We are relocating to Southern California! For those of you familiar with the area, we will be moving in August to the Thousand Oaks/Newbury Park area. I know this is going to come as a shocker to most, as my dad has always said he would never move back to LA, and we are so well established here, but its true! I PROMISE that if one of us has not told you personally, we honestly haven't gotten a chance yet because of how quickly things are moving. This whole scenario is shocking to us too, and has moved incredibly quickly. My dad, who is an incredibly hard worker, has been experiencing burn out, and it was clear that we needed to change things, and quickly. Two weeks ago, when we were in Southern California for a family event (literally 2 days there and back), we stopped at some homes in Ventura County along the way home to evaluate neighborhoods of possible businesses my dad was interested in investing in. At the family event, a rabbi spoke about going after your passions, and that since life is so short, you have to go for it.This message really resonated with my dad, and as a family, we realized that relocating to an area which is less expensive, closer to my school, and closer to more family was the best option for our family. Within 2 days they already had found a house similar to our current home, in a fantastic neighborhood with good schools, resources, and literally a block away from one of Beth (my step mom's) closest friends (that part was actually by total coincidence, we figured that out after the fact). My dad was able to find a sustainable and less stressful solution to keep his current job, but modify it to better meet our family's needs.
Cody, my brother, reacted surprisingly well. He will obviously have to change schools, but this neighborhood has its own public K-8 school. Since he is going into 5th grade, he normally would have to start at an elementary school for a year, and then transition to a middle school. This school is walking distance from the new house, and will allow him to stay all the way through 8th grade. Additionally, Beth still has lots of friends in the area with kids around his age or a little bit older, who he is excited to see more often.
Although this move is going to be positive in the long run, it is incredibly difficult to be moving away from all of our friends, neighbors, and support systems here. We have such a great network here, and the best neighbors anybody could ever ask for. I am not sure it has fully sunk in for me yet, or really for any of us, but we are trying to spend as much time with everyone here as we can.
This move is also going to be a little technically challenging for me. They are moving the same weekend that I am moving back to school to start my summer job. For packing, in theory, I am just doing separate school and new house piles. However, I am physically not able to do too much of the packing. Additionally, chemicals used for house repairs and cleaning aggravate my mast cells, as well as all of the dust that comes up from deep cleaning. Being kicked out of the house for open houses on flare days could be problematic, hiding medical supplies, etc. I will have to transfer all of my home health care and specialty pharmacy companies switched for my benadryl pump, in addition to a a new primary care doctor, specialists, etc. since its not something I can go without for even more than an hour.
I will figure things out as we go, but it certainly has added a significant level of stress and anxiety, which is part of why I haven't posted sooner. I have regressed a little bit in terms of my ability to control my anxiety and comfort with eating, but I am working on getting back to a better baseline.
This has also affected my mast cell symptoms. I have been having to use more medications than I would like to keep symptoms under control. I had my follow up with my mast cell specialist in San Diego on Monday. This was my first time flying on the pump. On the way there, I had a problem getting a wheelchair, and a service agent who was extremely rude. On the way back on the plane, a woman thought it would be funny to pass around peanuts, make peanut jokes, etc. after she overheard the gate agent hand me a peanut dust allergy slip. Luckily, everything was fine, but it was frustrating and discouraging. My "twin" (another MCAS patient who also sees the same doctor) was nice enough pick me up from the airport and spend the entire day with me. We checked out SDSU, where I am interested in attending grad school, went to my appointment, and then stopped at Nordstroms on our way back to the airport.
The appointment itself went well. We agreed that I need to get off steroids ASAP, so in order to do so, we added in another medication to try, and reduced my chemo dose slightly as it was causing some additional side effects. I had a steroid decrease yesterday, and it has been pretty brutal the past 36 hours. The steroids really suck-- I still have a major moon face, difficulty regulating hunger and temperature, and my hair is falling out even faster than before. However, I know that by tomorrow things will start to improve, until the next dose reduction. Another perk of moving to Southern California is that I will be closer to my mast cell specialist (and where I hope to go to graduate school). I have been making a lot of progress with physical therapy, the stairs are getting easier for me. I am walking less outside because of how hot it has been, but the ultimate goal is to get me back to school with as much functionality as possible. All of this packing has ended up being physical therapy in itself.
Last thing, as a stress reliever/fun thing for me to do, I am going to start selling some of my IV cap art per request. I attached a picture below of an example. Each letter is made to order with the colors of your choice, and I am currently selling them for $8. If you want one, send me a message on here, or email me at arielle@davisfamily.cc.
I feel like I am forgetting something major from this post, which will probably occur to me the second I hit publish. Anyways, I hope you all have a great week, and enjoy the last few days of June!
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