My Pop helped me put some magnetized latches on my cabinets on Friday. Tuxington was enjoying hiding in the cabinets far too much. Tried putting a rubber band around the handles which worked for a few months, but he's figured out how to wiggle his way in now despite them. We don't want him trapesing around in our cookware, or sniffing around at cleaning supplies. Unless he starts doing some serious lifts, these should keep him out.
I haven't been getting anything really extraordinary done lately. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm under no obligation to be a gladiator every day, but that I need not get discouraged and give up either. It's a balancing act, trying to encourage and push yourself, but not to push too hard. My rheumatoid arthritis has been pretty damn stable since I stopped dicking around with my steroid levels. I think 10-15mgs is going to end up being a necessary evil for me. I don't forsee too much extra getting done today. I need to do a few chores around the house, and make a run to Wally World before I cook dinner. The nice part about how organized I have our home by this point is it doesn't take much at all to make it look pretty damn decent in here. While there's a number of projects left on my 'to do' list, the overall standard of cleanliness and organization isn't hard at all to maintain at this point, even on a rest day.
My multiple sclerosis on the other hand, has been freaking out. I got my period for the first time in a ridiculous amount of time, and it's fucking my MS up bad. Sorry men, you may want to skip a few paragraphs. Menstruation raises your core body temperature, and even as little as a half degree increase is enough to flare MS symptoms. I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, so my periods have been messed up for pretty much as long as I can remember. I used to take a low dose hormone that prevented my period all together. Due to how bad it made my MS symptoms and the fact that I wasn't actively trying to have children it wasn't worth having one.
Since my near-death blood clot situation though I'm no longer allowed to be on any form of medication that screws around with such things. After stopping the medication it was like waiting for the jack-in-the-box to pop (err..bleed?) out. It never came though, until now. Surprise! Clean eating, active lifestyles, and glucose control are great for PCOS. I'm thinking my drop to near non-existent steroid levels lowering my sugar, coupled with our excellent diets as of late, and increase in activity level has made my ovaries happy, and my uterus not so much. This means a number of things. One, I'm getting healthier on some fronts, yay! Two, I'm looking at freaking out my MS symptoms monthly now, boo. Three, our chances of getting pregnant just increased dramatically, eh? Number three is an issue further complicated physically and morally by chronic illness, but that's a discussion for another day.
Pregnancy is oddly great for treating MS, and there's a lot of clinical research going on right now related to the concept. Not only does the baby protect the mother (it's host) during pregnancy, sending stem cells that repair damage to the brain from MS, but pregnancy hormones also alter the immune system in such a way that the attacks stop. Temporarily albeit. It's almost enough to make you want to start your own TLC reality 'My 99999 kids' show. But I digress, another topic for another day.
I just can't see how I'm going to manage life with a terrible pseudo-flare every month for a week plus. A pseudo-flare is when the symptoms from your brain and nerve damage exacerbate, but no new damage is taking place. This can come from fevers from infection, a hot environment, menstruation, and a laundry list of other crap. I've been cognitively slow, off-balance, my fine motor skills are blown, tremors, twitches, muscle rigidity, and a grab bag of different kinds of pain. Chris has noted that my verbal vocabulary skills have tanked this week. I'm mixing words up so bad, or unable to find the word I want all together. I'm an emotional nightmare as well. Hormones seem to make me bastardly more confrontational, and flares of my MS make me like a dog with a bone with certain emotions. My insomnia has been off the charts as well. Since starting Tysabri my insomnia hasn't been nearly as bad of an issue. Infusions seem to pretty much keep it in check, apparently not during flares though. I'm up and down all night, and up more then I'm down. If it's not to pee, it's because I flat out just can't sleep.
Dealing with this once a month is not so much on my to do list. An eventual decline into a constant state like this is the paranoia of most people with MS. It generally doesn't happen until you're considered 'primary progressive' that you get no relief from symptoms between flares. Pseudo-flares cutting short your relief regularly bring about the paranoia hard that one week there won't be relief.
It brings with it a topic regularly pondered by me, of when we become a product of our disease. So much of our brain structure determines who we are to an extent. When so much of that is damaged or altered from disease, at what point do we lose ourselves and become it? Will we always recognize the difference? It's a thought I'm not much a fan of.
We may just be watching way too much Burn Notice as of late. The show might just be subconciously making us want yogurt. We watch it on Netflix, but if they don't show yogurt commercials with this show on cable I'd be very disappointed. Someone would be missing out on some serious marketing genius.We had a variety of fruit flavors from Yoplait, which I need to stock back up on. But I want to try some other brands and flavors as well. What kind of yogurt is your go to? The only thing I refuse to try again is Greek yogurt, it's gross period. In concept and flavor. Blech!
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