day thirty eight

it seems like so much longer in some ways.
friday night i went to see my tattoo artist who moved to north carolina.  he was doing a guest spot on long island and i let him spend three hours tattooing my calf.  i went to school on saturday and it started swelling.  which happens sometimes with tattoos.  but now i'm five days after the tattoo and i'm still super swollen.  the tattoo itself isn't very swollen, definitely not any more than normal after a tattoo.  but i have a sweet cankle and my foot is swollen, i can't even wear my sneakers.  and i couldn't go to work at my dad's today because it's bothering me so much.
so i've spent days on the couch with my foot elevated.  nothing was helping - advil, ice, nothing.  so i decided to take some prednisone to see if it will help.  plus it might be nice to not have so much pain for a couple of weeks.  the swelling is just swelling - there's no infection or other abnormal tattoo-related issues going on.  it's just annoying and painful.  another pain to add to the list of crap bothering me.
my rheumy did extra blood work to prep me for starting a biologic in a month.  she's also upping my mtx to 20mg and we're hoping that might work, but if not - a biologic will be added next month.  just in time for christmas.  excellent.