Looking Back – Day 104 – Choose Tolerance

Today is Day 104 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day One Hundred Four – January 12, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

I’ve had a few crazy synchronicities with my posts the last week and it’s kinda freaking me out. Or, is life just that repetitious and we don’t recognize it? Things to contemplate on this cold and dark winter day.

To see my original Day 104 post ~ Choose Tolerance ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 103 – Crown Of Apples

Today is Day 103 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day One Hundred Three – January 11, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

It was a day with just an apple and no post. I occasionally didn’t write much with my daily apple. It was always because I just didn’t have the energy or brain power. I’m feeling that way tonight as well. I am best the first half of the day – my body tires as the day wears on – so I’ve mostly been posting as I drink my morning coffee. My mind is sharper and it’s a fun way to start my day. Today I fired up my laptop (it’s by my bedside because that is where I have my morning coffee) and I hadn’t prepared the image for today’s post. I’ve been trying to get two weeks done ahead of time but that is a two hour project believe it or not so over the holidays it hasn’t been high on my to-do list so I ran out of made ahead images that I’d stored in my dropbox. Not a big deal but it threw off my routine. Then I went to lay down a bit before dinner to rest my back for a bit and for some reason the images hadn’t synced to my dropbox yet so I couldn’t get to them from my laptop.

And, then I completely forgot all about it! Ten years ago the idea of forgetting to post my daily apple gave me nightmares. Seriously! I never forgot but on day 365 it was close – I posted just a few minutes before midnight. (more on that in a few hundred more days)

And 9pm I turn into a pumpkin. – if you ask Doug, it’s really 8pm but I didn’t want to sound totally lame.

So I’m going to say goodnight and hope things work out better tomorrow! On a hugely positive note – I had a great day in my studio! I set an appointment with my art photographer for January 25th so it has me working furiously to finish up a number of half finished pieces. Nothing like a deadline for motivation! To see what I’m working on you can check out my Instagram where I post the goings on in my studio.

To see my original Day 103 post ~ Crown Of Apples ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 101 – Intro To Apple Art

Today is Day 101 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day One Hundred One – January 9, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

It has been another long day. Mostly in a good way but I’ve had computer issues. Posting at 9:30pm isn’t optimal for me – I function best in the morning which is when I usually write up my reflections and post my apple. Tonight my brain is more foggy than usual so I’m happy that 10 years ago I was running into the same issue so there isn’t much to spark my memories tonight and I can just say hello, hit publish on today’s post, and call it a night.

Goodnight all!

To see my original Day 101 post ~ Intro To Apple Art or Intro To AS ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 100 – A Window To My Apple

Today is Day 100 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day One Hundred – January 8, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

I’m smiling.

Actually, I have tears running down my cheeks. Memories are powerful things and these posts are a time capsule for me and my family. My grandmother kept a written daily journal and I thought it was neat but now I know the power of documenting your life. Facebook and Instagram are wonderful for that but it isn’t your inner thoughts and a dialog of what was really going on. Oh the things we don’t share! This retrospective makes me want to look back on my apples in another 10 years…

Today’s post brings back the memories of a road trip my Mom and I took starting 10 years ago today. We still laugh and talk about this first day of our drive north and that moment my Dad messaged us from Tokyo (the juxtaposition of him being on the other side of the world and we hadn’t made it out of Florida just makes us laugh)!

The tears are for today and thinking about my Mom – oh how I love her! She is battling stage IV metastatic melanoma. Her bravery and resiliency have always inspired me but now I am in awe. And today’s apple is a very large window to me and my current life too. Yesterday’s apple was so apropos and here we are again with one that seems to be life circling around.

To see my original Day 100 post ~ A Window To My Apple ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 99 – Tie Dye Peace Apple

Today is Day 99 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Ninety Nine – January 7, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

Seems talk of Peace today is extremely appropriate. This apple coming up ten years later on a day we all need to take a collective breath and find inner and world peace is what I consider kismet, grace, and divine coincidence. Wishing us all Peace.

Namaste. Peace. Paz. Pace. 和约. Vrede.

To see my original Day 99 post ~ Tie Dye Peace Apple ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 98 – Michael, Michael, Motorcycle

Today is Day 98 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Ninety Eight – January 6, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

A personal apple for my older brother Michael on his birthday! Love you Mike!!!

I’m very blessed to have such a wonderful and supportive family. One of the rotating photos in my website header is of the Apple A Thon finale to my year of apples. All my family attended. I’m still blown away by their support. So yes, I celebrate them on their birthdays here! You can see how close I am with my parents and brothers on my personal/public Instagram – family support makes all the difference in managing a life with chronic illness.

Family is also good friends or our AS Community. My circle of AS friends is amazing. I encourage anyone looking for more support to find a web forum or social media space to meet new virtual friends. In time the relationships grow and are imperative in my opinion. It may seem like a difficult task to meet people online but it’s like anything important, it will take time but be worth the effort and if you start today, I guarantee you will have found a supportive loving circle online by this time next year!

To see my original Day 98 post ~ Michael, Michael, Motorcycle ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 97 – Mobius Apple

Today is Day 97 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Ninety Seven – January 5, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

This was one of my favorite posts. It gave me comfort this morning – my Mom is fighting cancer. I’m showing you my soft belly…

To see my original Day 97 post ~ Mobius Apple ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 96 – Field Of Apples

Today is Day 96 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Ninety Six – January 4, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

Inspiration can come from so many places. I can still see the colors of those dusky lavender and ochre fields in Elizabeth, Colorado in my mind. There are some moments in time that etch themselves deeply into your memory. I live with the vista of the Front Range of Colorado we could see from our home. I remember the rainbow my Dad and I saw driving back from college in western Massachusetts one day. But I also remember the places I didn’t see…

I was at Giverny, France in college – I did not go onto the grounds. I was worried about the entrance fee but didn’t want anyone to know that is why I didn’t enter. That was a bad decision I will always regret.

There have also been vacations where it took everything in me to just be there. Our trip to Costa Rica was about 6 months before my diagnosis and my pain levels were off the charts. We bought me a simple timex watch that we set for every 6 hours and I took strong pain meds to keep me going – but I went on the trip! I didn’t experience a long walk down the beach to the spot with all the shells and I did not get on horseback. I did go on the zip line in the rainforest but my memory of the bumpy van ride out of the remote location where I cried the whole way due to the pain is etched deeply as mental scars that are so difficult to escape. The things I did not see and the opportunities lost due to my health challenges anger me as much as a choice to not see Monet’s waterlilies.

A trip to Spain in August of 2019 was better but I still didn’t do a few things I wish now that I had. Pain is a massive deterrent. And as well as my health is right now, I know how precarious it remains. This is why I make apples – it is my outlet to discuss these things and a way of sharing with others the overlooked life effects of chronic illness and chronic pain. Each apple is my response to these difficult things. I WILL create beauty out of ugliness. I will do what I can that doesn’t require me to worry it might lead to pain. Art Apples are a vista of health – each one a reminder and visual memory that we can keep going. So there AS!

To see my original Day 96 post ~ Field Of Apples ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 95 – Appily Infused

Today is Day 95 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Ninety Five – January 3, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

This apple. This apple said so much then and it continues to even 10 years later. I can’t believe that this last October it was 14 years that I’ve been on Remicade.

Wow.

I have so much to say about this treatment – all these years have given me some perspective and lots of experience. I will be adding the category “Biologics” here and working to index the posts for easily finding the information and will add the tags for the specific drugs. Unfortunately I have to say that obviously I’m not a doctor so my information is not to be taken as anything but as a patient observation – please consult your Rheumatologist with specific questions. But… I also turn to others who have the real life experience with a disease or drug. I’m doing this currently in a Melanoma group to learn about immunotherapy that my Mom has just started taking. Patient knowledge is imperative for understanding.

Here are three key points that I feel get missed in discussions of biologics in general and Remicade specifically.

Get Enough: I truly believe people “fail” the drug too soon. Fourteen years ago when I first started getting infusions, I read an article that said for people to have the highest level of success, the dose had to be high enough and the time frame short enough. What I hear/read in patient communities is people are being prescribed way under the FDA approved amount for AS/Axial Spondyloarthritis and at much longer intervals. I take 7.5mg/kg every FOUR weeks. I had to advocate for this – most Rheumatologists start much lower and every 8 weeks and then people say the drug isn’t effective. What if they got enough (it is FDA approved up to 10mg/kg every 4 weeks! for our disease) and they too had a 14 year run of “almost remission” like I have? I ache at the lost opportunity. I could be completely off base here but I experienced the difference even this month when my dose was adjusted down for my recent 40lb weight loss. My body immediately shouted “where’s the rest!” at least that is my opinion of what happened. I’m going to give it a few months to see if I equalize to the lower dose but the immediate joint pain was very instructive.

Give it time: On top of advocating to get enough of the drugs, you have to give your body time to adjust to the medications. All those years ago I was in such a crisis with this disease that I was basically bed ridden. (read here). Nothing turns around that level of disease activity quickly. When I hear people only took a drug (with no negative side effects) for only 3 months I worry that it just wasn’t enough time. I didn’t see my body start to make strides in a turn around for 6-8 months! I saw that it had changed things some so I wasn’t going to throw in the towel until I knew for a fact that it wasn’t working. With Humira I gave it a year. It helped some. With Enbrel I gave it 6 months. My Rheumatologist and I saw that my body responded some. The decision to go to Remicade was to try intravenous (get it directly into my bloodstream vs subcutaneous) and to get more medication (Humira and Enbrel were just not enough anti-TNF for my disease activity). At the 18 month mark on Remicade I was applying for a part time job when I thought I was heading to filing disability 3 years prior. That is the potential power of these meds! At 2 years I was looking for full time employment! Five years ago I had gotten my Real Estate Broker license and sold 22 houses in one year! These drugs have the potential to change lives. Please give them time to work!

Expect Fluctuations: Over the 14 years I’ve had times where I thought Remicade was starting to lose effectiveness. My Rheumatologist and I have had the discussion a number of times and we even at one point tested to see if I had built up antibodies against it. But autoimmune diseases of any type fluctuate over time. Periods of stress or high emotions are the most impactful for how they work. Other health issues can be blamed on AS when it in fact is something else. I have held fast to Remicade a few times instead of jumping to another of the many biologics for autoimmune arthritis for one big reason – this one I know works amazingly for me. And, it a month or two, I have come out of the flare. I am so grateful I stayed my course because I live a pretty good life on Remicade. The dose drop this last month was an eye opener because sometimes after a long period of “almost remission” I wonder if I need the medication. Such a weird trick the brain plays with that. I’ve had that thinking a number of times over the years and the disease is there waiting every time!

Those are three keys of Biologics I wanted to talk about today. Get enough, give it time, and expect fluctuations. Wishing you great success on whatever biologics you take. For more information on this please go to my original Day 95 post ~ Appily Infused ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…

Looking Back – Day 94 – A Web Of Shards

Today is Day 94 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Ninety Four – January 2, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

Sometimes my push to use new techniques and give you a new and different daily apple resulted in some interesting materials. With this apple I used Elmer’s School Glue to get a raised line or in this case a web of lines. Once dry it acts like a bit of a resist to the watercolor. I’m feeling like trying this technique again… off to my studio (after finishing cleaning the kitchen from our epic New Year’s Day meal and getting some laundry done that is…) I post a lot of my daily art on my personal Instagram @jennifervisscher207 if you’re interested in seeing my non apple art!

I’m looking forward to 2021 – I hope you are too!

To see my original Day 94 post ~ A Web Of Shards ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…