OKC Arthritis Walk | May 30th

Hey everyone, the 2009 OKC Arthritis Walk is coming up!  Please come join our team as we raise money and walk in support of arthritis research, treatment, and education.  Last year we did the walk in College Station and it was encouraging and a lot of fun, and we are both looking forward to this year!  

Some quick event details:

When: Saturday, May 30th, 2009 (Time TBA.  It will probably be in the morning, though.)

Where: Stars & Stripes Park, Oklahoma City (link goes to Google Map)

What: Choose from a 1- or 3-mile walk route and enjoy the food, fun, and festivities!  

Sweet, I wanna walk with you guys!  How do I sign up? Go to ourteam page and join our team!

I live out of town but want to come in for the Walk.  Where should I stay? Very exciting!  Well, we have room in our apartment for a couple of folks, and there are several hotels near the park, as well as others near our apartment.   

Aw shucks, I can't make it this year.  Can I still donate to your team?  Of course!  You can go to our team page and donate thru the secure site, or you can send us money directly and we'll add your name to our donor list.  (Yes, it's all tax-deductible.)

I heard that last year your team had some sweet shirts.  Where can I get one? We have a CafePress store where you can buy arthritis-related apparel that we've created, and we have new designs being posted all the time.  All the proceeds go toward supporting arthritis research, treatment, and education.  (If things go really well, maybe we'll even start our own 501(c)3 someday!)

What about your blog?  Is that thing still active? Yes, we still have our blog (JOINTogether4RA.blogspot.com ), though we admit that we've been neglecting it the last few months. However, we've made some new friends in Blogger and are experiencing a renewed interest in documenting our journey and experience with RA.  Stay tuned for an updated design and new content!

If you have any questions about anything, please don't hesitate to write or call.  We are seriously excited about this year's walk and hope you can make it.  As people begin to sign up and we begin to get an idea about how many people will be attending, we will send out further emails with any additional info about things such as afterparties, cookouts, etc.  

Pictures of Ike (from most recent pics to older pics)

My niece Katherine and Ike - 4/4/09 - 17 weeks old - approximately 6.1 pounds

Ike - 3/20/09 - 15 weeks old - approximately 5 pounds

Ike - 3/1/09 -12 weeks old - about 4.5 pounds

Ike - 3/1/09 - 12 weeks old - about 4.5 pounds

Ike - 2/15/09 - 10 weeks old - almost 4 pounds (look how tiny he was...aww)

It is funny to see how much he has changed over the last two months. He has now had all of his shots and is "street legal" according to our vet, which means he can go to the dog park, groomer, and PetsMart. He had his first adventure to the dog park on Saturday and seemed to have had a great time being chased by two other little dogs. He is teething, so his little teeth are sharp and painful. Overall, he is a great little puppy (or polar bear) as I like to call him. He has plenty of energy, but is an excellent sleeper as well. We are pleased to have him and feel as though he is a good match for our little family. :)

Wow, it has been a long time...December, I think.

Sorry for the absence, not sure why I have not posted in several months. Honestly I think I got bored and felt as though I had nothing to write. I have been keeping up with friends blogs but let ours go to waste. Anyway, here is a little update on things in our world. Obviously we moved back to Oklahoma in November and although we miss our friends and family down there we are happy to be home.

Andy is currently working for a counseling clinic in downtown OKC and also with me at the church medical clinic where I was before we moved. I am working at the church doing individual counseling mostly for children, adolescents, and 20 somethings. I am also working at the children's hospital that I worked at for my internship back in the day doing counseling for the children there with major medical issues and acute trauma such as car accidents, house fires, etc. I am so excited to be back there, it has been my dream that the day would come when they needed me, and it has finally come!

We recently got a little puppy named Ike, he is a malti-poo (man, I feel like a dork when I say that). He was named after Hurricane Ike that occurred while we were down in Texas. He got his name because he was "hunkered down," yes my friends, hunkered down. This is what the news people in Texas kept telling everyone to do during the Hurricane and we thought it was hilarious, so when we saw Ike for the first time he was the only puppy lying down and all the others were running circles around him...it was just a perfect hunker down so we had to name him after that. He is adorable and is about four months old now. He looks just like a mini polar bear and although he is teething, he is just too cute!

So, over all things are going great for the Moore's! We are loving life and doing really well. My health is doing much better and continues to improve each month. I feel as though life is much easier when I am able to wash my own hair and go to the bathroom on my own...it's like I am my own person again, YAY!!! My infusions are still every four weeks and they are working wonders. I am still taking the Methotrexate every Saturday night and it still makes me feel like I have the flu but I am barly taking my pain medication and have cut it in half again, which is truly exciting in my world.

Anyway, I think that is about as short and concise as I can get in a little blog post. Hope this finds everyone doing well and healthy!

Yuck!

Here's what I look like when I hurt, which has been frequent and intense lately with all the weather changes. Next infusion is on Monday though, so hopefully that will help!

thanksgiving

quick update, since we haven't written a "real" post since september:  as many of you know, we recently moved back to oklahoma city and are settling back into our routines here.  we've both been blessed with wonderful career opportunities, and we are happy to be home.  we'll try to post some moving pics soon.

today is thanksgiving day, and now that our tummies are full of food and our hearts warmed by watching miracle on 34th street, we thought it would be a very nice chance to get back into the swing of blogging by telling what we are each thankful for this year.  

andy: "i have felt so blessed this entire year, it's hard to know where to start.  during our recent move, i was reminded of all the little things i'm thankful for - our home, our car, our stuff, and our friends and family.  on that note, i am especially thankful for the quality of relationships i have with my friends and family, for the effort everyone gives to show love to one another.  i am thankful beyond words for my relationship with gabriele, for our wedding in july, and for the many experiences we have shared.  i am also thankful for her love, kindness, and patience with me when my efforts to help miss the mark.  in many respects, i owe a huge amount of thanks to the many medical professionals that have guided us throughout our journey with RA, and for the folks at roche for developing the medication that has helped gabriele so much this year."

gabriele: "let's see, i am thankful for so many things, it is hard to think of them all.  first of all, i am immensely thankful for my wonderful husband, for blessing me with such amazing love day after day, for marrying me, for taking care of me all the time, and for showing me beauty in each day. i am thankful for all of our friends and family and for all of the fun times that we get to have with them and for the love they show us.  also, i am thankful for my medical "team" and for all of the ways that they take care of me, for supporting me and assuring me when i think it will never get better.  i am thankful for technology, science, and creativity in the interest and development of medications for RA and for the response in creating awareness for such a debilitating disease. and, of course i am most thankful for God's fulfilling love and encouragement in both the good and the bad."

hope you all have had a happy thanksgiving and feel as blessed as we do!

hands-free

admittedly, many will find this post to be a disappointment after us being absent for several weeks.  i assure you that there is better stuff to come.

until then, does anyone know where we can get macspeech dictate for cheap?  it retails for $199, and the lowest i've seen is $120 on ebay.  gabriele is an avid mac user, and options for voice-recognition software are quite limited for users of the fruit.  since she's doing counseling again, she has to type a lot of process notes, and doing so is a real drain on her already weary hands.  

  

impressions from our first arthritis walk

gabs and i had a wonderful time at the bryan/college station arthritis walk yesterday.  we had 18 people (including 4 cute lil kids) on our team - a showing that was incredibly humbling and heart-warming.  a tremendous thank-you goes out to all of you who got up early on a saturday morning to come wander around a park with us.  our shirts were a big hit, too, and we had several people ask where they could get one.  perhaps some of them are reading this right now...

for me, it was helpful to get to meet and interact with so many other people who have day-to-day experiences similar to what goes on in our household - stiffness in the morning, pain throughout the day, swollen joints, unwanted side effects from all the medication.  one woman, mary, told us that taking prednisone for years has caused her to develop medication-induced osteoporosis.  we also met the walk honoree, a 4-year old named zoe, who has juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.  

we also enjoyed getting to meet and chat with the helpful folks from the arthritis foundation and the aggies and arthritis club at texas a&m.  many of them we knew by name from websites and emails, but i always enjoy getting to put a face with a name.  even some of their moms came by to say hi!

it was also encouraging to see so many smiling happy people.  i've been to similar events that felt depressing and hopeless...this was definitely not like that.  now, it could have just been the free food from freebirds and cold stone, or maybe the moon-bounce and bungee-run, but i'm willing to bet it was really because the 150-ish walkers had raised over $14,000 to support arthritis prevention, research, and treatment.  

after the walk (and naptime!), several of our teammates came over to our place for a cookout and a chance to just hang out and watch football.   today has primarily been recovery time, both from the festivities yesterday and, for gabs, the usual flu-like effects of methotrexate.

thanks again to everyone who sponsored, organized, volunteered, donated, and attended the arthritis walk, both on our team and in general.  it was a great first experience, and we both look forward to making this an annual event.