Lupus sucks

I’m having a major lupus flare up. Every joint in my body hurts, I can barely walk, and I can’t do many things for myself that I’m used to doing. I can't drive (my arms hurt when I turn the wheel, and my foot hurts when I lift it to press the brake), I can't strap Maggie in her car seat, I have trouble going up and down stairs or over curbs ... it's really bad. I called my rheumatologist this morning and he worked me in—Bobby was able to work from home today and drove me. The dr. was concerned, but he said I’ve been long overdue for something like this. He thinks the swollen lymph node thing is totally related to this too; he did massive amounts of blood work (the lab tech said she’d never seen him order so many tests on one person!) and put me on high dose of prednisone, which he thinks will help the pain and the lymph node swelling.

I also have an appt. with my regular dr. this afternoon as a previously scheduled follow up on the lymph node (which is still swollen and tender, BTW). My rheumatologist said an internist, which is what my regular dr. is, would probably want to do a biopsy or start leaning in that direction, but he told me to ask her to hold off on anything like that until we see what the pred does or to call him to talk more about it—he thinks it will all be cleared up within two weeks on it. I just want the pain to go away. It’s worse at night—I can’t even roll over in bed without the pain waking me up, so I'm not sleeping well either. This is seriously the worst it's ever been, even when my symptoms began, some seven years ago.

The lab work will be back on Friday, and I have another appt. with him in three weeks. Anyway, please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. The pain is terrible -- I feel like a little old lady ... it takes me forever to get around or just do the most basic of tasks around the house.