Out of love?

Not sure how I feel about Twitter. I made an account with then and I read something on there that someone wrote about how they tried to look like a Victoria secret model. On there she talked about all the work out that they do and as a personal trainer myself and kind of limited due to my wonderful MS, I'm usually very picky about my work outs. I know I don't look anything like a trainer now, but years back (don't really want to say how many) I did.  

There was one of the work outs she talked about that I thought looked like it might be fun. I told my husband about it and stupidly put the DVDs on my Amazon wish list. My husband ever so lovingly bought them for me and tonight I tried one. 

As you can see, cameras on cell phones have gotten better and this thing hurt my muscles pretty good. 

Here we go!!!

 About 6 weeks ago (Thursday) I had a baby. She was 4 weeks early, but her weight was good and she seemed to be doing just fine. Then we went for a weight check. Her weight still wasn't up to where it was supposed to be. Enter a little bit of stress for this mommy. 

We had another week to get her weight up before her next check, but it was the same. 

Her doctor told me that it was probably because I wasn't eating enough calories. So I started eating more and we started giving her some formula a couple times a day. And finally the next week (4 weeks old) she was 3 ounces more than her birth weight! 

I was so happy but still worried she would lose weight if we stopped using any formula once or twice a day. 

But yesterday my doctor cleared me for whatever I want! So tonight after my husband and I put the boys in bed and put the baby down for a nap, I ran away to the gym for the first time in months! Oh my gosh did I lose a ton of muscle! (Don't laugh too hard at the next pic, I'm an almost 30 y/o with braces)

I knew I needed to come back. The first clue I had was not only my saggy belly, but the numbness in my back was starting to spread from just part of my upper back, to all of the upper half of my back. But I can't panic. That would make me stress and that would just make things even worse and lot faster than if I just stayed home. So I'm at the gym trying really hard to take it easy and slowly work my body back into things, but man is it hard. 

MS + pregnancy = temporary remission

I wish. I've been told since I was 17 that MS goes into remission while pregnant. Last week I found out,that for me, that's completely untrue.

 One of my sisters came to visit for a few days and I was very excited to have her visit. Only down side to it was that I think I got even less sleep than usual. I was worried because instead of her sleeping in one of our two queen sized spare beds, she slept on the couch. I felt so bad for her! Not only that, but my 3 year old, who is that champion of staying awake, kept her up. 

My weeks are already usually busy with taking the boys to their usual stuff, but since my sister was here and it was her first time getting to visit me since I got married and moved to this side of the country (I still miss the west coast by the way), I wanted to show her some stuff. Really all I got to show her was a few restaurants and a museum, but still it was more driving than usual. 

Anyways, back to what I was talking about to begin with. The morning of my sisters only full day of getting to visit, I noticed I had a bit of a limp. It wasn't just any kind of a limp though. This was a limp I hadn't felt since I was 16 years old and was about to have my first full blown MS "attack". It wasn't always there, I could still walk, drive and pretty much chase after my boys. So I brushed it off. Even after telling my sister about it I wasn't all that worried and was actually dreading telling my husband about it more than anything else (he's really good at the worrying about me thing). I did tell my sister there wasn't much I could do about it. If I told my neurologist, he would just ask me how much sleep I've been getting. 

We didn't get to see my husband until around 6 or 7 that night and ate out. While at dinner, I thought now might be a good time to tell him about the limp. He ended up taking it really well! He was more worried about me having a good visit with my sister than the limp (also helped I wasn't freaked out about it too). 

I'm now 34 weeks pregnant and still have yet to tell my neurologist about this one because it won't really do much good. He'll just want me to come in for check ups and I'll tell him I don't want any steroids and he'll tell me there's nothing he can do to help me then. We have gone through it with the last two pregnancies I had and I don't really feel like going through it again. 

Change of plans

So I was training and even talked my husband into letting me join a gym to do the bike MS in Seattle with one of my brothers. Was only doing it for about a year when I found out the week before it was time to go that flying standby to get there was going to be more than a little hard. I had also talked my husband into going with me since I don't really make it out to the west coast very often to visit my family. So it was going to be all four of us flying. That's not all the drama though. While I was training, I found out I was pregnant. I was going to do it anyways, I kept training and even had an ok from my doctors, but then my brother who I was going to do the ride with decided to go and have surgery. Knocked the distance down a bit, but I was still up for it. The night before I left I was texting my friend who worked for the airline I would be flying on and skyping with my brother deciding if waiting till the last flight of the day to only maybe make it on was worth it. We decided it wasn't with two young children and a husband that already felt bad for taking time off work to go play. So we went to California instead to visit my parents. 

I felt bad for all the money I had spent on training and everything I bought just for training just to switch things up at the end. 

The pic is of my husband and youngest son on the second plane to my parents. I also thought that to make it up, I would not only take my husband to see places I used to play at when I was little but also try and get some exercise while I was there. 

My MS on the other hand seemed to think I must have been changing climates, elevation and stressing too much because the first few days I was there it decided to remind me that I still very much have it. From my left elbow down went numb and my right arm felt heavy. Always a fun thing to have happen when you have two small children and a mom that was already stressing about me still throwing up half way through my second trimester. But me being the stubborn Irish girl I am decided that it would probably be best to just ignore what was going on with my arms and have fun anyways. So my parents and I took my husband and boys to a nice look out. 

 

And then we went on to hike through an old lava tube. 

After getting to the other side we missed a turn and ended up hiking a little on the pacific crest trail. 

If you're wondering why it's black and white it's because my boys had my phone and played around with the camera. 

The next day or two I decided to do a little more hiking and face my fear if heights a little bit by talking my dad into driving us up a mountain to hike up to yet another look out. 

We went for short walks every day and really wasn't the same as the bike MS but I figured with my MS reminding me it was still around and all the extra walking I did was good enough. 

So how do I get down from here?

So, this is going to be mostly venting. My personal life experience with MS has been pretty tame so far, but then again I'm also only 29 and have only been diagnosed since I was 17 years old. While I'm pregnant (like I am now) my MS is "supposed" to be pretty much suppressed and not doing anything and I don't have to do my shot. Well, not always the case it seems. Some days it's hard to life one arm or the other and sometimes it's one of my legs that has decided to act a bit strange. But! That's not what I'm wanting to vent about. It's about one of my friends. 

With MS it is more likely to have it of you live on a colder climate, are female and of African decent. This friend of mine is "lucky enough" to have all three of those things. So while I've had one huge attack with MS that I can speak of, she has had a heck of a lot more happen to her. She has been paralyzed from her neck down and had to learn to use all those muscles again. Surgeries on at least one of her shoulders because the muscle tissue had died. And now she lives in a place that's honestly putting her through hell. 

To help prevent an attack and treat one, doctors give people with MS steroids to counteract things. Yay right? Wrong. I has to take some once and gained 10 pounds on one week while only having to take them for two. Not only was I upset about the weight gain, but it too a full year to work off those 10 pounds from the steroids. 

Why did I mention that when I'm talking about my friend? Because she's had to be on steroids a lot more than just once. She now has a wheel chair to get around in because her MS likes to pop up a lot more often than mine has. Granted she is a bit older than me, she still has to use a wheel chair before she's even 50 years old. 

She recently got divorced and had to move to a new apartment. When she first moved in she was told that they would put a ramp in for her to be able to get to and from her car and apartment. At least a year later she still has to ask someone (usually one of her girls if they're with her that week) to grab her chair while she uses a cane to help her walk down the 5 or 6 steps to her car because the "awesome" place she lives is on a hill. 

Lately she's been working with a lawyer to either help get a ramp put in or help her out of her lease, but that lawyer has taken some time off because their daughter is going to have or has had a baby. I'm sorry but I thought that if you had a client that needs help, you would at least get someone to fill in while you go spend time with your family. 

Things have been so hard for my friend that she is about ready to give up custody of her two girls and move to another state so that they won't have to deal with their mom living like this. While I don't agree that her girls shouldn't have to help clean up or keep the apartment clean, she doesn't want to make them do everything. But I think there has to be a way to help things move along faster like putting in a ramp and yes him her girls to clean up. Just seems like giving up is the wrong way to go about this. 

Happy Mommy?

I'm not completely sure where to start with this one. I have been going over everything I want to say in my head, but forgot to think about how to start this. So I guess I'll start back in middle school. That's when I started getting sick. I was pretty athletic. I was playing all the sports I could (on the top teams) and even AAU basketball after school. Then in 8th grade things seemed to change somehow. At 5'8" I was about 4" taller than most of my friends and that in turn also seem to make them think I was fat, Well that and I was a but larger up top. It even got to the point where girls that I thought were my friends, stopped hanging out with me. All of a sudden I wasn't as popular anymore and spent most my time at the doctor.


I didn't get depressed, I was just confused. Girls that I thought were my friends, were starting to bully me somewhat. Then right before my freshman year of high school I found out I had some stomach problems. The doctor said that the best way to treat that was with an anti-depressant. Then I started gaining weight. That's when I really noticed that my "friends" weren't such good friends. They would tease me and talk about me, not only behind my back, but to my face. That did hurt, but I still don't think I was depressed. I stopped playing sports in high school to help with my grades and health. I was stopped in the hallway more than once and literally (yes I do mean literally) yelled at by the varsity basketball coach for not even trying out. Honestly though, the biggest reason for not playing basketball was because I was scared to death of running stairs in the main gym. My fear of hieghts was a lot stronger than my love of the game.


A few weeks before my junior year started, we moved to California. I got to start over with new friends, new school and new doctors. I had stopped taking the anti-depressant, but was still a little chubby. That didn't mean I didn't get to do anything. I was asked to prom and even went to some parties. About 9 months after moving there though, a modeling company called my house. No clue how they got my name, much less my home phone number. My mom didn't want me doing that though since I was still having some health issues that the cause was still unknown about. But it did feel pretty nice to know that a modeling company wanted me to work for them.


Fast forward to after high school. By this time all the weight was gone, a couple more modeling companies had called (I turned them down because by this time I knew I had MS) and I turned them down because of everything my doctors had told me about depression and MS. I was skinny (ish) and even thought I was pretty. I was working out at the college I was attending and even getting some really good muscle tone. Then I started to notice my triceps had really good tone. My dad even pointed it out once. I just brushed it off and thought it was from working out. But then I started to notice that my thighs were looking a little bruised when  they were wet and my hips kind of caught my pants at on odd angle.


Fast forward yet again to age 21. By this time I was even smaller and noticing that my thighs were lumpy, my hips had dents, my arms were odd looking and I had a small pouch like thing of fat around my belly button. All the areas I did my shot. I got into a car accident that year and that pretty much threw everything off. I stopped working out as much. By age 23 I got married and moved to the state I live in now. I was feeling fat, out of place and like I couldn't even try to make friends. My husband was really good at making sure I did my shot (for MS) and staying healthy, but I wasn't doing too good at making sure I wasn't getting depressed. So I started on an anti-anxiety pill. Enter even more weight gain like the pill I was on in high school did. We ended up moving near a college town where I really started to feel fat and everyone I was meeting, was meeting me as this fat lady. That went a little too far into my head.


Long story short and 2 and a half kids later, I'm still not where I want to be weight wise, but my oldest son come up to me every morning and asks, "Happy Mommy?" I usually reply with a, "Sure." and then he asks, "Cute?" I say, "You tell me buddy." "Yup, cute."
That really should stick in my head a lot more than it does, but I'm pregnant and my clothes aren't fitting as well as they could, so its hard. But with my oldest always asking me that and the other one being such a big mama's boy that he doesn't like to be more than 25 feet from me, and a very loving husband, its not too hard to keep myself from being depressed.

Heat and humidity...

Heat and humidity are two very different things to me. Not sure if it does the same to everyone else with MS, but for me, the two help and yet ruin things. I absolutely love warm weather. I also like humidity, it seems to keep me healthy and knowing when I'm overheating, I go inside with an a/c. Although, when it's hot I find it kind of hard to breathe, get really irritable, and take it out on other people verbally.

This morning, I needed to go to the store and buy a few things for breakfast, lunch, and snacking (snacking because I'm pregnant and can). I looked at the weather for today and what the temp was before I got dressed to see what I should and shouldn't wear. My app said it was 70 and a high of 91 (humidity was at 91% which should have said something to me). I thought that since I was just making a quick trip in an air conditioned car, jeans and a shirt would be fine. So I left looking like this (I'll tell you later I forgot deodorant). 

Pretty much just grabbed a shirt and jeans and got the boys ready to go. On the way, I thought, I could grab the boys a quick breakfast at a drive thru and eat at a park long before lunch and nap time. So that's what we did. While doing all this, I seemed to have forgotten how quickly the weather liked to warm up, and that chasing around two little boys at a park, even while hydrated, really makes me warm. 

So after an hour or so at the park, I start to notice I'm feeling warm and my jeans are kind of sticking to my legs. I told the boys, "Two more toys and then we were going to leave." We went to the store on the way home. Now, one thing about MS is that, while I know I'm over heated and hot, I don't really start to sweat until I've started to rest (I.e. sit down). So while driving to the store, we still haven't gone to yet, I start sweating and smell that I forgot deodorant. Once at the store, where we only needed 3 or 4 things, what else should happened, but I run into someone I know. Not just a friend, but a relative of my husband's. He didn't say anything, but I'm pretty sure everyone at the store could smell me. 

So long story short, while I might leave looking fine, I come home looking like this.  

I think I'm in labor

Ok I don't really think I'm on labor at 17 weeks pregnant, but I'll get to that later. First I'll start when I was 17 years old, newly diagnosed and meeting my new neurologist. The one that diagnosed me didn't have the best bedside manner (really none at all, I'll save that for a different post).

When I was 17 and it was my second or third time meeting with my neurologist, he was helping me understand what his part was in treating me and what all I needed to know might happen to me. One of the oddest things he told me though, was that when I got into a relationship and I thought it was getting serious enough, I was supposed to being them in with me for him to talk to them. Mostly so that I wouldn't have to explain MS and all the craziness for it. And that kind of shaped how I dated. 

I was a super shallow and somewhat picky person. I even wrote up a boyfriend check list. None of them ever got to see it (my husband did after we had been married a year though), but there were a couple things I never wrote down but always had in my mind when dating someone. Those were, job, degree and (the biggest one I thought) health insurance. Most of my relationships only lasted a couple weeks because I was get bored, they didn't measure up to my list, didn't care to listen to me about my MS, or I had better things to do. 

Enter the man I married. After dating guys that honestly didn't care... In some cases they thought MS wasn't a real thing. I was shocked when my future husband told me he looked it up and researched it. And we weren't even dating yet! So I played it cool, we were friends for a long time (mostly because I was on the west coast and he was about 2500 miles away). 

I'll go off course for a minute here and talk about something I talked to one of my sisters-in-law about and somewhat came up with because I never asked my doctor. It's that a person with MS might have an attack after giving birth. And the fastest way to combat that is to go on chemotherapy. First I didn't even know if I could have kids with all my health issues and chemo just doesn't sound fun. So it kind of ruled kids out in my mind anyways. 

So about 2 years after getting married, I had been around enough pregnant people that I finally asked my doctor if it was safe for me to have a baby. He said it should be fine since I hadn't had a major flare ups in years. 

I was probably the dumbest pregnant lady you will ever hear about. Instead of listening to all the doctors and nurses and even mothers that every pregnancy is different, I only listened to one person. I figured she had kids, she knew what she was talking about and I'd have the same things happen to me.

Oh my gosh was I wrong! First of all, that whole morning sickness thing (that really doesn't only happen in the morning) didn't stop until that baby was literally out of me. Second, contractions hurt a lot worse than just bad menstrual cramps (even more so with back labor, which I had). Third, labor can (and did) last a lot long than a couple hours. Fourth, I really did want that epidural, and it does help. By the 8th hour of labor, I stopped answering my phone because I felt like I had been lied to. 

Have you ever felt like everything you were saying wasn't coming out right and no one was understanding what exactly you're trying to say? Enter the anesthesiologist. I tried to tell him I was worried about having an attack after having the baby and the epidural masking it. He left for a couple hours and came back with some research on how epidural don't cause MS to do anything. I turned to my husband and my friend that was with us (who also has MS) to try and explain what I was trying to say. Long story short I happily got the epidural. 

Odd thing that I need to put in here though, is that when I had my second baby, the research did show that in some cases, an epidural can cause an MS attack. 

Breaks over

Sorry it's been so long since I put anything up on here! Between visiting family and making sure baby #3 doesn't end up like pregnancy #3 (I miscarried last summer), I was keeping this as stress free as I could. Found out with two little ones already at home and occasional blessing, it's not all that easy to do.

Then the weather changed on me. When I left to go visit some of my family for a few weeks, the weather where I live was somewhat cold and humid. Where my family lives it was VERY dry and pretty warm. I did happen to time it in a way that, when I came back, the temps weren't all that different from each other, but I did forget how much humidity plays a difference in what the temperature feels like. All I could think about the whole way home from the airport (other than what happened on that last flight that I'll get into later) was how sticky I felt. Also, my family lives at 4500 feet elevation. So, when just going for a short walk, I kept asking if there was a way to get some more air for me to breathe. 

Ok so, I think you might be wondering what happened on that second flight. Nothing all that fun. First you have to understand that my husband couldn't go with me. It had been so long since I had seen ANY of my family that I didn't care. I packed up my two kids (both under 4 by the way) and flew out to the west coast. That's a three hour time difference. Also, why I stayed so long. To kind of reset their time a little bit before going back. And am I ever grateful that I did, because it did work. Only thing wrong was that our flight didn't land until 12:30 at night local time. 

Anyways. We board the second flight, and since I've had a handicap placard since I was 19, I get to be one of the first people to board. Just this was a connecting flight, so there were already people on the plane. We ended up having to sit one row from where I usually like to sit, but I figured oh well. Most of the flight went smoothly. Baby #2 slept for the first hour or so and baby #1 for almost as long. When they woke up, we already had snacks and drinks waiting.


Then the longest part happened, 45 minutes before we land, and the guy sitting in the row in front of us (but not the seat in front of us) turns around to me and says "you better get things under control because I've about had enough".  He wasn't turned enough to see my face of "uh huh" or I think my cute little Irish temper would have come out a lot more than it did. From then on, I told baby #1 that he couldn't argue with me because someone else had already ticked me off and I couldn't wait to see his daddy, and then mostly read the books I'd brought for them until we landed.


The rude guy was the first off the plane, and I had to wait for a stroller. The guy that sat in the row across from me stopped to talk to me while I waited. He told me that he was amazed at how well behaved my kids were, and he would know because he has grandkids. Also, that everyone around me was just waiting for the jerk to say one more thing to me so they could get him. 

After getting the stroller and meeting up with my husband, we went down to baggage. I told him all about the flight on the way down. I figured it had been long enough the jerk was probably gone already, but there he was, waiting for his stuff. So I got to point him out for my hubby to see. The jerk couldn't seem to stop glancing my way, but then again, I guess he probably didn't think my husband was 6'3 and arms more than twice the size of his. I have to say, even though they lost one of my suit cases (I did get it back the next day), it was a huge relief to know that I not only had a husband to meet me at the airport, but also the support of so many strangers on a plane ready to defend a mother with two small children traveling in the middle of the night. 

As someone who is truly a pro at stressing, I can always remember there are people out there that will help. 

Ok, on to the second part of why it's taken so long to write. The bleeding. When I was about 8 weeks pregnant, my husband forgot to turn his alarm off. It was a Sunday morning and he usually gets up at 5 am for work. So I woke up and went potty. Only thing was, this time there was a lot of blood. I panicked. All the thoughts I had of last summer and miscarrying came flooding back. I called for my husband to come see and he just kind of nodded and waited for me to come back to bed. I called the on call doctor (mostly expecting to be told to wait it out and see what happens). They said to head to the ER. My husband called his parents, they came over to keep an eye on the boys while we snuck off to the hospital.


Long 5 hours, a very strong pain killer (I had never heard of and with side effects I didn't like), an ultra sound, blood work, and pregnancy test later, they sent me home. Just on bed rest until further notice.


Even longer story short (sorry it's almost 10 and I'm starting to get sleepy), the next Saturday, the same thing happened. Alarm went off when it wasn't supposed to, I was bleeding again but didn't have to go the hospital. Just stay low, don't lift anything and stay in bed. Bleeding stopped by lunch. Then Wednesday came, and it happened again. Only this time, the office was open and my husband was already at work when I started bleeding. So I got an appointment, husband left work to go with me, and bleeding had pretty much stopped by the time we left the doctor. 

I just recently started going back to the gym. The baby looks and sounds great. And I'm still planning on doing the bike MS in Seattle this September. Only, not for nearly as long as I was planning, unless things are going really well.  

You have MS, but don't stress or it makes it worse

       Awhile after I was diagnosed I was told not to stress. I already had ulcers and stomach issues from all the other stress going on in my life, but was told not to stress about having MS. HA! I'm good at stressing, it's pretty much what I do. But my doctors have told me many many times to let it go and try not to stress. So to not stress I've noticed that I came up with some interesting and silly things I do to deal with the stressful moments and not let them get the best of me.


       I let it go. I figure if its not going to mean very much in about 30 minutes then forget out it. And while that does work for me, it seems to drive the more "responsible" people crazy and lash out at me for not taking things seriously. I guess I come off as not caring about things and immature. And while yes I more than likely come off that way, its far from whats going on in my head. Last year I tried going back to school and then everything in my life pretty much slapped me in the face for doing so. The same month school started my Grandma that I was incredibly close to died. Two months after that I found out that my 5 month old baby needed physical therapy for his torticallis (stiff neck). The next month I found out he was going to need a helmet to correct the shape of his head (the torticallis has caused his head to grow a bit flat). A couple weeks after getting things set up to get that started his PT (physical therapist) asked if I could start bringing him in twice a week. At his 6 month check up we asked his doctor about some eye fluttering he had been doing. We got to schedule him for an MRI on his head. Turned out he has a cyst sitting right next to his brain stem, but not to worry because its benign and didn't look like it was doing anything. Then PT wanted him to meet with an occupational therapist since he wasn't really hitting all of his developmental milestones when he should be. Needless to say when the semester was over, I didn't sign up for classes the next semester.


       Then there's also my cover up of "I'm good". That I usually say when there is something wrong but I figure whoever is talking to me doesn't want to deal with my issues. So I let them think what they want. The only person to ever catch onto this was my husband before we even started dating and were just friends that talked on the computer and phone all that time.


        Just sitting and listening. That I usually only do when I'm really upset, because someone has really made me upset or mad and I'm trying not to let my Irish temper blow up at the next person. The last time this happened wasn't too long ago. It was when I was flying back from visiting my parents with my two young boys. One the first flight I sat infront of some girls (you'll find out why I said girls instead of ladies) that didn't do anything but gossip and insult people they kept saying werer their friends. For the whole hour and a half flight to Vegas thats all they did. Then to makes things even worse for them, when my boys and I walked intot he airport to catch out next flight, they started gossiping about me! I had never even seen them before in my life! And yet for some reason they felt the need to start talking about me like they knew anything about me, other then I sat in the row infront of them on the plane. The next flight wasn't much better. I live in the east coast time zone and my parents live in the west coast. Thats a 3 hour time difference and our flight wasn't getting back to the right state until 12:30 at night. Thats two little boys (under the age of 4) that have been in the wrong time zone, they're sleepy and stuck on a plane for a little more than 3 hours. We didn't get the row we usually like to sit in, but I tried to make it fun. They both got naps, snacks and even stuff to drink. The boys were being a lot better than I thought they would be for what I was making them go through. Then after about 3 hours the guy sitting infront of us and to the left (I remember this because I made it so I could put one kid on either side of me if needed) turned around and said, "its been 3 hours of kicking my seat and noise and I've had just about enough". I couldn't believe what he had just said and neither could the people around us. The flight attendant and all the other passangers loved my boys and kept telling me how good they were being and even offered to help if I needed any. After that guy said that to me and my boys I was more than ready to blow up at him, but we only had probably another 20 minutes left and we'd be on the ground again. I tried to let it go, but at the same time I also had to sit there and not say a word or I was going to blow up at that guy. When we landed he was up and off the plane as soon at the doors opened while I had to grab not only my two kids, but also my diaper bad, put things away and wait for the stroller by the door of the plane. When we did finally get off the plane I had never been so happy to be married to a tall and musculare man in my entire life. While waiting for the luggage my husband met us to pick us up and the mean guy that had told me to keep things under control looked scared to look at me for more than a few seconds, but oh my goodness was I happy to be off that plane.

I'm moody, but for a good reason!

   One of the biggest problems I have with my MS is my moodiness, but there is a HUGE reason for it. When I over heat, my body just doesn't quite know what to do, so it doesn't do anything but hold onto it. I know I'm over heating when my hand and feet (mostly my toes) turn red and I start getting irritated very easily. Then there's also the whole being incredibly cold part. With MS my body doesn't know how to hold onto my body heat and keep me warm. So I really do get VERY cold. The cold part is what has done the most to my since being diagnosed though.



     I first noticed being irritated easily and my toes being red before I was even diagnosed with MS, but I thought it was just because I was a girl and it happened to everyone. I did notice that I always seemed to have less energy in the sun as everyone else though. I thought I was just out of shape or something. The only time I've really had anything scare me with the warm part was a few summers ago when I was going on a short walk up the hill I live on. I noticed that as the hill got steeper it was harder for me to breathe. It was like breathing threw a small straw and something squeezing my lungs at the same time. Later I found out from my doctor that that is called the "MS hug". Now I don't go for walks when its above 87 degrees outside. When I go shopping, I usually wear flip flops so that I can tell when I'm too warm and when to shut up so I don't snap at anyone. Its happened more than once while shopping with the hubby. Sadly sometimes just trying on clothes over heats me and cuts the trip short.



    When I was 18 and still somewhat newly diagnosed I went to visit my brother who lived in Washington state (the dry ugly part on the other side of the mountain range). It was in January and it was more than a little cold there, but no one else seemed to be as cold as I felt. I just went with California had made me a wimp with cold weather. I would go and hang out with some old friends that I had grown up with and after being there for about 5 or 6 days I started feeling sick. I was only visiting my brother and his family for a couple weeks, so I was going to stick it out and not say anything about not feeling well. Then about on day 3 or 4 days before I was supposed to go home, I started throwing up. It didn't matter what I ate, drank or didn't, I just threw up. I felt miserable to rest of the time. Then I got back to California where it was warm(er) and humid. I felt fine. I wasn't sick, I wasn't throwing up and I didn't even feel the need to throw up.



    At age 21 I was staying in Utah for awhile with someone my family. I had been there for almost 4 months when I started feeling sick to my stomach. I hadn't changed anything I was eating or drinking, so I just went with I was being a wimp again. So I of course was still going out with friends, going to the gym, and hanging out with family, but then one night at a friends house I threw up. I didn't say anything for my friends and just kept sneaking off to throw up. I got back to my brother and started throwing up again. Not sure, but once again I did go home to California shortly after that and felt fine. There were some other factors in there while going home but I'll talk about those another time.



     I was 23 and nearly married. I had lived in California just shy (by a month) of 7 years and didn't own a coat, just hoodies. My husband moved my to Indianapolis and wanted to show me where he had gone to college. We drove up to Muncie, IN to check out ball state. Only yet again, it was January, cold and incredibly windy. By this time I had put the pieces together of how and why I was throwing up for no reason. The other places were cold, dry and almost not humidity. Northern Indiana isn't dry but oh my gosh is it cold in the winter. I only wore a hoodie since I didn't really think I was going to be doing any walking around. We did. We walked around and looked at some statues and building that he lived in and had classes in. When I finally had him convinced that I was cold and we need to start heading back to Indy, I was really cold. Then he did something I had told him not to do. We got in the car and turn the heater on full blast to warm my up faster. By the time we got back to where we lived I just went straight to bed with a bucket. About 15 or 20 minutes later, I was throwing up.

how my shot ruined my body

When I was 17 and heard I was going to need to do a shot everyday for the rest of my life (unless trying to get pregnant, pregnant or nursing), they never told me all of the side effects. Sure they told me it would hurt, but not too much. They even told me I needed to rotate to seven different areas because it takes that long for the injection site to heal from the shot.

The big thing they didn't tell me what about atrophy. I was really good about sticking to my injection site and even have proof to show someone if they wish to see it... Yet, on all seven injection areas I have atrophy. I first started noticing it about 2 years after I started, and now I have to call either my sister-in-law (who's a nurse) or one of my sisters (she has RA and has to do shots too) to find a good place to do my shot (that won't make the atrophy any worse than it already is.)


Where are these sites? Both arms, both hips, both thighs, and below by belly button. So now, if you go and look at some of the pictures on my other blog about all the clothes I have, you'll see that it looks like I'm having some muffin top issues going on. I wish I was, because then there would be a way to fix it. That's actually where you can see some of what's going on.


Yes, I know there are commercials for pills for the type of MS that I have and I've been begging my doctor to put me on one. He then starts listing off why it's not the best fit for me, like the whole having to stay in a hospital for 48 hours under observation (I have two small boys and live about an hour and a half from my neurologists office), messes with the heart (both my grandpa's had heart problems), messes with the lungs (had a virus when I was 2 that made those not so wonderful), and he doesn't think there has been enough research on them.

Now, there are 3 other kinds of shots I could do (that you only have to do once a week), but their major side effect is depression. And since I haven't had a full blown attack from my MS for so long and I'm not depressed, my doctor would rather keep me on the same thing I've been once for more than 10 years.

Keeps me modest though. I don't wear short shorts, bikini's, tank tops without a shirt over them and no short shirts showing my belly. But since I'm a mother of two boys and my husband likes my t-shirts, I don't really feel the need to be all that girly anyways.

Gym time

My legs were feeling a bit strange, so I got up and went to the gym. What does that have to do with MS? The weather. It's supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow. Extreme temperature changes and I really don't get along.

Of course, it didn't help very much that after 6 machines, my left knee started hurting and I had to give up and just finish up on the bike for the night. I'm known pretty well for pushing myself too far, and even more so when I'm sick, told I can't or something hurts.

Since there's another doctor appointment that I have to take my boys to, I decided not to push myself too far and go at least somewhat easy on myself for the night. I'll still do my usual cool down, but I don't think I need to post pictures of that again.

stupid jet stream

So, the jet stream has made it so that it's still staying somewhat cold around here. In return, my MS has seen fit to make my wrist hurt so much that I spent my whole day only holding hands with my kids and making my husband change diapers, lift the kids, dress the kids and put them in their car seats. Now, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, except it really does make me feel like a bad/lazy mother and that also stresses me out a wee bit. So to make sure that things don't get out of hand, I may head out to the gym once both boys are asleep. I will probably add another post with pictures of my work out if I do go.

I may have done too much

Last night I went to the gym and really only intended to work out for around maybe an hour and a half. When I went up to the front desk to start my "cool down" (I'll post pictures of what that is), the lady at the desk said i deserved it for working out so long. Looked at my phone and it had been two and a half hours! I was a little shocked, but even more so that I didn't start feeling what all I had done to my muscles until tonight. They're telling me to take the night off and just get some sleep, but if I can't get to sleep I will be going back to the gym tonight. Tomorrow should be a fun day with how sore my muscles are starting to feel now. Maybe now I'll take up yoga or something. Probably not though. My "cool down" consists of a massage chair for 6 minutes, a hydro massage bed for 6 minutes and then a tanning bed for 5 minutes (mostly because I get to lay down and its warm in that bed). I honestly can't tan (even with cheating with a tanning bed) so it really is just to relax a little while longer before showering and driving home.

Finally back at the gym

I was told early on, after being diagnosed with MS, that stress will only make things worse for me. So I took that to heart. Then I was told I couldn't do anymore high impact sports. That included basketball (that I had played since I was 10 and loved it), volleyball, running, and pretty much every sport I played. Then, I was told that working out was really good for keeping my MS pretty quiet. So when I started college and took weight training, I found a way to deal with my stress and MS.

That's what I still do. It also helps with getting me back in shape to do the Bike MS with my brother. So, here's a look on pictures of what I do at the gym. Or, at least, what I did tonight. I'll post sets, reps and weight if anyone asks. And what all I did with the free weights.

A few days later

The lighting in my bathroom isn't great so the colors are off, but I can promise you that really is a bruise.

you mean thing

     Something that MS is really good at doing is screwing me over. For the past few weeks, I've felt like I had a sinus infection or allergies. So I brushed it off as just that and nothing to really complain about. Then cold things started to hurt. That's when I started thinking that maybe I should break down and take my temp. And there it was, 102.9... I was mad. I had already made plans for that night and they were done for.

Then, last night I finally broke down and sent a text to my sister-in-law that is a nurse, for tips on how to get rid of this fever that has had me house bound for 2 days. I did what she said and thought that, since I was feeling better today and had already been stuck inside for 2 and a half days, it would be alright for me to go out with my boys.

We did. We went to the mall, the Dollar Tree (LOVE that place) and out for dinner. Then, we get home, put the boys in bed and I stupidly thought, "Maybe I'll see how low my temp is now..." Should have just left it on the counter. My fever was still there, not has high, but still there. I had to make phone calls to reorganize things for tomorrow, that I'm going to miss, and it throws off my plan of going to the gym to get this stupid cold out of me. My coughing and sniffling is giving me a headache and I just want to curl up in bed next to the husband and not go anywhere.

       So what does MS have to do with any of this? EVERYTHING. MS (for me anyways) has always taken some harmless little illness I may have and blow it up into this huge thing that keeps me down. I'm really not one for being force to stay down at all, ask my husband or parents sometime... Ask them about my spinal tap, mono, having baby #1, being pregnant with either of the boys, or anytime I've been sick. I just don't like to stay still for very long.

       After I had baby #1, I noticed that anytime the temperature (yes I can spell that word and don't always use temp) my wrist would start hurting. They didn't just have an ache to them, they hurt so bad I had a hard time picking up my new born baby. Which was kind of bad because, of course, this didn't start being a problem until after I let my husband go back to work (I'm a needy wife.)

So, of course, now that I'm sick and even have a fever, what happens? My right wrist is killing me! It started on Wednesday, but I didn't think much of it because I saw that it was supposed to snow, but now that it's supposed to snow, yet again, (after a couple nice days in the 60's) my wrist is killing me even more. I asked my neurologist about it a few months after I first noticed it. He started to brush it off and blame my cell phone for it. Then, I told him that it only seems to happen when the temperature changes. That's when he acted as if I had said that magic word. He nodded and said, "that sounds more like it's MS related."

      Well, thanks for reading my rant. I will now get off my soap box and go do my shot. I'll post a picture of the shot I did on my leg a few nights ago. I forgot that they sometimes bruise.

Allergies my foot

So, after doing pretty good at remembering to do my shot (a whole 4 days in a row!), I forgot to do it last night. Tonight, I can't seem to move without my nose dripping and I think I actually have a fever now. The husband is already sleeping, so I don't want to wake him to warm my shot up (it's kept in my refrigerator.) I also don't want to warm it up myself because anything cold seriously is painful right now. I really should just get it anyways though, being able to do things myself is always better than trying to explain to other people how to do it.

A good stress reliever

One of the best things I've done lately was to take my family on a 4 hour ride to St. Louis to see a friend from high school that I hadn't seen in 10+ years. Throwing off the boys' sleeping schedules or not, it was well worth it!

Why I'm scared of my shot

Here's a picture of what the area looks like, about an hour after I do my shot. There are a few side effects that go with it: Fever at injection site (check), fever (check), redness and swelling at injection site (check, check).

While I do get almost all the side effects they warn about, they're still not what scares me the most. What they don't tell you is that, when you do your shot (or at least when I do mine), someone always randomly bumps that area, every time...

Since starting my shots again (I'll save that story for another time), my husband has squeezed both arms, boys have push my hip, and tonight my husband got my attention by (what he says) "lightly" tapping my leg to look at something. 

Maybe a little too much fresh air with the boys today

It's was finally 70 degrees outside, so the boys and I went outside to play. I think I may have over done it, though. On the plus side, I now know that the tanning bed wasn't helping at all with giving me a tan. The sunburn made it so I couldn't try riding my bike on the road. And the threat of thunderstorms (and then maybe snow) is also going to keep me from the gym tonight. Here's hoping the drop in temps doesn't screw me up too bad!!!

Sometimes I hate night time

It's bed time, which also means it's time to do my shot. Not excited but at least tonight is in my hip and not my arm.

The park

One of my boys enjoying the park with his OT while mommy gets some fresh air. 

Made it to a park for OT and the boys seems to love it!

Short walk

Short walk to the creek, at the bottom of the hill, and back up to our drive way. I hope the rocks don't make it back in the house.

Today's fun

I've read that vitamin D is really good at helping with MS. I usually do 5 minutes in a tanning bed at the gym, but since it's supposed to be in the low 60's (finally!!!) I'm either going for a walk or maybe taking my boys to a park for some extra running around time. We'll see how it goes and I'll post some pictures if the weather is as a nice as it's supposed to be.

Intro to my life with MS

Recently I started a blog about all the clothes I have (an didn't know I had). Then, a few days later, some friends talked me into starting one about sharing clothes between ladies who have curves. The second one hasn't had much on it, while the first one is updated daily. Both silly blogs, I know, but with the second one, I almost started using it as a way to somewhat verbally deal with my Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and then decided not to. After a week of thinking on it, I've decided to start this.

  I was diagnosed with MS during my senior year of high school. Not only was that hard, but all the things that led up to it were even worse. My parents, one of my sisters, and I had just moved to California a few weeks after I turned sixteen. We were in our other city for 10 years (most of my life at the time) and I was not happy about it. I was excited when I first found out. (What 16 year old girl wouldn't love to move to California?!) But then we got there... My parents were in shock about the price of a house and we needed a place quickly. So they found a cute little house for rent and we moved a week or so later. I wasn't too thrilled about the house. It was only a one story and no family room.

Then, I found out that I had somewhat of an in to the marching band. (I was in band and color guard at my last high school) I was pretty relieved. Then band camp started and I was thinking, ok this is going to be a lot of fun. I was wrong. They didn't march the same way, they didn't do field shows, only parades and they stuck me with girls that didn't even know how to spin a flag. I was a little upset things were starting to look kinda bad.

When school started, things really started to go downhill. About half of my high school credit couldn't be transfered from my last high school and I was basically going to do 2 and a half years of high school in the two I had left. I was in shock. I also found out that if i wanted to do color guard, I was going to need to actually take that as one of my classes (at my last one it was more of a night class type thing). So i dropped color guard and decided that, since I still played flute, I could just be in the band. Then I went to band class... lets just say I ended up dropping band too.

Long story short, in the first two weeks of school, I had 14 different class schedules trying to figure out what all I needed to take and what I could just let go. I was really not the happiest girl then. Around the beginning of the second semester, I found that every once in a while, I had a strange limp with my left leg and my speech would get very slurred. I didn't think much of it and thought I was either stressed, upset, or I needed more sleep. By the middle of summer, I turned 17 and my left arm, hand, and most of my left side were numb.

Such a great way to start my senior year... then even more happened. The school didn't believe me! They honestly thought since I had such a bad junior year, that I just didn't want to go to school. It wasn't until that December that my doctor finally found out what I had. Then, the school was more than willing to get me into independent study and help me get all my classes. I was short one semester, by the time my senior year was over.

I was mad, but I was also having to deal with the new crazy thing called MS that I honestly had not clue about. My parents tried to tell me about all of the research they did on it and help me understand, but I wouldn't hear any of it. I didn't even tell (or let my parents tell) my brothers and sisters (3 sisters and 2 brothers) what I had! I was going to be upset and that was it. But at the same time, I wasn't going to let the whole not graduating high school stop me from anything.

To top it off, I was told I would have to start doing a shot everyday! I had started passing out every time I was stuck with a needle around 11 years old. So when I heard this, I said "no," and basically walked out of the doctor's office. But did eventually give in (kinda had to when a lady came to my house just to teach me how to do the shot, myself).

I went and got my GED, but even that was stressful. The testing part was easy but the way the proctor treated me wasn't all that great. The testing was a 2 day thing and at the end of the first day she said, "you went through this pretty quick," in somewhat of a demeaning tone. Then, at the end of the second day she said the same thing, but added, "when you need to retake this it will most likely be the same stuff, so study that when you get home." The good news is that I passed, and not only did I pass, but above normal (but not above normal for math, I still suck at math even today).

I started college that fall, and started to feel a bit more grounded about my MS. So much so that I even gave a speech about it in my speech class. With my weight training class (I was very athletic when I was younger), I had a long list to tell my coach what all I could and couldn't do. He teased me about my limits but I inadvertently got back at him when he told his wife (she was an RN) about me. From what he told me, he got kind of an earful for teasing me. I ended up taking weight training and body conditioning with him 4 times, I think (I was allowed to repeat for credits twice per class). I loved college and I loved the new freedom I had with my schedule of classes.

Then the nerves set in and my memory was starting to get somewhat bad. I ended up dropping most classes I signed up for and ended up playing it off like I was just some dumb 20 something year old that was careless in life.

Now I'm 28 years old, married for almost 6 years, with two beautiful boys. I'm also training to do an MS Bike ride with one of my brothers, over in Washington state, for September. So here, I will post photos of my training and what all I've been doing with my MS and how I deal with it. I also promise no more books like this as a post.