Random shiny moments

1.) I love plays on words like the sticker above. The flair buttons and bumper stickers are one of my favorite parts of Facebook. Remember, if you're a Facebooker and want to be pals send me a note and maybe you can be part of my Facebook entourage.

2.) A note on my tiredness and fatigue. My mom thinks that if I sleep a lot I will feel much better. Now that is true up to a point. Provigil and my ADs help me to feel better, along with the sleep. I go to bed around 9:30ish now (late for me!) and sleep until sometime between 8 and 8:30. Then I take another nap for an hour or two after I've been up for a while.

So you can see that I sleep a lot. My mom thinks that all of that sleep will make me feel rested and I should be good to go the next day. If you have MS or know an MSer with fatigue issues then you know that's not the case. I live each day as if it was from the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray. I wake up and my body thinks it needs all the sleep it can get, no matter how much it got yesterday. I'm always tired.

3.) I've started watching Arrested Development on Netflix today in between my bouts of semi-coma like sleeping. I like it. It's sharp and witty and sarcasm at its comedic best. Sometimes not having good cable can be a blessing.

4.) Tomorrow is trying to put up the fake tree day. I hope we can survive it.

That's all I've got for shiny crow rambling moments. Believe it or not, I'm tired again.

Water, water not everywhere?

That's a drop of water above and it seems to be all the rage in the news as of late, water I mean, not so much the one drop. I watch the Today Show on NBC and they are spotlighting the theme of water as they travel to different parts of the Earth this week.

I don't know about you but I believe in this global warming stuff. Places where there have been snow and glaciers for hundreds of years are disappearing and dwindling. They're losing snow from the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro for crying out loud. Tall mountains are supposed to have snow due to the elevation and temperature and precipitation. That's something that I teach when it comes along in the curriculum.

In CA, a shout out to JM and WW, where they have been in a drought for three years. Three years! Can you imagine that? I suspect you can, if you live in an area like that. My friend JM just wrote me today that she missed the snow here (but only for a little while because where I live we get a lot of snow, an average of at least 120 inches a year). JM says there's no grass or plants where they are in CA, just brown stuff that can burst into flames if you look at it hard enough (her words, not mine). She lives near one of the wild fires and she says the air quality is horrid and they can hardly be outside due to the smoke. Now that stinks!

Ann Curry (who turns 52 tomorrow, flipping 52 and she's gorgeous!) was speaking about water usage in Africa vs. water usage by a typical American family or it may just be an individual, I forget. In Africa: 5 gallons a day. In the USA: 120 gallons a day.

I've seen these numbers before because worldbank.org has a neat website with materials for use in the classroom. That information was in a section on water that I used last school year when we were raising money for the John Dau Sudan Foundation. An eye opener - a difference of 115 gallons a day. A day, people. Imagine the usage after a year. Never mind, I'll do the math for you.

Africa in one year: 1,825 gallons.

The US in one year: 43,800 gallons.

Water is an issue for millions of people whether it's not enough, too much (New Orleans anyone?), not potable (drinkable and clean and healthy), it's disappearing, whatever...

This is just one of those posts about my ramblings, ergo the name Messy Stuff: A Life with MS and Other Ramblings. Any thoughts or comments?

It's snowing

I awoke this morning and there is actual snow on the ground. I watched the drifting, haphazard flakes falling and it felt very peaceful. I need that peaceful sensation so I enjoyed it from inside my living room.

I am supposed to be putting up the tree on Thursday, er my friend BJM is probably going to be doing most of it as she is a fake tree expert extraordinaire. That will come in handy because I'm like a no thumb kinda gal so me doing it might make for a funniest home video for someone else.

I took an actual shower and changed my clothes and did my hair today. That was a giant success over the last two days. My right arm is all about painful movement and my low back and legs are trying to drag me around when it's time to move. I'm not sure if it's from the Tysabri, the MS, or the fact that I "worked out" for 6 out of 7 days this past week.

My working out is a snortaminute workout for most regular people on this Earth, including the geriatric crew. I do about a one mile walk and once in a blue moon a 2 mile walk with one of those Walk Away the Pounds DVD in the comfort of my living room. The people on the DVD use weighted balls and I just try to throw my arms around in the same half movement. I am sure that 2 year-olds get more exercise than I do. But right now this is my marathon.

I usually follow it up with a relaxing yoga pose where my feet are up on the sofa and my body is on the floor. This is supposed to get the lymph in your body to move around more efficiently. I have no idea if it works but it can feel nice.

I have decided that I need my SAD light from work. It's one of those bright lights that help with wintery/autumnal depression. I know I need it so it's just a matter of someone finding it there and I think I know where it is. Then it needs to find its way back to my home, slovenly home.

Actually, I do not live in a total sty but I have lots of papers run off for work that need to go somewhere other than my kitchen table (also a gift from BJM) where they have been living for a month or so. Then I also have my single copies of papers from September. I must put all this stuff somewhere neatly so on the off chance I invite the UPS man in and he accepts, he will be pleasantly surprised to see that I have cleaned the place up.

I'm having some shiny crow moments so this is it for now. Hope all is well with you, especially if you're out in CA by the wildfires.

In a funk, not a good one

In case you're uncertain, that's a hole, a deeeeeeeeep one. I feel like I am in it. I'm not sure why. Okay, I know a little bit why and then there are some other things that I just don't know about that are thudding around in my brain.

No showering today as I just don't feel like I can do it. Not going anywhere or seeing anyone. I'm just wondering where this sense of self punishment comes from. I see the daylight for a while and then it's all jerked away and I'm back in a place like what you see above.

Small, deep, dark, suffocating, stifling depressive hole that engulfs me when I start to turn the corner. Why?

Dreaming or your frightmare?

I woke up this morning around regular work time, which is about 5:30ish after having dreamed of work. Not work in a nice way but a typical frightmare where the students are being unruly and things are out of control.

I've been unofficially out of the classroom since Wednesday. Wednesday, people! And here I am having a typical work dream. How the heck is that for being on a "break" as Ross from Friends would call it?

I'm afraid that by the time I get back I will be unable to control them, them = small children, not knee-biter small but small enough that they still like cartoons and birthday parties. How could this even be a possibility? It's not one really but that's what it was like in my dream.

I'm walking around the classroom and kids are working on an assignment upside down, others aren't doing it at all, and others did it but lost it. It was clearly a Social Studies assignment in my dream as I just talked to the Special Ed teacher/super helper yesterday about the Social Studies state test and it's fairness. So that's why S.S. was on my mind.

Where does this fear and worry come from I ask myself. I've never had a problem like that in my classroom but I worry and fret about it nonetheless. What if I do all this resting and extra sleeping and take my bazillion pills and supplements and I walk back into my classroom and I am still a giant doofus?

What on Earth will I do then?

People ask me what I've been doing on my leave and the biggest thing is that I get to sleep a lot more, sleeping later and taking a nap. The depression is getting better now that I am out from under the constant strain of paperwork and being "on" like a Broadway performer five days a week. I am taking my supplements and my pills and exercising slooooowly, pathetically slowly. How 20 minutes of moving can wear my body out like it does it amazing to even me.

I notice the lack of paying attention is still a problem for me. I drive and look around me instead of at the actual road. I'm rather interested in traffic and cars and people on the sidewalk, when I should be interested in what is in front of me and traffic lights! It's like a crow going after something shiny. I'm the crow and the whole world seems to be shiny.

My hands have good days and bad still. I think not writing plans and grading and making up worksheets has helped that issue. My back and legs have brought themselves into the fold and started acting up recently, most likely due to the excessive exercise of 20 minutes almost daily.

What if I do all this resting and that frightmare comes true? That's the scary thing for me.

What's your favorite sound?

Today's topic is coming from the email I mentioned yesterday. One of the questions was about naming your favorite sound. I had more than one so I'll list them here and if you want to share your favorite sounds, I'd love to see what they are.

Favorite sound?

1.) A ringing phone with a good friend at the other end (and time to chat). This one's easier to figure out now that almost everyone has caller ID. There's nothing worse than napping or being on the floor doing some yoga and the phone rings and it's some stupid unknown caller aka a credit card company with some "amazing" offer or a survey, etc.

2.) My brother or sister's voices since they've been gone away so long. It's been over a year since I've seen or talked to my sister in Iraq and I miss her something fierce. She's 13 years younger than I am but we get along rather smashingly and we are sillier than an almost 40-something should be. She makes me feel young and alive again and I miss that along with missing her.

My brother has been gone since February so I haven't heard his voice either and I've received a whopping two emails from him while he's been in Iraq. My sister emails once in a blue moon but to hear their voices would be wonderful.

My sister is supposed to be going to see my brother this weekend in Iraq after a previously scheduled visit a few weeks back didn't work out as he was going out on a mission. That's nice because they haven't seen each other since my sister left and my brother was supposed to be getting married the next weekend after here at home but his future wife called it off and has since ceased all contact with him. (He is no longer coming home on his leave and will take it sometime in February when he may go to Australia to celebrate turning 30.)

3.) Christmas music that's not annoying, including the sound of carols at mass. Now if I was more of a church goer I'd experience the second part of that sentence more. Maybe this season I'll start going again. I was raised a Catholic and worked in a Catholic school for three years. That was an eye-opening time. I worked for a nun named Sister B who ran the school where her brother was the priest at the church, ergo her brother was Father B. That's almost worth a chuckle.

I worked with super people and no supplies but the two Bs were bickerers and argued over money constantly. At the time my wasband and I were separating I received a lot of nastygrams from Sister B who basically drove me out of Catholic school and into my current position in public school, making oodles more money so I guess that was a prayer answered in disguise. The point is that I was very disillusioned after giving three solid years to them and being treated less importantly than bacteria found in a thermal vent in the ocean.

However, I still love the time from Thanksgiving to Christmas and not just for the gifts. I'd rather give gifts than get them. I love the decorating. I love the peace of church and the silence as we build up to the birth of Jesus. I love the shows on TV from my youth. I love the music and the sounds of the holidays.

What sounds are pleasing to you?

Making a list and mentioning it twice ....

I received one of those emails the other day where you're supposed to fill in the answers and pass it on to other e-friends and back to the person who sent it to you. I only filled it in and sent it back to the person who sent it to me because I was being lazy. However, I thought I had some neat answers to some questions so I'll put them here and offer you some insight to my angst-ridden, quasi-peppy, semi-depressed, multi-layered soul.

( X ) Watched someone die

Okay, I took some liberties with this one but I was there when my maternal grandmother had her stroke and was DNR for the better part of a week. She was living in a local nursing home, which ironically was the same place where my mother was working in a supervisory capacity. My uncle had flown in from Minneapolis where he is a doctor and we all rotated time spent with my grandmother who was breathing but not alert.

My grandmother was more of a mother figure for me because my own mother had me a few months after her senior year graduation in high school. I lived with my grandmother when I was very young, along with my mother. I spent weekends there after my mom married for a second time doing kiddo things like watching cartoons, staying up late, taking long walks, trying to sell rocks by the country roadside, making mud pies, and swinging on my swing set. My nana's house was a haven for me, my own utopia, my safe place for the most part.

The week when my grandmother had her stroke my paternal grandfather unexpectedly had a heart attack and died before my maternal grandmother did. It was the weirdest and most unusual February break I've ever had from school. Two funerals on two different sides of the family within the same week. And that was the end of the grandparents I knew.

I digressed though, and now back to my nana. There were times when our "visiting" overlapped amongst my mom, uncle, and me. Those felt uncomfortable as if too many people were trying to force themselves into such a tiny room. Too many different emotions and thoughts all going on at once.

I preferred going in at night to "visit" by myself when my mom and uncle were gone. I liked the quiet but I would also turn on the TV and watch the news or a game show and play along while I sat there. I painted my nana's fingernails, something she liked having done because she couldn't do it herself due to her Parkinson's disease. I talked talked to her about stuff and prayed with her and for her. My grandmother was a very religious woman and had clutched in her hands a rosary and some religious medals throughout those several days as we watched and waited.

There were times when she would seem to stop breathing for too long and I would look at her face and see if this was the last moment. It never was while I was visiting but those moments would come and I'd be plunged into shock and sadness. I would try to hold back the tears while I was there because there were always nurses and aides coming around to check on her. I didn't want others to share in my pain.

I'd speak to her in a soothing voice and tell her it was okay to go. She didn't go though, not for several days. She was a tough woman in life underneath her soft exterior. She spoiled me rotten as I was growing up and it was clear that I was the favorite grandchild. (Finally, I was the favorite with someone!) She had a difficult childhood with a mother that died very young and a father that left the family behind. My nana grew up in a house raised by her older siblings, dirt poor to the point where she didn't even have underwear for a certain point in her life.

She was married to a man that loved her and I have some of those love letters from him to her during WWII. That correspondence was one of the few things I was able to take away from my grandmother's apartment as it was being cleaned out and things sold during a time in my life when my mother was very angry with me and not speaking to me. My grandfather was a tall and thin man who worked hard and they grew up saving all their pennies and then some. But, my grandfather, my poppy, had a temper and would lose it and take it out on my nana. He'd swat her and call her stupid and I recall my nana cowering at times and crying. Maybe that's part of why my mother made the choices she did and I married an abusive man.

Regardless, she loved me thoroughly and with no boundaries. I watched the one person who I was certain loved me completely slowly leave me and it was awful and wonderful and frightening and moving and horrible.

I wouldn't trade it for anything though except maybe for one more day with her so she could see what I've done since she's been gone.

Shooting the tube

Today was my latest brain MRI and I got to wear an interesting cage type helmet such as the one above. If you've never had a closed MRI of the brain, then this is what you look like before they slide you in the machine. There's some MRI places where you can watch TV with special goggles or listen to music but at my MRI place you just get tie-dye type ear plugs and massive banging, booming, whizzing, thwacking, and other such mishmash of loud noises.

The thing is I find it all incredibly peaceful. Most people don't. Some people freak out because it's kind of a small space and shooting the tube (vernacular for getting an MRI) makes them feel claustrophobic. I used to worry about that during the first two MRIs but I've had probably about six or seven now and I like to think of them as restorative meditation, of sorts.

They slip me in, I close my eyes, and away I go into an almost trance-like, slow-breathing state. I rather enjoy it and hardly move. I am a model (a fat one) patient because moving is a no no in the MRI process as it can distort the scans. We don't want any distorted scans now, do we?

I have not started the Christmas tree building process yet but I think I am going to bring the box in the living room tomorrow. Today I went to Wal-Mart and the pharmacy and I slept in until about nine so I didn't get as much done as I had planned. I also walked for the third day in a row slowly because my back has been bothering me and I'm not sure if it's Tysabri-related or not. Guess I should write it down in my book of symptoms and such and start tracking it.

Thank you to all our veterans and our current military people serving here and abroad. Happy Veterans Day and bless you for your service.

That's all I've got.

It's beginning to look a lot like I may assemble this

Okay, I know it's early and that we haven't had Thanksgiving yet. But, my readers, you need to know that I am an extreme procrastinator and not too bright with do-it-yourself assembly type products. I'm the kind of person who reads the directions and still can't put things together.

I am unofficially officially on my leave but I still have comments to put in for report cards for three subjects. I have all the averages figured, all the grades in and one set of comments done. I was at work today from about 9 through 12:40ish showing the special ed teacher/super helper where things are, going over my outline for the next few months, and finishing grades for Wednesday. So I am almost officially finished and I will be done when comments are finished.

I see myself slowly coming out of the depression. I don't think constantly about offing myself which is a real help as I go through the day. I still have some food issues with "some" binging and purging. There are minor thoughts of self harm but I can push them away. I'm taking Provigil because although it can act as a stimulant in the sense that it tries to keep me awake whilst driving and living daily life, it also seems to keep me calmer.

I feel that when I do not take the Provigil I am so antsy and irritable that I may rip my skin off and crawl out of it. Not a pleasant feeling.

I sometimes smile and even laugh. My Psych R.N. this morning even commented on me looking better in a mental health sort of way, not a lawsuit sort of way, and remarked that he's been very worried about me. Nice to hear on both fronts.

I think being on a break from work will be helpful. I look forward to the extra sleep and to bringing back my slow moving exercise program. I was exhausted about an hour after being at work today and sleeping in until 7 instead of my regular 5:30 a.m. so I know more rest will be beneficial. Not having something hanging over my head every moment in the form of school and papers and grades and plans will be a welcome respite. I love my job, I swear I do, but this year I haven't been able to love it or enjoy it very much. There comes a point where you need to ask yourself, "My job or my (pathetic as it is) life?"

Regardless, last year I bought a six foot artificial tree on sale after Christmas. I have never had to put a fake tree together. I've either had a real tree or no tree at all. I adore Christmas and love to decorate but the past few years I haven't. No one comes here at all, ever, so it's no huge loss to not do it but I miss it. So I'm considering starting to try to put the tree together and decorating.

When I was married, I'd drag my "wasband" out the day after Thanksgiving and force him to cut down a tree. Then we'd slap her in the car and I'd decorate it that same day. I'm a freak and I know it but I love those moments between Turkey Time and Gifts and the Holy Day. I felt more serene and peaceful and loving between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Maybe if I start now I'll find some of those positive feelings again. Plus, it helps to fill up part of my day. You'd be surprised how long the day is when it's more open when there's nothing hanging over your head to be done. "A blessing and a curse," as Adrian Monk would say.

I have new brain MRIs scheduled for tomorrow afternoon but I'll let you know what I decide about the tree, although I'm leaning a lot toward trying it out.

Feeling patriotic

I'm feeling patriotic at the moment because I'm listening to a wonderful concert on PBS for Veterans Day. They (PBS) have great concerts for the 4th and Memorial Day that always blow me away and make me all tingly inside. I believe the tingles are sensations of sincere patriotism.

With the recent election there's been a lot of hullabaloo about the government but I am going to let all that arguing go and just feel proud and lucky to be born a white female in this country at the time when I was (1970). Any other arbitrary twist or turn of fate would bring me to a very different life.

I'm so lucky even though I have stuff to b!tch about that I'm a resident of the United States. I'll also take pause to remember all my grandfathers who were veterans, both my bio-dad and adopted dad, my uncles, and my brother and sister who are both serving in Iraq in the Army right now. Hooah!!

As much as we complain about the war dragging on in Iraq and Afghanistan, at least we have an all volunteer Army to go fight it. There's no draft and we're not Israel where everyone, male and female, get the pleasure of serving their country in the military. Things could be better, they could be worse, but right now I'm proud to be an American.

(Oh, and adopted dad is now home from the hospital. We just learned that he had a heart attack the first day he was in due to the loss of so much blood. Tomorrow he is off to see the ENT to hopefully take the packing out that has been squashed up his nose for a week already and find out why the bleeding started and kept on going. He also sees his cardiologist this week.)