Way Behind

Been a while since I've blogged about my crazy life. So much has happened since my last entry I don't even know where to begin, so I will try to condense it the best I can.

I will begin by saying, as of week 7 in school I have a 4.0 and am hoping to keep that GPA, so please wish me luck, I need every ounce I can get.

Midterm day: I studied like a madwoman of course. In the middle of my midterm, my phone keeps buzzing in my front pocket. I'm thinking to myself, "Either that person has the wrong number or there is an emergency!" I can't even look at the phone because I don't want to be accused of cheating, plus I need to keep my focus on the huge test in front of me. Twenty minutes later, test turned in, out in the hallway I check my messages. An emergency, my 99 year old grandmother, whom I am caretaker of and power attorney has fallen and the assisted living facility needed my permission to send her to the hospital. So off to the hospital they send her, all the while, I have another exam in the next class and CANNOT leave. Great timing huh? Long story short, my grandmother is fine, no broken bones, just a bad sprain and is doing fine now.

Glasses Pickup: I'm not even 35 yet, but had to get bi-focals, WTF? Anyways, I ordered them along with new prescription sunglasses. Got my new glasses fine, but the sunglasses had white spots all through the lenses, so had to have them redone. Well, the machine is broke, so I will need to come back. Go back a few days later because they are ready. Well, still tons of white spots, so they will need to redo them again. Wait around for 20 minutes and they have ruined the frames from heating them up too much, so now I have to pick out new frames (at no cost of course). They don't have anymore of the frames I originally picked out, that would be too easy. So, I pick out a little larger frame, feeling like I need to be in Hollywood while wearing them but need new sunglasses. I am told it'll only take about 20 minutes since they have my lenses in stock to tint. Now I am there for an hour, and instead of 20 minutes later, he comes out 30 minutes later and replies, "Well, we are having problems with your lenses and will need to order special lenses to fit those frames". I just laughed and said, "Of course you are, story of my life"!

Possible Shingles Outbreak: Well, as you can see, I have had a few stresses lately. Between exams, work, being a mother and trying to encourage my unemployed husband that he can find a job since being laid off five months ago, I am run down. I started having blurred vision and my eye hurt and felt like I had something stuck in it. A few days later I had a couple of blisters show up around my brow line and in the brow line itself. I started to freak out at the possibility of losing my vision and scarring of my face. Call my study nurse and let her know what is going on since I am part of a study that suppresses my immune system, this could potentially be life threatening, but not too worried about that. Go to the eye doc and no herpes zoster or any kind of herpes found......THANK YOU GOD FOR ANSWERED PRAYERS! What the eye doc did find was two little sand rocks in my eye that have scratched the surface of my eye. He got those out and told me to put lubricating eye drops in my eye for next few days. Also, the breakouts look more like a contact dermatitis issue (I had just changed shampoos). Whew, close call, but still feel like it was the beginning of shingles and I had tons of people praying including myself that it wasn't. Power of prayer, power of prayer, thank you!

Hope everyone is having a good Memorial Week End and may this week end be about spending time with your loved ones and remembering the ones who have passed away with what love and joy they brought to your lives.

Creeping Up...

It seems like so many things in life, there is always something out there that is waiting around the corner about to creep up on you. This something for me is my Multiple Sclerosis and all the issues and symptoms that come with it.

I have been doing very well. I have relapsing remitting MS, which means, I have relapses (worsening of symptoms over several days/weeks) and then remissions (symptoms improve or go away and back to a normal being). I don't truly recover completely from relapses any longer, I just "adjust" to the "new" normal me. For the last few days, I have been having an increase of symptoms. I keep telling myself it is just because I am tired or because I am over doing it, but as each day passes, more symptoms creep up. Since I started the study drug, Fingolimod, it is harder for me to tell if I am truly relapsing, which is great. In the past, I usually would get hit pretty hard and it was VERY obvious and I would require IV steroids to bounce me back. Time will tell.

Okay, done complaining about the MS. I had a wonderful Mother's Day! My kids made me special cards and the DH (this can mean "damn husband" or "darling husband", depending my mood) took my daughter to the store to pick something out for me. Did I ever hit the jackpot on that one. I awoke to having coffee and the Sunday paper brought to me in bed, then after that was greeted with a center piece on the table that my daughter made for me. It was filled with all kinds of individually wrapped dark chocolates, all my favorites. My son, fairly typical 11 year old boy, made me a very simple card and a photo frame with his picture during school for a class project. At least this year he did sign his card. To end the day with being taken out for dinner, was icing on the cake. Just a lovely day!

Lastly, to end my post in the "It can only happen to me category".........well, I must say, I don't have any true funnies yet this week. But remember, it is still the start of a new week, so I'm sure I will have something later. Or, to look on the optimistic side of things, maybe I'll have a week where nothing too out of the ordinary will happen. Hmmm...to be continued....

So Forgetful....

Well, I have been studying like a mad woman for the past week for tests in my anatomy/physiology and medical terminology classes. Very condensed and a ton of information to learn in a very short amount of time. I swear I read the chapters like three times in the anatomy class and ended up getting a C on one and a B on the other one. It was like I drew a complete blank when those tests were put in front of me. On the second one (B), I thought I only missed one, but ended up missing four and was in complete shock.

Okay, so now comes the next two tests in medical term and I get a perfect score on those, go figure!! So weird how our brains can retain some things and all the other stuff just must fly out of our ears or something.

I realize I shouldn't complain about a C and a B, but for an almost 35 year old woman going back to school, I want to be an example for my kids and when I don't get an A, I feel like a failure. I shouldn't feel that way, but can't help it. I set high standards for them, therefore, I need to set high standards for me too. I suppose maybe I am being humbled, okay I accept, now allow my brain to function again please! (Think that will work?).

I find that as I get older, I am so much more forgetful. I want to kick my own ass for not applying myself more when I was in high school. I could cram for a test 10 minutes before the exam and ace it. Now I have to read things over and over and over and over. Heck I picked up an old magazine the other day and read an article that I thought was very good and didn't realize I had already read it until I was almost finished with it. Kind of scary eh?

And at last for the it can only happen to me category.....I was running late this morning for work and ending up spilling coffee all over my only clean and ironed pair of pants, which happened to be light in color. I truly do not have time to change, so off I go with my stained pants to work. On the way to work I realize that I have a "tide to go" pen in the van. Once I get to work, I am desperately trying to rub this stain out with the pen. I applied too much pressure and the tip breaks off and out spills all the solution onto my pants. Of course I now have a coffee stain and a huge wet spot on my pants. Once it dries, I realize it sure did get the stain out, along with the rest of where was once a light beige color. That spot is now super white, white. So instead of having a coffee stain I have a bleach spot. Should have just left it alone. The lesson learned here is don't use too much of the "tide to go" pen on your clothing. Or is it, don't press so hard to hurry the process along and break the tip of the pen off?

Always Something....

I am very new to blogging, but since I completely lost ten years of journaling when I switched out systems, I figured I'd let the world wide web lose it instead, so I can blame someone else and not feel like such a moron. A little about me:

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis 7 years ago and hate that I lost a lot of that symptom and relapse history. That would have been useful in trying to finish a book I am working on. I promised my children I would try and write a children's book for those parents who are newly diagnosed to read to their young children. When I was diagnosed, not much was out there from a kids' perspective in explaining MS. I suppose I can start from scratch, hey how about that, I can actually do something over again? How many get to do that?

I started a drug study in October. It is a double blind placebo in which I get to literally be a guinea pig. I use to take shots and even tried monthly infusions with no success, so when this opportunity was made available to me, I took it. I thought, "heck, swallow a pill everyday instead of getting poked with sharp objects to help slow down my disease progression, count me in!" So far, I have done really well. I have had a few speed bumps that slowed me down in the beginning, but now I'm doing really well. I will probably post about that too, but mostly just the amusement I find in living out my daily life.

All jokes aside, well not really, because I will try and use this blog to describe what it is like for someone with my disease trying to raise a family, work part time and go back to school part time, all the while trying to keep from losing what is left of her mind. I try and find the humor in everything I do, because once I've calmed down after a crazy moment in life, I tend to laugh about it anyhow, because after all........it can only happen to me!

You will soon find out why I chose this title and I hope you will get some laughs too.