a chair, and I would sit until she came home. Our bathrooms were upstairs, so I had pee in a cup, and hoped that I would not have to do a #2. :)