24 hours to Tysabri, or Why I Should Be Incarcerated

Ground control to Major Tom. In approximately 24 hours, I am going to get my first infusion of the dreaded/much-awaited/bless-ed/a-feared Tysabri. The countdown be on.

I'm not that scared anymore, and I'll tell you why. Options scare me. Honestly, I think I would be the most incredible high-security jail prisoner ever, seeing as I hate options and I absolutely hate not following directions to a tee and/or breaking rules. I don't look so great in orange, but frankly, I challenge you to find a color that I do look good in. Don't say paper-bag.

But my options appear to be down to just one. When I thought that I had the option -- dubious though it may have been -- of just staying on prednisone until the Powers That Be came up with a safer treatment, it seemed scarier to take the Tysabri. Sure, prednisone doesn't stop the progression of the disease; it just manages the symptoms. But surely it couldn't be too long before somewhere in a beep-boop-bopping scientific cave, probably underground or in Menlo Park or something, somebody called out, "Eureka!" and offered up a big plate of No-Crohn's on a golden platter. Out of a the cave would shoot the disembodied shoulders and vocal organs of KISS! They would break into song! We would all dance! Um, I mean... right?

Except for the first time in eighteen years, Prednisone, my BFF (FFFF), isn't working. The symptoms are back, and bad. We're talking blood on the BART -- serious blood; clothes-soaking sweats in the middle of 70-degree afternoon weather; the cuts (where do they come from? where is the rototiller?); and, most interestingly, a total body shutdown after 10 pm. (That's Pacific Standard Time for once, thank God.) More mysteriously, the Prednisone actually seems to be causing some harm: Heart palpitations, panic attacks, acne (okay, fine, one tiny, barely visible acne, but this is coming from someone who didn't even blink an eye through the Oxystride moments of her peers' adolescence), and of course The Face That Nearly Detached Itself From Its Body and, Balloonlike, Flew Away Into The Atmosphere. Not that The Face is harm, per se. I mean, hell, The Face is Prednisone's job, am I wrong?

If the only option -- really the only, only, only option -- is Tysabri, then I want it. And tomorrow, after another visit to see the hand doctor, I am going to be one lucky girl, because I'm going to get it. I don't use the word "lucky" sarcastically.

If it is allowed, I will try to get a photo tour for you of Getting Tysabri. Frankly, I don't think this photo tour is going to be much different than the tour for Getting Remicade or Getting Saline, but you never know, there may -- may, no promises -- be a troupe of dancing gnomes. Or they may unmoor my exacerbated head from its bodily prison and let it rise up, up, up to the ceiling tiles, where it will bobble about confusedly for the duration of the treatment. In which case, lucky Crohns, we will all get a bird's-eye view.