Irritants And Blood Loss

Everyone has that one thing that annoys them more than anything else. That one thing that will get your hackles up and bring out the beast in you. For both my sisters it is fairness. They want everyone to be treated the same and not to show favoritism to anyone, be it the work place or with their kids. For me it is rudeness. That will stick in my craw every time and bring out the very worst in me. I live by the ol' axiom that manners are a social lubricant, even though my little sister can't get past the "lubricant" part to process the rest of that rule. ("What kind of lubricant? KY? Generic?") Yesterday my little sister and I went shopping, me for some decent work out clothes, and her for some new sheets. She is doing her room in brown and teal and wanted some brown sheets to go with her teal comforter. She found some sh*t brown sheets, even though I can't understand why one would want that color of sheets. Is it a safety precaution in case you have raging diarrhea and can't get out of bed fast enough? If I'm afraid I'm going to crap my bed can I just go into her room and do it on her sheets? She would never know. She challenged me to try that and see how long I live. Depending on how my guts are feeling, I may take that challenge.

Anyhoo, we are standing in line, me empty handed because I didn't find anything great that was cheap enough for me, and her cradling her sh*t colored sheets and trying to ignore my witty observations about sh*t brown sheets. There is one cashier and the people in front of us are getting a price check for a suit jacket. I can respect a price check. None of us want to pay one cent more than what the price is. But these people, when they found out that the suit jacket was not the price they thought it was -- it was on the wrong rack -- decided that the man needed to go find a different suit jacket while the rest of the family held the line. The line is growing longer while these people stood there waiting for him to come back with a different suit jacket. They page more cashiers, which takes them FOREVER to lollagag their way up there, and the next people in front of us left their coupons at home in Illinois and wanted to see if they could get some more for the mountain of crap they were buying. I was so provoked and annoyed that I started smacking my flip flop against the bottom of my foot, a habit I have when bored or annoyed. We finally get to check out and the first people finally found a suit jacket that worked for them. As soon as we were out of the store I ranted and raved and frothed at the mouth about those incredibly rude people who held up the line for a FRIGGIN SUIT JACKET! I wanted to pummel them with that suit jacket until they were a pile of bloody pulp or tail them home while shouting obscenities. Sugarbowl would let me do neither and because she was driving she won.

We are up to our eyeballs in raspberries right now. We have been making jam and syrup like mad women and freezing some for use this winter, when it is cold enough to run the oven. I found that I really enjoy picking raspberries, for some odd reason. I get scratched up by the damn pokey things, but I can find all the spots they like to hide their delectable fruits in. The mosquitoes have a thriving metropolis back there and I got so tired of being chewed up, staggering back to the house light headed and convinced that I am now anemic and need to go to the hospital ASAP for a blood transfusion, that I started thinking about using some Off bug spray. I hate that stuff. I hate the smell that gives me a raging headache and makes me feel like I am now radioactive. I was talking to my mom yesterday while the mosquitoes enjoyed the all day buffet that was me, and she suggested that I use vanilla to repel the mosquitoes. She said she used it and it worked and you smell like something yummy baking instead of a walking nuclear melt down. I asked if it had to be real vanilla or if I could use the fake stuff and she said it didn't matter. I went back inside, doused myself with our imitation vanilla, smelled delicious, didn't get drained of all my blood, and was able to rape the raspberry brambles of all their ripe fruit. I would suggest using it if you have to venture into a mosquito city. It really works.

You Take The Good, You Take The Bad

You take them both and then you have the facts of life, the facts of life! Too bad there is no way for me to put music notes around all that, but I'm going to take a gamble and say that you all know that song as well as I do. After my recent visit at a pain management clinic, I received several ideas of ways to help my pain and several more prescriptions to add to my impressive collection of meds. I have tried both of those nuggets of wisdom and couldn't help thinking to myself, "who knew doctors knew so much?" Certainly not me.

The pain doctor told me to try wearing a satin camisole thingy under my clothes and to bed at night so nothing could rub against my skin where the MS Hug has now taken up residence. He said some people even wore it under their bra to help cut down on the discomfort of wearing a bra over that prickly hug. (Hmmm, prickly is a pretty gentle way of summing up that feeling, but the closest word I could come up with.) I was able, after dumping out all my dresser drawers, to find a pair of satin pajamas. I never wear anything remotely sexy to bed for 2 very good reasons: I don't want my little sister's ex bf/f to see me in them and I did not want to tempt my ex husband to sink his meat hooks into me any more than he already did. (After more than 9 years together one would think he would slow down a bit.) I have to say that the satin really helped me last night; it did cut down on the friction from the sheets and make me a little more comfortable. So today I am going to go tear up the town looking for a true camisole -- can't wear these pajamas in public -- to wear under my clothes.

He gave me a prescription for Flexeril to take before bedtime so that I would not wake up feeling like Gumby in a full body cast. I didn't know that there were options to my incredible stiffness in the mornings. I thought it just was. He was also concerned about me not getting enough sleep and thought this would kill 2 ugly MS birds with one stone. I find it very odd that I can't wake up during the day and yet still not get 8 hours of sleep at night. I took the Flexeril last night and woke up feeling so refreshed and flexible I had to move my body around to enjoy my range of motion. The only down side to it was that when I woke up in the middle of the night to drain my bulging bladder, I couldn't figure out which of the 3 floating toilet paper rolls were the right one. I pawed the air for a bit before landing on the real toilet paper roll. He gave me a bunch of instructions about how to take the new meds so that I wouldn't mess myself up by taking some too close together, but I can't remember what he said now. The day I saw him it was 101 degrees outside and I had sweated my body down to about 10% water, add all that to my non-existent short term memory and we're on a collision course to wackiness. He also said that he thought I should be using a cane so I wouldn't fall. I told him I would rather fall.

I have now put the finishing touches on my will because I am positive that this whole exercise thing is going to kill me. Oh, sure, I may get some benefits from it before I keel over, but I will keel over just the same. I have been avoiding a structured exercise program for so long I feel like I gave in to the dark side by agreeing to do it. To Sugarbowl I leave all my dirty smelly socks. To Princess I leave all my shoes to be worn by her mother to kick her butt with...

Where Have I Been?

Do I know how worried I was? I couldn't have at least called, dropped a postcard in the mail, sent smoke signals?! I almost started calling the hospitals and morgues I was so worried. Next time I do that, I need to call and let myself know that I will be late. After all the recent stressful things, I feel so relieved that it is all over and like I want to take a Rip Van Winkle-style nap.


Blindbeard v Bastard

I won.


That damn exercise study.

I lost. I had to wear a skin tight wrestling suit and let a bunch of whippersnappers stick reflective things all over me to measure my balance. I now have to start my exercise program, but at least I can wear loose clothing to hide my no-longer-young body.


This concludes our test of the Updating System and we now return you to your regularly scheduled program. Wake me in 40 years...

Boogers, Bitches, And Blindbeard's Blues

In an uneventful life, it is rare for me to have so many things going on right now. It gives me a pleasant feeling of busyness and deadlines that I inexplicably miss. For once it is pouring and I am relishing it, especially as I know it won't last.

Boogers

Yesterday when I was drying off from my shower I noticed a gigantic booger on the towel. I didn't think it was mine as my nose was not runny and I didn't see any bats in the cave when I checked my nose to be sure. I figured I must not have noticed when I dried my face, even though a booger of that size should be felt when exiting one's nose. I shook the towel and it went off into space and was forgotten by me. Later in the day, when Sugarbowl, Princess and I were coming home from shopping, I told Sugarbowl she had a bat dangling out of the cave and it reminded me of my booger issue that morning, so I shared the story. She said she had the same problem that morning. She was drying off -- with a different towel -- and a huge booger got wiped on her. She figured it must have been her's even though she had not dried her face off yet. She picked it off her body, wiped it on a kleenex and threw it away. She was furious and asked why I hadn't properly disposed of it and why I thought just launching it into space was taking care of the problem. I told her because I didn't think it was mine. We agreed that it had to be her bf/f's and Princess asked how we knew for sure, even though our process of elimination was pretty clear to us. She argued that we couldn't know without a proper investigation. Sugarbowl retorted that next time she would ask if anyone lost something in the bathroom because she found it. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to hyperventilate. The fact that the booger became her problem, that she touched it, and the idea of her trying to return it to it's rightful owner had me laughing so hard and for so long she threatened to punch me in the boob and leave me on the side of the road. She's still mad at me.


Bitches Part 1

Sugarbowl and her bf/f have decided to part ways. At first it was amicable, but when she heard that I climbed up a ladder to clean out the gutters, which I had been nagging everyone to do, and he sat on the couch watching TV (she was at work), all amicability drained away and she is furious with him to the point he can't leave soon enough. She and I were outside smoking and he was in their room. She leaned right up to the open window of their room and loudly voiced her opinion that it was bull sh*t that an able bodied person let an unable bodied person climb a ladder while said able person watched TV. Every time she thinks of it she gets mad all over again and I get the warm fuzzies that my family is so protective of me.


Bitches Part 2

Set aside the date! We are taking our old landlord to court June 22 for not returning our deposit or an itemized list of the deductions he made. We filed a claim with small claims and had it delivered by the sheriff. It was the craziest thing, the next day his wife showed up claiming that they never got served the papers, but she was there to discuss the deposit. She tried to tell Sugarbowl (I was out of town) that the oven looked like it had never been self cleaned, even though I had cleaned it numerous times. I even wipe out all the ashes and detail it with a wet cloth every time I self clean any oven. Sugarbowl had the foresight to take pictures of every part of that house when we left to show how we left it, so she asked Mrs. Landlord if she would like to see the pictures of how we really left that oven because the Mrs. was claiming that it took her forever and a LOT of scrubbing on that oven. (Even if we had left the oven dirty, how would that be $850 worth of cleaning?) She showed her the pictures and Mrs. LL left. This happened about 11:30 am. At 8:30 that night, her husband showed up with a bunch of papers in his hands and in his definition of "good faith." She had tried to tell us they were on vacation and that was why we hadn't heard from them. Their house is right behind us, just across the road, and we can see their cars and watch them come and go from our living room window. He told us he had been working 12-14 hour days -- not much of a vacation -- had to cash in some cds and had been too busy to get back to us, is that a crime? Sugarbowl, with me on the phone with her to witness the conversation, told him that yes, it is in fact a crime. He lost his temper and told her that we were pigs, the whole town knew it (the whole town doesn't even know us and who would care anyway?) and we are just "low life renters." I don't care what he says about me, but I am offended that he would say that about renters when his income is from these low life's money. I have printed all the laws that he violated, a copy of the lease, which has some plainly stated violations of the law (I did not know they were violations until later), and we have been keeping track of all our dealings with these people. I can't wait to take this bastard to court and only regret that I can't tell him in court to go suck his wife's d*ck and I hope she fists his ass and reams him out so bad he can't sit for a month.


Blindbeard's Blues

In the same week we are taking our %^& of an ex landlord to court, I have several doctors appointments. I am going to a pain clinic (YEE HAW!) to see if there are better ways and better drugs to help me get my pain under control. (Pain has such a way of draining any fun out of life.) I also am starting the process of the balance study I agreed to do (BOOOO!). I have to do a bunch of tests to chart my balance and then get to start working out 2-3 times a week (sob). I have been avoiding a structured exercise program for so long I feel like I have crossed over to the dark side by agreeing to do this. But I know that I need to do it, so I sucked it up and bought exercise shoes -- damn it! But I am going to wear my bobby socks with monkey heads for pom poms because I'm such a rebel.
(You'll never take me alive -- or with any dignity left in me -- coppers!)

My Award

All these great awards everyone gives to everyone else, and even bestows on lil ol' me, have inspired me to make my own. I don't have the credentials to make something respectable, so I had to make one that fits what I do have to offer: my undying love for you. I know it's nothing great, but if you knew how long it took me to put that picture together, after many harsh words exchanged between the editing program and myself, you would feel very honored that I was able to put anything together to offer to you. So roll out the red carpet and prepared yourselves for the Hall Of Shame because I have these people to offer my meager love to:


Brain Cheese

http://brain-cheese.blogspot.com/ Of course I have to start with my darling Brain Cheese. Her humor and intelligence make me feel like I have nothing witty or remotely smart to add to the world of MS blogs. I love her play on words and the way she refers to things, like her hut for her living quarters. It makes me think of those coconut huts for hermit crabs and her boiling out of her coconut hut to pinch the crap out of any fingers that dare come too close. She hails from Nebraska but made her escape many years ago, leaving Nebraska bereft of any unique personalities, and only my paltry self to try and fill her shoes. I suspect that she and I were lab rats together in a previous life, but have yet to prove that theory despite all my hard work with test tubes and bunson burners.



Diane J. Standiford

http://dj-astellarlife.blogspot.com/ I don't think even the worst MS has to offer could destroy her strength and courage despite it's best attempts. I admire her fighting spirit and wish I was more like that -- I have too much anger to be so courageous. I loved her profile picture of her with a top hat on and how she is herself with no apologies to any one. Her humor cracks me up and I find myself using her jokes in my own life -- hope they are not copyrighted! She can cut to the chase and make a good point in the most concise minimum of words, which has my undying respect and envy.


Jen

http://jen-at-home.blogspot.com/ Ahhh, Jen, where do I begin? Even though we have never met, your comments make me feel like we are old friends. Your warmth and caring come through whether you intended that or not. If I was ever in your neck of the woods, I feel like I could stop by your house, feel 100% welcome, and we would have a nice long chat. You would probably even make up a spare bed for me and leave chocolates on the pillow, that is how kind you seem.


Denver Refashionista

http://ysestringer.blogspot.com/ Love your real name, love your hair, and I love the way you are totally honest about your struggles with MS. Your blog takes me back to my first year after being diagnosed, the whole holy-mother-of-sh*t-where-did-my-life-go-and-how-do-I-deal-with-this-new-life? I don't envy what you are going through, having already gone through it and not being better from the fight, but I know that you have a much better attitude about this whole stinking mess than I have ever had and will emerge from it a million times better for it than I have. Your blog is a great map for the newly diagnosed to find their way through it all, I just wish you had been blogging when I was in the same spot you are now. We could have exchanged war stories and compared wounds.


Tara

http://livingdaytodaywithmultiplesclerosis.blogspot.com/ I absolutely, unequivocally love your "About Me" section. It is such an apt description of where I am and so honest! I love your polls and love seeing the results. The only difference is that I went from a Type A personality to a Type AA personality. I no longer edit what I say and have a tendency to just blurt out what I am thinking, to my little sister's horror. I no longer smile and nod when someone should have shut up before they spewed a bunch of stupidity, like the time a woman told me her brother got MS from the doctors that did his back surgery. The smile melted from my face and I told her that he did not get MS from those doctors. I snatched my bag o' day old goodies from her hands and the only reason I continue to give that place money is because they have such great deals on Hostess snack cakes, even if they are a "day old." (I have a suspicion that those yummy treats are much older than a day.)


Lisa Emrich

http://brassandivory.blogspot.com/ Lisa, I feel like anything I say about you and your blog will be a paltry attempt to compliment something so superior to myself. Your blog is the place I go for the latest accurate information about all things MS and the current thought about different issues. I love your comments because they never fail to amuse me and I wish you hadn't found me on Facebook -- I feel like your friends on there will see me and realize that I am not on the same blogging level as you are. Only my deep love and admiration for you allowed me to let myself join the ranks of your friends on there.


That is all for now; I could go on and on but I am afraid this post is too long already. But fear not, my forgotten pretties, I will get to you in a future post so you too can join the ranks in the hallowed Blindbeard Hall Of Shame. (You'll be a bust, be a bust, be a bust, in the Hall Of Shame!)

To Be Continued...

In this week's episode of This Old MS Body there was a new collection of stupid MS symptoms. For some dumb reason my kneecaps and heels have gone numb. First, my kneecaps. What the puck? Why would they go numb? Its not like I spend a whole bunch of time on them, or do I? (Sorry, could not resist a crude joke there.) I first noticed that they would get all tingly for several hours, like they had fallen asleep. This progressed into numbness that now is constant and doesn't end after a few hours, dagnabbit! I thought, at first, when they would "go to sleep" for several hours that maybe I was putting pressure on them that I was not aware that I was doing. I didn't think an MS symptom would come and go like that, having only been subjected to non-waxing and waning problems. But on my last visit to my New And Improved Neurologist, she said that it was MS, and didn't try to tell me that it was something else -- how odd, still trying to get used to her new ways. It is kind of an annoying thing to have these numb kneecaps that tingle with any kind of touch. I'm hoping they wake up soon because it makes my legs feel like they have been cut in half and I'm worried it will spread. I've had numb legs, especially when I lost my right side, and it was not a hoot, contrary to popular belief.

Next, my heels. From my ankles into my heels -- just the heels -- is numb and painful. Why can't it just be one or the other? If something is numb it should not hurt, but apparently my CNS didn't get that memo, or if it did it wiped it's butt with the paper and tossed it aside. At first I thought I was walking different and putting more pressure than usual on my heels. But even in repose they hurt. In the summer I spend about 98.9936% of the time barefoot. My feet harden into hooves that do not look good in any kind of sandal or flip flop and I am not keen on horse shoes. I took care to walk right and looked for any kind of bruise on my heels, but, alas, there was nothing there, so I had to accept that it is my MS. I've had this problem before but it has been awhile, and I had hoped it was in the past. But just like an ex boyfriend that you would rather never see again, it popped up to annoy me once again. (Why do you never run into some one you wouldn't mind seeing again, and only see those you had hoped ate a fat d*ck and fell off the face of the earth?)

I wish they would cancel this show and bring back something better, like Welcome Back, Kotter, one of my favorites. But nooooo! Like all MS Gone Wild, it has to go on and on and on and on. I am tired of all these "To Be Continued" things and ready to see it end for good. What a dreamer I am! What fun would MS be if it did not continue? I'll keep you posted on how this show plays out...

Give Me A Break, Give Me A Break

Break me off a piece of that KitKat bar! Even though I don't eat KitKats, or much candy at all for that matter, that jingle was playing in head when I was thinking of all this. The reason for that jingle playing nonstop in my head? I am so glad you asked!

*I am going to take a break from my own little blog-o-sphere and catch up on all of yours. I have been away from them for far too long and need a vacation from my own b.s. So I will be vacationing on the sunny beaches of your blogs. You will now be buried under a poop ton of my inane comments and should consider yourselves warned.

Quick Update Before I Embark On My Break

*My ex-father-in-law's prostate cancer is not in the bone and it appears to have been caught in the early stages and he will live. He has used this whole thing to get raging drunk and make a complete ass hat out of himself. Unfortunately he is an afternoon drunk and drives when most people are coming home from work/picking up kids etc. He got so drunk the other day, he hit my ex-brother-in-law's truck when he came home. It was parked in the driveway and he bounced off the truck, poured himself out of his truck and staggered into the house. My ex-mother-in-law had to pick him up off the bathroom floor and help him to bed. Because drunks are so annoying, he whined and bemoaned his fate of having prostate cancer and tried the pity card by saying, "just let me die!" My ex-hubby told him that nobody cared if he died (in a drunken crash), but we all would care if he killed someone else and would line up to sh*t on his grave if that happened, which it most likely would not because the drunks never die. I admired him for telling his father the truth and puffed out my chest with pride that I had married a man who would tell his father how it is. I will be in that line with my bowels full if he hurts anyone else.

*Speaking of my ex, Sugarbowl got mad at me the other day because he and I have been getting along so well lately and I go up there to see him too much in her opinion. I didn't get mad at her for being such an ass master and bitching at me about it because I knew it was coming from her fear that I will go back with him and she doesn't want to lose me -- she gets panic attacks if she thinks about me not being in her life and my ex lives 2.5 hours away. Honestly, now that he and I do not live together and we have taken a break from each other, we have remembered why we liked each other in the first place. I have no intentions of moving back there and he and I agreed that if we are happy this way, it is no one's business. We do not intend to push the divorce and are going to try staying married and living apart. It is working so well for us. If it ain't broke don't fix it.


Now I am off to heckle and annoy my fellow bloggers. I need to get back to you all. No, really, please hold your applause.