MRI and MS

I know lots of people write about their health issues on facebook; I don't. I suppose I've dropped hints here and there, but my dark sense of humor probably leaves people with the impression I'm exaggerating or a hypochondriac. Actually, I'm both. Lol.

Today I'm going in for an MRI and even if I don't have late onset MS, my health has been declining for about six years. My speech was the first thing to give me obvious problems, but the funny (bad choice of words) thing about MS, if it is MS, is that it's really sneaky. My sister was diagnosed (if memory serves) in her late 30's, but she had a variety of symptoms and MS was harder to diagnose back then. I remember the day she got out of bed and her legs gave out, and so began her lengthy diagnostic nightmare.

The other day, facebook reminded me of my last trip to Oregon five years ago. I went to see my daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughters. Now, for someone who for most of her life swore she'd never set foot on a plane, I'd grown kind of fond of flying by then. But that trip was miserable. I live in Ohio, and that was the trip when I discovered sitting for hours made it almost impossible to stand up. So I got to my motel and we were having such a good time. My eldest granddaughter, Suzi, spent the night with me. We binged on Spongebob. Anyway, the next morning the rest of the family came to my room and we were going to do various fun stuff. At one point, I used the bathroom, and when I came out, if the bed hadn't been there, I would've landed on my face on the floor. Tim went and bought me forearm crutches and the rest of the trip went fairly well. But with that facebook memory, I thought of my sister and her fall and began reading up on MS.

The problem with late onset MS is that the symptoms are oftentimes considered typical of the growing old process. But I'm only 68 and there are people who run marathons when they're in their 80's! Not that I've ever wanted to run a marathon. But I'll tell you; if I could regain the use of my legs, I'd start running. I dream about running. In my dreams, I'm all healthy, then I wake up and, well, it's depressing. And while I KNOW there are people whose quality of life is worse than mine, I admit, I've occasionally (momentarily) felt that my life isn't worth living anymore.

So, today is my MRI, and there are brain stem markers that apparently make it easier these days to diagnose MS. And, as my aunt reminded me, there are better meds these days than existed for my sister. Now I'm going to be embarrassed and relieved if I don't have MS, and there are some other miserable possibilities, but hopefully what I've written might help someone with my symptoms get a diagnosis. Don't keep going to your doctor's appointment saying you're 'fine' when you're not. That's what I did.

Gosh, it's been years. Lots of things have changed, and not for the better.

I've created a fundraising campaign on Fundraizr. I wrote the short version of why I've gone begging in the campaign message, but I need to say more.

My health has been on a steady decline for several years now and next week I go in for another MRI; I'm suspecting late onset MS, which is the disease that killed my sister. I'm doing my best to remain positive, and will be going to various therapies and treatments, no matter what the diagnosis. What I haven't shared publicly is that I've nearly lost all ability to walk and my speech problem is more tiring than ever.

Ron and I have never been outrageously successful, but we try. We're both pushing 70 and working is harder for him and impossible for me. We are facing upcoming expenses with very limited funds, including a car that might transport a wheelchair, if I can afford one.

The only thing I can think of to supplement our income is a book I self-published online several years ago. I'm hoping to work with a professional company (Bookbaby) to get an overhaul and promotion. It'll cost a few thousand dollars, but the reason my campaign is asking for more is the need for the aforementioned items. Items! Lol. Sounds trivial. Huge items.

Now, you have to know how much I HATE going begging; I wasn't raised that way. So I'd like to promise (to Carol, especially, for helping me in the past) that should my book become a moneymaker, I will do everything in my power to repay my donors, or at least send them copies of my book.

So, that's the story. Feel free to ask me anything. I'm an open book.

Finding Answers

It's funny the stuff you find when you go looking for answers to all your questions--and how fast you find them. I told a friend I want to find the solutions to all my problems tied up in one neat little bundle on the Internet. Why not? Isn't that the way it's supposed to be these days? We just do simple searches and voila! there's your answer. The problem with searches is that there are too many neat little bundles on the list. How does one choose? Is what fixes my problems the same thing that will fix your problems? Probably not. 

I grew up in a crappy environment. My parents divorced when I was five years-old. The day I was informed of this calamity was my first day of kindergarten. Imagine! I loved my Dad beyond words. He was the first man/friend/artist/humorist/humanitarian in my life and my beastly mother was kicking him to the curb. I was never given reasons. It was-what-it-was and my tiny mind had to accept it without question. Besides, the responses to questions in our house were usually either non-existent, sarcastic or angry. Still, it could have been worse. We had a roof over our heads, food to eat and clothes to wear. We laughed sometimes, especially when Mom wasn't home. So, according to everything I've ever heard or read, indeed,  it could have been worse. But we're each born with our own unique genetic makeup. Someone else raised in that environment might have thrived, another might have turned into a hardened criminal. I suppose I was sort of middle-of-the-road. Throwing screwed-up psychological genetics into the mix I became rebellious, followed by alcoholic and suicidal. But, hey, that's just me. I'm old enough that when I first sought help I was greeted with, "There's nothing wrong with you." and, "Don't tell anyone you have a problem." Now we live in an era where there's something wrong with you if you don't have a problem and ultimately I stumbled my way through therapy and sobriety. But I'm still looking for--answers.

As I said in my last post, I know I want to slay the Jabberwocky and then I decided there's more than one Jabberwocky in my life. Lots of Jabberwockys in fact, and I'm not Alice. So I was going to make a list of Jabberwockys and kill them one by one. I was going to write about all my accomplishments so that whoever reads this blog could be in awe of my progress. And then . . . I went back to sleep. I said I'm not Alice. 

When I got up I dawdled, I sighed, I thought, I pondered and I continued my Internet search for "The Answer." I began finding lots of people with lots of questions searching for lots of answers. One of these seekers led me to a long deceased man named Alan Watts. His name sounded familiar but when I went to visit one of his youtube videos I didn't know he was dead. In fact, he sounded . . . current, completely relevant. He said things I know; he said things I didn't know; he reminded me of things I'd forgotten. He was funny, and that's always a plus in my book. But what he did most for me was remind me of our interconnectedness. My spellcheck tells me that's not a word, but it is. It's a very important word. It means exactly what it sounds like it means. We are all connected in a very important way. In fact, according to what I believe, EVERYTHING is connected in a very important way. I believe in the Higgs Boson. It's the glue that holds everything together. I'm not gonna go all scientific on you, or spiritual, for that matter. You have enough to think about and worry about and question. But if you think like I think, you might want to consider reading some of Alan Watts books. You also might want to watch programs like Through the Wormhole. As crazy as it might sound to some people, I've found comfort in thinking about the cosmos and things we can't possibly prove. 

Maybe I'm more like Alice than I believed and maybe I AM the Jabberwocky.

The Wrong Alice

 

I set up a new blogsite and decided to bring this one a little more in sync with that one, so if you decide to read this and you already read the other I'll try to make this one a little different for you. And now you already know, I'm not 'that' Alice.

The Alice to whom I refer is the one who visits Wonderland on a regular basis. I admire Alice for her bravery in slaying her Jabberwocky, among other admirable qualities. She gave the Bandersnatch back his eye thereby retrieving the Vorpal sword; she helped rescue the Mad Hatter from the Red Queen, and she was always brave enough to take chances with stuff marked 'eat me' and 'drink me.' I suppose when I was younger I was brave enough to take chances with ingesting eatables and drinkables having absolutely no knowledge of what they contained. Lord! I suppose that behavior would be better categorized as stupidity than bravery. But, we did it, nonetheless. I'm still here so I guess I'm stupid and lucky. But what I'd like to achieve before I depart this mortal coil is Alice's bravery.

Having reached retirement age in America, I'm amazed to be just now learning so much about life that I never understood before. I have other people to thank for that information. Friends and relatives have always tried to give me good advice, but it seems as though the pathways from my ears and eyes to my brain were blocked. So I've had other people to thank for good information for years now; it's not their fault that the pathways have been covered with brambles, trash, dead wood and ghosts--not that the paths are completely clear yet. But I have been brave enough to sweep away enough of the debris to allow some of the information to filter through.

So, I'm working on becoming The Right Alice. My friend Boris tells me I should live 'the pink life.' I knew what he meant even before he explained it, but when I Googled 'the pink life' I found nothing to match what he meant. I guess the pink life can be many things to many people. To some it means they love the color pink and surround themselves with it; to some it means surviving breast cancer, and to some it means running marathons for health reasons. What it means in Boris' part of the world is being happy and free. Maybe sort of like looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, as they say. And I can do that--why not? What is the alternative, really? I think the pink life also includes tea parties with the Hare, the Hatter and especially the Cheshire Cat. I can handle that.

I've also realized I have to identify the Jabberwocky and with that comes the realization life is full of Jabberwockys. Sigh. Usually we only have to fight one at a time; sometimes they come in pairs and sometimes they'll actually tell you they'll let you take a nap and come back to annoy you later. As I said in my other blog, I'm better at putting the Jabberwocky to sleep than I am at slaying him.

So What Happens Now?

Saturday is my birthday. I'll be 62. SIXTY-TWO! Do you hear me? How is it possible? I, who have been so often on the brink of suicide, am going to be 62 years old. Do I hate it? If you'd asked me when I was 40 if I'd hate being 62 I'd have said, "I'll never live that long." or, "Yes, I'll hate it if I live that long." But here I am. Sigh.

I'm going to make this brief because I recently found out that my retirement only means I have to work harder than ever. Here's what I've learned at nearly 62:

• You never know what's around the next corner and it's not always a good thing.
• Living in the moment is still hard to do, but necessary.
• I love my family more than ever (family doesn't always mean DNA connections).
• I still care what I look like and don't want to look like either of my Grandmas.
• Napping is a good thing, but too much sugar and fat turn napping into an all-day sleep.
• Housework sucks. My Grandmas must have LOVED it--I don't.
• Getting older makes me care less about lots of stuff, including other people's opinions of my opinions.

But I think acceptance has been my biggest obstacle. It's hard for me to accept that I may never become what I believe I was born capable of being. I was born with all the standard equipment, but I never steadily pushed myself. It always seemed like pushing my talent or ability was met with failure and/or rejection. Oh, it's okay. That part of acceptance I can accept. That's the other thing about living this long; acceptance of failure becomes less devastating. I don't mean I'm not going to try new things, or polish old stuff; I just no longer expect miracles. They're great when they happen; I just don't live in a fantasyland about them. I've bought enough lottery tickets to know that it's usually the people who don't need the winnings who win. You know; it's always those people who say, "Quit my job? Oh, never!" What's wrong with those people? Geez, start your own business; go back to school; see the world.

Okay, back to work. I'm still trying to sell my stuff. I have to supplement my soon-to-be received SS income.
www.druneric.com




MY MOUSE

I was going to set up a rant on facebook when I remembered I have this perfectly good blog I haven't written on in months. Then again, I'm sure I'll post it on facebook when I'm done writing, but you don't have to read it; it's my catharsis. after all.

There's a mouse in my kitchen who's been controlling my life for the better part of a week now. Wait--I've been through enough psychotherapy and 12-stepping to know better; I've been allowing this mouse to control my life. It all started with seeing what I thought was a caraway seed in my silverware drawer. Eeeeuuuw, you're saying; and you'd be right. So I get a damp paper towel and get the "caraway seed" out of the silverware drawer and go about my business. The next day there are more seeds in the drawer and I think, "Wait a minute; I don't buy anything covered with caraway seeds and I don't use them in recipes. What the hell is this?" Then a memory slips back into my head. "Oh, yeah. About ten years ago. We had a mouse in here. We had a mouse and we had to get that no-kill trap and Ron put the little pest outside and it came right back in the next day." Now, we had cats at the time, but we always kept a door on our kitchen because we'd had a lovely little cat named Betty who, for some odd reason loved to urinate on kitchen counters. No kidding. It was like some strange fetish with her. We did the craziest things to keep her off the counters (I know; I hear ya.), but finally we just made sure we kept a door installed.

So after finding a crap-load of caraway seeds I say to Ron, "I think we've got a mouse." He says, "Yeah, I've seen him. He's a cute little chap." A cute little chap! So I say, "What are you gonna do about it?" He says, "Well, right now I'm going to take my nap." Aaaarrggg. So I set off for the hardware store because I can't find our humane catch-and-release mouse trap which has since been buried under ten years of basement bull . . .crap. The hardware store has an entire wall covered in products intended to viciously destroy absolutely anything and everything you don't want in your home, with the exception of a tiny corner of the wall devoted to the live-catch traps. They come in several sizes and this particular store usually carries the sizes for mice, rats and up to small fox sized animals. When I got to the store the only size they had was for rats, and in my desperation I bought it, completely forgetting how small mice are, not to mention how clever.

I get home just in time for Ron to be getting up from his nap and for our dogs to be taking his side in all arguments. Mind you, I'm already irritated because this rodent is taking me away from my valuable facebook time, not to mention all my other little projects; the rat poison on the shelves at the hardware had looked awfully inviting. I asked Ron if he wasn't going to help me set up this trap but he said the little dear wouldn't be out until night-time; I insisted on setting it up anyway. When I got it out of the box I could see I may have made a mistake in getting the rat sized trap but was going to give it a shot. I figured if I put some cheese into a little mesh bag attached to the trigger mechanism the little nut would have such a hard time getting it out of the bag that surely the doors would spring shut and trap his little ass. That being done I put the trap into the cupboard I'd cleaned of all other food products. I should probably thank the little monster for making me clean places I hadn't cleaned in years, but . . . I refuse.

The next morning, after much paranoia about going into my own kitchen (hey, I can't help it; it's like not knowing when a very large, hairy, fast-moving bug might suddenly run across your feet, or not knowing if you might pull open a drawer and find a small animal staring up at you. Please!) I pulled the trap out of the cupboard, already seeing that the doors weren't sprung, and I'll be damned if the little bugger hadn't gotten the cheese out of the little bag without tripping that trigger! So yesterday the rat trap went back to the hardware and I was able to find a small maze type device that is now sitting in my cupboard. I don't know yet if the little bully has been caught. As of 4:30 a.m. when the other two animals who control my life got me out of bed the trap was empty, and I said to Ron, "I CAN'T STAND IT THAT SOMETHING THAT SMALL IS CONTROLLING MY LIFE!" Sometimes I think I should live my life wearing a haz-mat suit.

Intended for entertainment purposes only. The management already knows what you're thinking.

My mind is nearly blank, but I haven't written in my blog for six months so I guess I'll try . . . . . . . No, can't think of a thing that hasn't already been said by millions of other people. Re-read my blog from six months ago and that just about said it all. I suppose I could die now and . . . better not say that; I have loved ones who worry about me.

Okay, lemme say this much: The biggest mystery in life for me is the way so many people claim to love Jesus Christ yet don't live by his words and teachings. Yeah, I want a good, solid answer to that question. Takers?