RA news

You know the old phenomenon where you take your car to the shop, and while it's there, it stops making that funny noise and the mechanic can't find anything wrong with it, and then as soon as you drive away, the noise starts up again?

The same thing happens to me when I go to see my rheumatologist. The last two times I've seen him, I've been having horrible flare-ups for weeks beforehand. Then, the morning of my appointment, I suddenly feel much better, and he tells me everything looks great and to keep doing whatever I've been doing. A few hours later, I'm in excruciating pain again.

I saw him last Monday and told him how much trouble I've been having for the past six weeks or so. He did agree that some of my joints were flared up and that I had definitely worsened since he'd last seen me, but he didn't think it was that bad. I'd been hoping he would take me off the Enbrel and put me on Humira, because I'm pretty sure the Enbrel is no longer working. He'd told me some time ago that you can develop antibodies to these drugs, and that usually just switching from one to another does the trick.

Well, he didn't think that was necessary at this point, so he just upped my methotrexate dosage a bit and wants to see me again in a month. Of course, later that afternoon, everything flared up again and I could barely walk.

The flare-up has seemed to settle down a bit over the past week, but I'm still having trouble with joints flaring up at random -- shoulders, knees, hands, feet, hips -- something will just flare up out of the blue and will be very painful for a day or two, and then die down. There is currently something very odd going on with my left arm -- the lower part of my forearm is all swollen and red and tender. There's no joint there, but I am sure it is somehow related to the RA.

In any event, I'll see the doctor again next month, and he will make the med switch at that point if I'm not better.

New job news

The new job is still great. I no longer dread getting up and going to work every morning. I stay in a good mood all day. I really enjoy what I do, and I'm really good at it. It is like the polar opposite of my previous job (I believe we decided to call it Firm B for purposes of this blog). I had gotten to the point where I spent the better part of every day in a horrible mood, cursing under my breath (and sometimes not so quietly) throughout the day. I had forgotten what it was like to actually enjoy my job.

I had lunch today with a friend from Firm B and she told me that there was another big lay-off last week. I'm not sure if I blogged about the one in January, but that makes twice this year that they decided to send a bunch of people packing. I'm really glad I left when I did. I doubt I'd have been laid off, but that's just not the kind of atmosphere I want to work in. I worked for Motorola for nearly six years; I already know what it's like to be constantly wondering if you're going to be laid off before the end of the work day. Not fun.

So, gigantic pay cut notwithstanding, I definitely made the right choice.

Kismet

First of all, I love my new job. The people are all really nice and yet very professional, my office is awesome, and I'm so happy to be back doing work I actually enjoy. And back in my old building, no less -- it feels like home.

Now, check this out: I was chatting with one of the other legal assistants this morning, and I commented that I liked her pen. She said she liked it because it was fat and therefore easy to write with, and I said, "Yeah, I can't write with skinny pens because I have arthritis." She looked surprised and said, "Rheumatoid?" I said yes, and she said, "Me, too." Turns out we both have fibromyalgia, as well.

I don't know how old she is, but she can't possibly be any older than I am and I would guess that she's a few years younger. I've never before met anyone my age or younger who has RA. So, of course we started talking and it was so nice to talk with someone who knows exactly what I'm going through. She was all like, "My shoulders.." and I said, "I KNOW!!" She has had a really rough time with her RA, as well. We were both really excited about having a co-worker who would understand and empathize. We'll be able to vent to each other, offer advice, etc.

We both basically said, "I'm so sorry you have it, but I'm so glad to have someone to talk to about it!"

I think there's definitely a reason why I ended up with this new job.

Shortest unemployment in history?

Well, the past week has certainly been interesting! Last Monday was my last day at the big firm, and I worked Tuesday through Thursday at the weird firm before the long weekend.

I slept very poorly last night, partly due to the RA pain which kept waking me up and made it impossible to get comfortable, and partly due to the dreams I was having about going to work today at the freak show. When I woke up this morning, I decided I could not possibly manage to drag myself back to that place. This is totally uncharacteristic of me, because normally I would just suck on it and stay at a bad job for awhile because it was my decision to take the job in the first place, and I'd feel guilty about quitting. But I think the RA pain pushed me over the edge, and I emailed my resignation at about 7:30 a.m. I pleaded a worsening chronic health issue, which is true, and said that I would be unable to work for awhile and that the best thing would be for me to resign so they could fill the spot with someone else. Okay, that part wasn't totally true -- I think it would be best if I did stop working for awhile so that I can focus on getting the RA under control, but I still can work, even though it's getting more and more difficult.

In any event, at 10:30 I got a phone call from the attorney I'd interviewed with a couple of months ago, and she was thrilled to hear that I was still available. The girl she'd hired had apparently fudged a bit on her experience and did not work out. The attorney said she should have hired me in the first place and was glad I was still interested in the job. So, long story short, I met with her at 2:00 p.m., got a tour of the office, met everyone, and will start there on Wednesday morning. Yay!!

The only drawback is that they don't pay much and I will be taking an enormous pay cut -- more than 25%. But after touring the office and meeting everyone, I can tell it is going to be a great place to work and I'll be very happy there. Plus, I get my very own windowed office, and it is really nice!

Now I just hope the RA thing starts to settle down. I see my rheumatologist next on July 21, but I may try to move that appointment up if I can. I am hoping that a simple med change will put an end to these horrible flare-ups -- otherwise I really will be rendered unable to work in the near future.

In any event, it's been about the weirdest week of my life (I haven't even mentioned the veterinary emergency from Saturday yet -- next post, maybe), but I am happy with the way it has all worked out.

It's a freak show, baby

Here's the thing about small law firms: You never really know what you're getting into when you accept a job with one until you actually start the job. You might be walking into a great situation that you'll really enjoy, or you might be walking into a total freak show.

Sadly, with my new job, I have walked into the freakiest freak show in the history of freakishness. I mean, I've really never seen anything like this before in my life. I've never even imagined anything like this. There is no way I could possibly even begin to describe to you how weird this office is, but I shall try.

There are three attorneys: the owner of the firm, one attorney who's been working there for seven years, and one who's been there for two years. There are five legal assistants, all of whom are young college kids or recent grads. Two of them gave their two-weeks notice this past week. The other three have been there for eight months, one and a half months, and one month.

The high turnover rate is due to the fact that the owner is perhaps the weirdest person I have ever met, and he is also incredibly difficult to work for. On the one hand, he is a total control freak the likes of which I have never seen. He has all of these ridiculous, convoluted office "procedures," which must be followed to the letter and which usually involve filling out a checklist which must be handed in to him. Woe betide the legal assistant who fails to follow a procedure exactly as he should, for he will be on the receiving end of a condescending, demoralizing lecture and will then be targeted for scorn for the remainder of the day.

My job is to manage the office and supervise the legal assistants, which means much of my time is spent trying to shield these kids from the wrath of the megalomaniac. None of them has ever worked in a law office before and they have no idea that this place just ain't right. They think this is just the way it is. Poor kids.

The guy also makes his IT people (who contract with him to do his computer and server maintenance) provide him with a comprehensive list of everybody's computer and email passwords on a weekly basis. The guy who came in to set up my computer on my first day told me that he has a lot of attorneys as clients, and that this guy is the most demanding, controlling, and all around weird client he's ever had.

He also has all kinds of ridiculous rules -- for example, he does not like to hear or see the names of any former employees, so they must be wiped from the computer system as soon as they quit, and must not be mentioned again.

On the other hand, despite all the control-freak tendencies this guy has, the office looks like a garbage dump, and I am not exaggerating. There are literally piles of trash -- broken office equipment, broken or used up office supplies, empty 12-pack soda boxes, etc. -- piled up from floor to ceiling. The owner's office is just one gigantic pile of papers and garbage. There is no organization to anything. The client "files" are just stacks of disorganized papers rubber banded together. Furthermore, the equipment and furniture is all old and rickety. The printers sound like the apocalypse when in use. The whole place looks like it's going to collapse any day now.

Of course, you don't see any of this mess in the reception area or the conference room, which are the only areas I saw when interviewing. They are neat as a pin.

The funny thing is that I think he truly believes that he provides a state-of-the-art, comfortable work environment for his employees, and he doesn't understand why he can't seem to keep anyone for any length of time. It's just the most bizarre thing I've ever seen.

Even with the way this new job turned out, I'm still not sorry I left the other one. I was really miserable there. Needless to say, however, I won't be staying at the new place, either. I'm hoping that another offer will come through next week, but even if it doesn't, I'm going to quit this freak show. I wouldn't mind just taking some time off. I could use a break. Fortunately, I'm in a position where I can afford to take my time looking for the right spot. I'm really thankful for that.