Sunday, January 28, 2007

5 Reasons I hate MS

  1. Invading my Calgon moments: I love hot baths and I can't take them without being sick for about an hour afterwards! ARGH!! Screw the disease - I'll take baths till I'm unable to get in the tub myself. At that point, I think my husband will put me in and forget about me then I'll just prune up and die. I'm hoping that's at 80 or later of course.
  2. Shooting pains: They really suck when I feel them in places that you'd least expect to feel pain - like on my arm below the elbow or in the butt. Jiminy - I could be sitting still, or sleeping and I'll feel like someone just gave me a shot in the arse!! The worst has been in my right eye. MS Sucks!
  3. The old SD (sensitive topic here): I always wondered why my Neuro was asking how it was going in the 'ol bedroom until lately!! Thinking I was having a problem because of a drug, I was researching on the Internet last night and clicked on a link in Wikepedia. In it, it talked about the lack of.. you know.. and then I clicked on that and it immediately showed Multiple Sclerosis as one of the reasons for SD. Nice. Stupid disease!!
  4. Relapses or not: The other day I was in a long meeting. All of a sudden my foot started doing the vibrating thing again - like when I feel that rushing feeling of the blood in my heel... only this time it was all over my foot. I thought, "Am I having a relapse?" No, Pam, you're not - you nutter! Turns out it was my cell phone that I had on vibrate, which was in my purse, which my foot was up against. Gees I'm a nut.
  5. Symptoms: I'll go to the neuro and tell her a list of crap that goes on and she'll tell me, that's normal, or oh sounds like you have a bit of arthritis in your neck (great), or forgetting stuff is all part of aging (don't remind me)... So then I'll say, well, then I don't have MS anymore, which I pretty much say every time I go to see her. I probably said this before, but the last time she said, "no disease gives you a spot on your neck like the one you have." F'ing disease!

So, there you have it - just a few reasons why MS sucks. It's not the end of the world of course. Could be worse, could be more painful.

Oh - the yoga is kinda of on a hiatus, but the weight loss is going great. I can still walk up lots of stairs and now I run up and down them at home too. I'm going to have great looking legs before I turn 40! Now if I can only get rid of the stomach - oh but I have to inject there, so I need to save some fat. So that was reason number six - MS totally blows!

Friday, January 19, 2007

Yoga, Sleep and Work

Yoga has been my friend and my enemy. So, I was doing the "downward dog" pose (which you cannot say to a table full of male friends - by the way) and I went all the way down to the floor, then tried to push back up - like a real push up! Instead of pushing up my left arm pinched and I knew I hurt my rotator cuff again! Yikes!!

I kept moving it around to try to make it "pop" because that's what it felt like it needed. :-) But nothing worked.

I was also having a nasty earache so the next day I went to the doc and she said I had a nasty ear infection and it sounded like I may have a tear in my rotator cuff. Lovely.
So she wrote me out a script for Physical therapy - 3 x a week for 4 weeks.
Yeah right!! Like I have time for that.

I haven't let that get me down though. I am still walking up the stairs at work - and still breathing hard enough to prank people when I reach the top. So even if I don't exercise one day I am still exercising! :-)

As for the new job - I love it - but I'm getting really tired. I need to try to fit in sleep somewhere in this schedule.
I'm going to be gone almost all of next week traveling for work. And I have lots of stuff to do. The only thing I'm freaking on is not being able to get exams in that I need to take.

Other than being really tired - and it's not the fatigue tired - thank God - I'm really doing great!!

Oh - I don't know if I mentioned carbamazabine (Spelling - your guess is as good as mine and I'm too tired to look it up right now). I was taking that for the shooting pain that I get. Well - I hate taking all these drugs - so I was just going to try 1x a day instead of the 3x a day that the doc had prescribed. Well - I read up on this drug and it is kind of scary with the side effects and I found an article where it can cause relapses in MS patients. Nice. I don't think it's as bad as all that - because my doc wouldn't have put me on it if it were - at least I'm hoping she wouldn't. But I decided not to take it anyway. This is the chicken in me.
So a couple days after stopping it, I started getting the shooting pain in the corner of my right eye. Nice. I'm sure that's the MS pain crap.
But I've also started up on B12 again, so it's not come up that often.
Hopefully no one needs to take that medication... just so weird these drugs - they're good but they're not sometimes.

Well, I hope you're all well!! Have a wonderful rest of January... I may not have time to write for a couple weeks.
Take care!

Friday, January 05, 2007

Yoga, it's not for the weak kneed

Well - I started up again! Yes - Yoga. I debated between the the "PM and Stress Relief" Video and the "For Weight Loss." Because, of course, I need the one for weight loss, but I also, most definitely need the one for Stress Relief (as the kids are screaming now while playing a game...YIKES!). I decided on the "For Weight Loss." For some reason it seems more pressing. At least when I put on jeans.

As soon as I got the mat out, both my kids came up (my 2 year old son was hysterical watching the beginning where they demo the poses and he did the "Proud Warrior" pose and it was hysterical!!) and I had to "share" the mat with both of them when I first started, but I tried really hard to concentrate throughout this video. I was working my arse off, and then the legs started shaking so bad!! UGH!! I do attribute much of that to being out of shape, but hells bells! I definitely wasn't ready for these poses. Not that "Proud Warrior" is difficult, but I think it was how long they hold the position.
I'm going to keep plugging away - but I think I'll do a couple passes of the "PM and Stress Relief" one first then I'll work my way up to the whole "For weight loss."

But good news - At the new job I'm up on the 3rd floor. The first two days I took the elevator. But the last two days I've been climbing the stairs - 37 steps. Today I walked up them 3 times! Of course I could make heavy breathing phone calls by the time I reach the top! I figure the stairs will be some of my pre-yoga prep. :-)

I'm loving the new job! I'm excited about moving forward in it as well. My new boss is awesome, I've known him for a while and he's just the best! Yes, I'm off to a happy happy!!

I hope you all had a fabulous New Year. I did. Even though I got a sinus infection (again) on Christmas Eve and it's lasted through this week. So on New Years I took some "put me out" drugs and woke up before Midnight. At Midnight I called down to my husband who has become addicted to Bejeweled or whatever it's called on MSN Games. I kept saying, Happy New Year with no response from him. Finally at 12:19am he came up and said, "What did you say? Nice. We're so romantic. :-)