What's Yellow and Square and Kind of Sticky?

It's been a month (or so) since my rheumatologist had me halve the dosage of my anti-inflammatories, and I just got the OK to give them up entirely.

I'm taking a moment to focus on the fact that it's been almost exactly 18 months since my sudden-onset joint pain began, the result of acute estrogen withdrawal following my otherwise uneventful oophorectomy.

A year and a half is a long time to be dealing with a side effect, even if meds made it fairly manageable after the first month or two. That's the length of two pregnancies, half the duration of law school (or J-school, in my case), or one NHL season (or does it just feel that way?).

It's so long that it becomes the norm, and you forget that things ever were, or could be, different. And by "different," of course I mean "better."

But different has returned! Better is back!

Our "cause for celebration" threshold is pretty low right now, but this would qualify under any circumstances.

At the very least, I'm going to put another Post-it® on the wall. It's been a few months since the last one went up, which was a couple of months after the one before that.

I'm hoping the intervals will be much shorter from now on.