Today started with tears

Before I get going, let me just say, I am one of those people that hates to cry (gives me a nasty headache) and I usually deal with hard stuff with humor. 

I am a stay at home mother of three. My days start off with me waking up and my husband has already been at work for a couple hours. Today I woke up (husband was already gone to work) and all 3 kids were still sleeping. So I thought I'd check Facebook. Bad idea. There was a video someone shared about a couple that lost their baby (made me cry of course). Then I started thinking about my kids and how lucky I am to have them in my life. 

My mind trailed off to other things that have been going on lately too. A lot of people have been asking me if we're going to have another to keep things even at 4 kids. I tell them I just had a baby and I don't know. The truth is, in my mind we already have 4 kids. 

On July 13, 2013 I has a miscarriage. I knew it was coming from the irregular heart beat on the ultrasounds and bleeding. I lost the baby while at home. My husband and I cried and held each other for at least an hour and I called and talked to a friend for probably another hour. 

The next day I wasn't sure what to do with the same fetus that we had lost. So I decided to put it in the box my wedding right came in and we buried it. 

Why the reason for this long sappy story? Because while I have been thinking about that baby I lost all day, I have also gotten more done in 3 hours trying not to stress about remembering when this happened, than I have all week. 

My MS scares me so bad that I go above and beyond to make sure I don't over stress or make myself depressed without even thinking. I didn't start crying and think, oh no I better find things to distract myself. I just got the kids out of bed and kept doing things. 

I've seen a lot of things about how a decease doesn't have a person, they have the decease. While that might work for some people, I'm alright with it either way. I know that after I found out I have MS that I started working out like crazy to keep it from doing anything. I even changed my major or college to help deal with it. 

Anyways, I know that I have become a better person, harder worker, more motivated and even happier all because of it. It shapes my life and a lot of the choices I make in it. 

Avoidance and denial

Last week I took a picture with even intention of using it for this blog. I'll even finally post it. 

 That night I was thinking, "I need to work out." So I did. I had lots of reasons why I was doing it that night, a lot more than usual. Mostly my back. The upper half of my back is numb and has been that way for about a year now. Bad part, and why it was pushing me to work out that night, is that now all of the upper half of my back feels numb. 

I also had a baby (7 weeks ago at the time that picture was taken) and was told by my doctor that I didn't have any restrictions. Now that really should be put a bit differently, or at least I should know better. I have been feeling fat and out of shape, so I decided to do some light jogging in place in the safety of my living room. Laugh all you want about jogging in place at home, but it works. I did really well! I lasted half way through my work out playlist and decided to stop while I was ahead. I'm guessing it jogged for about 20 minutes with hardly any discomfort to anything (both my knees are bad by the way and swollen). Since that night though I've only done some light weight lifting and some leg work at home. 

Here's where things get good. Last night my husband basically kicked me out of the house to go to the gym and work off my cabin fever and the stresses of being a stay at he mom with 3 small children. He knows that after I work out I really do feel and act like a new person, also the woman he married, and not a stressed out quick tempered Irish girl. And I also remember back when I was 17 and told that I couldn't do anymore high impact sports (running, basketball, volleyball, eft) with MS. So what. I didn't really listen then or in college. What was so wrong about doing it now? I just had a baby that's what's wrong. Although it had been 2 months since I had my baby my MS and body were very quick to tell me no. 

When I got to the gym I was feeling pretty good and was going to just do my regular thing while there of starting on the treadmill for a quick warm up,then onto the machines and free weights and finish with a stationary bike for my cardio/cool down. HA! I got on the treadmill feeling a little chubby/impatient and remembering how well I did with jogging at home. So instead of a brisk walk at 3.5, I thought I'd bump it up to 4.0. I forgot to stop at 4 and went to 4.5 and ended up jogging a little faster than what I thought I was doing at home. About a minute later my left leg started feeling a bit strange. I thought I'd just push through it. (Here's the good part) At 1 minute 47 seconds my left leg went numb. It only took about one minute and thirty seconds for my MS and body to bring me back to reality. 

I kept my warm up to just 5 minutes (mostly because I didn't want to end up being one of the fail videos that my husband watches) and then went on to work on arms and back. 

 As my work out went on I kept thinking about if I should tell my neurologist about this or not. I opted for not because it would end up costing me more for the physical therapy and steroids that would just put more weight on me.

 Thankfully, the feeling in my leg slowly started to come back during my cool down, but instead of doing that on a bike, I decided to use an arc climber. I was doing great for the fist 5 minutes. Then I started to slow down and things started getting a little fuzzy. Then I started remembering an article about a runner with MS that would run to her coach and collapse after she finished and why I usually use the bike. I grabbed the arm supports and prayed I wasn't going to pass out. I didn't. I slowly got down and casually walked to the front desk and asked for a coin to use the massage chair. After that I used the hydro massage bed and felt much better. 

Then I had the nerve to drive home. That's when I found out that not all the numbness was gone, it just decided to take up camp in my left arm. Yay....

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.