What I am Thankful For...

As the holiday season approaches, I have a huge smile on my face. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and more than ever before, I have much to be thankful for. It has now been over a year since my diagnosis, and generally speaking, I have felt better over the past couple of months than I have felt since last November's devastating steroid event.

My precious hubby offered for our family to have Thanksgiving dinner out this year, but I opted to cook. I decided that for as long as I am able, or at least have the desire, I will still cook our Thanksgiving dinner.

So, on this day before Thanksgiving, as I bustle about the kitchen, I do it with more joy than ever before. I have two brilliant healthy children who are blossoming into absolutely amazing adults. I have an adoring husband who shows his love for me in a million ways each and every day. I have siblings who are my best friends forever. I have a beautiful home (OK, realistically, part of it is beautiful...Thanks Jackie...and part of it looks like crap, but I will get to the bad parts and eventually it will all be beautiful again) and I have a wonderful garden filled with things I planted with my own hands. I have furniture that I painted with my own hands and curtains I sewed! I have an identity and joy through my photography and art. What more could I possibly want or need. Yep, Life is good!!!

Woman Stuff

So, if you are a man and you are squeamish about woman stuff, you might want to hit the back button and back your way out of this post right now, before I put images in your head that you can never ever erase. You have been warned!

There is something humiliating about going to the gyne. I dread it far worse than going to the dentist, even if I am having a tooth filled! I mean, seriously... What kind of man chooses a career that has them looking at crotches all day long every day? I mean, even people who work in chocolate factories get tired of chocolate.

I visited my new gyne today. He was the doctor I went to for some other woman stuff back in February. He's a nice enough guy, what I saw of him. After all, he is pretty much hidden behind that all-concealing thin white paper sheet they give us to help us maintain a tiny bit of dignity. His office staff is MUCH nicer than the office staff at my former gyne's office. I fired the old gyne for not taking my comment about an issue I was having seriously enough. Then, when I called his office to ask a question, his "I've got way too much power" nurse scolded me for trying to follow up on my issues. At the time, I was still very fragile emotionally from all the new MS stuff and the last thing I needed was to listen to the IGWTMP nurse get sassy with me.

As I was sitting in the waiting room at the OB/GYN's office, I realized a couple of things. First, someone needs to order a subscription of MORE magazine for his office. I really don't need to see Child magazine or Pregnancy magazine or even Family magazine. I am way past all that stuff. I also realized that some people just don't NEED to be parents! I don't really even feel like getting into that. Just trust me. Sometimes, birth control shouldn't be left up to choice!

OK ladies, we all KNOW what happens at the gyne ...stirrups ...tongs ...glaring lights. I've got an image for you...I'm lying there in the most graceful of positions, trying to maintain a minuscule amount of dignity while my legs are flying high, when what does my gyne decide to talk about? Turkey! Yes ladies, turkey. Honestly, I kept hoping it was an inside joke between the gyne and his nurse, you know like "Hey, watch this! I am going to have this patient in the "position" and then get her to talk about turkey." And if just the talk of turkey wasn't enough, he asked me if I was going to "stuff" my turkey!!!! I wanted to laugh hysterically at the absurdity. I am lying there on the table, pretty much like a trussed turkey and he wants to talk stuffing!!! If you are not howling at this moment, you either A. Aren't a woman, or B. Have NO sense of humor! It was like something from Saturday Night Live!!! I shudder to think what we would have talked about were it Christmas!

Same Hair Since 1976

As I watch the slideshow of my life, I am forced to hysterically realize that I have had the same hairstyle give or take an inch or two, since 1976. LOL (Well, other than those horribly permed 80s, which by the way made my hair look much darker than it has actually ever been.) I am a no muss/no fuss kind of gal and well, no matter how someone cuts my hair, when I turn it upside down and run my fingers through it to blow dry it, when I turn right-side up, it is still going to look the same. That is the extent of how much time I am likely to spend on my hair so...it will probably look this same way when I am 60 and 70. Some things never change...

Back From Cleveland or I Still Hate That Darn Math Test!

The first thing I want to say is, the kindness we are shown by the people who are associated with the Cleveland Clinic & Mellen Center for MS is what keeps me going back. From the Research Coordinator to the nurses and doctors...Everyone.

I make my way through this situation with humor. It is what keeps me going most days. I make jokes about the holes in my brain and occasionally walking like a drunk woman. I play the "UH HUH, Let the Crippled Girl Do It" card with my two dear sisters as they are standing in line at the check out counter reading a magazine, while I (the crippled girl) am unloading the shopping cart onto the conveyor belt.

As I said to the Dancing-Neuro when she commented on me being in good spirits..."It is what it is". No amount of whining is going to make it go away. Of course, I am also fully aware that my emotions could change in a split second. I am also aware that my health could change in a split second. So for today, I choose to be happy that I can still type, I can still use a Rotozip power tool without killing anyone and I can still drive a car on my own. I look at each and every day when I can get up and breathe, walk, laugh, climb the stairs and ugghh, even cook dinner, as a gift. It could all be taken away in a heartbeat. Of course, that is true of any one's life. You could get up one day and be hit by a pumpkin falling off of an overpass and your life and the lives of those around you could be forever changed.

Being told you have a disease makes you feel like you have an expiration date. HMMMM, even milk usually lasts longer than the expiration date. I plan to laugh in the face of MS and do it my way!

Back to the visit to Cleveland...
The Dancing-Neuro got married. It was obvious by the blinding sparkle on her finger. It is a good thing she put on rubber gloves or my eyes would have just followed the pretty sparkle during the entire exam. I wish for her and her groom all the love and joy that my sweet hubby and I have shared for the past 27 years. It will help, if she shares her pumpkin bread with him, but that's another story altogether.

The setup was a bit different this time and I feel it went more smoothly. There was a new Research Coordinator (I liked her) and a new nurse who was very sweet (even though she seemed to think that paying me a lousy $20.00 was going to compensate for the stress of taking that math test. I think not! LOL). Both newbies had a great sense of humor which is totally a prerequisite for me to like you.

I still had to walk up and down the hall like a rat in a maze. (Who can possibly walk normally when you know someone is watching you?) I had to follow waving fingers, poke myself in the nose and try to tell the difference between my own internal vibration (a gift from the MS) and the vibration of a tuning fork pressed against my bare foot. That one was a little tough. I constantly have a low hum that runs under my surface. It is soft and low enough these days that most of the time, I can almost ignore it, unless someone has a vibrating tuning fork stuck against my foot. Then it is a little hard to ignore. I was once again reminded how bad my eyesight has become and tried to bribe my way out of the hot seat on that one. I really do need to make an appointment with a real eye doctor and stop wearing cheater glasses from Sam's Club! LOL

I played the peg-board game, which couldn't really hold my attention...pegs in, oh yeah...pegs out. Then I took the dreaded math test and I don't think I did terribly this time. I think I may have sort of mentally cheated, LOL. I figure, if my lesion-laced brain is smart enough to figure out a way to get results, then I am doing it! Hint to anyone else who has to take this test. Keep your eyes closed and just listen. I have difficulty with staying focused on something if there is any outside stimulation. Closing my eyes so that my brain wasn't getting any input from anything but the verbal cues from the audio tape made it easier to stay focused. I share that tip, because seriously...I feel like what better way to make an MS patient feel sorry for themselves than to remind us that we just aren't quite what we used to be upstairs. LOL Seriously...Can't the great minds come up with a better way to measure our brain function than to make us feel totally STUPID? Here, take this math test and here is the Prozac that you are going to need to get you through the depression of realizing that you can't hold on to a number in your brain for more than a split second!

(You didn't really think I would give away my mental cheating skills did you? I mean, I like you guys, but let's be honest...I want to be the winner. So..OK...There isn't really a winner, but as much as I sympathize with you guys, I am not giving away my super powers. I have had to work way too hard to get them back to be willing to give them away. I shared the closing your eyes tip. For today...That is all you get)

Time to Play Lab Rat Again

Tomorrow, I go for my six month evaluation for the MS drug Avonex biomarker study. I am involved in two research study programs that basically involve blood draws and an MRI. I'm not really thrilled about playing lab rat again. I do it, because I hope with all my heart that the research they gather from we lab rats helps to find a way to help future MS patients.

I wouldn't really mind it if I didn't have to take the stupid math test. I'm not looking forward to that frustration. Feeling stupid is simply not my favorite activity. For a person who has always been relatively good at math, this math memory test is HELL!

I will have to stay overnight at the Cleveland Clinic so they can rush in at 7:00 AM to draw blood, then immediately run off to the lab to play with it. The last time I was there for the study, a French-speaking female came in at 7:00 AM to run off with my blood. I couldn't understand a word she said. My still-southern ears just don't do French, especially at 7:00 AM!

Wish for me that my MRI shows no new lesions!