TICK..TICK..TICK...
You ever get the feeling like your a walking time bomb, that has no real detonation time? Sometimes I feel like having MS is like this. Like someone wound this bomb up and its just ticking away to some undetermined moment when everything just blows up. Then when it blows up you get to sit back and survey the damage pick up the pieces and see what still works and what is just broken never to be repaired.

In the mean time you get to go through life and act as if nothing is wrong. This is the part that completely fascinates me. I can go to a Dr. and listen to him tell me "live your life and keep moving, don't worry about tomorrow until it comes"  The last I looked tomorrow always comes, one way or another. People who don't have life changing illness always give me that speech, I know they mean well. I know its important not to get down, to keep moving and living  but how do you not think about tomorrow?

On the one side we are told to  think about tomorrow, its good to have a plan for tomorrow. We plan what we want to be when we grow up, the collage to go to. We plan  when we want to get married, and  have children. We plan to save to buy a house one day, go on vacation. We set up collage funds for our kids, and retirement funds for our later years. If you didn't plan for these things you would be looked on as foolish. Yet nobody wants us to think about our possible tomorrow with these illness, much less plan for it, cause then we are look upon as  negative people and not living anymore.

I am living. I get up everyday, get my kids to school. Go to work, come home, clean ( if i am really motivated) shop for food, and cook dinner. Pick my kids up, and referee their many arguments. I go out with friends, go for breakfast , lunch and dinner with people. Catch a movie, or just hang out at home with my family. I do all the things that other people do, except for one thing. I do these things when all the while you can hear the "tick" tick" tick"  in the back round which is your life, your MS  just waiting to blow.

If someone told me today, the exact day and hour that bomb may go off, would I live my life differently? If I believe I am already living and I do, what would the knowing change? I think I would appreciate the little things that people who haven't been blown by this disease take for granted. Things like the simple ability to wash my own dishes, or take a hot bath. Wash my own hair, shave my own legs. Go for a long walk in the summer. Put my face up to the sun during the summer time and just enjoy the rays of sunshine on my face. Drive a car, and park as far away from the front of the store as I can. Go dancing with my friends, run and jump and be silly for the sake of silliness.

I can still do most of these things, really well in fact, but I know there are others out there who no longer can. I think that people who don't have MS don't realize just how painful it is to have those simple things taken away. The things we miss most once its gone, is the simple things, that other people myself included just take for granted. The simple things in life, thats what gets taken that hurts the most, and should be appreciated for every moment we still have it.

TICK....TICK.....TICK...
So I am getting ready for tonight's shot. I cooked dinner tonight for my family. I washed the dishes, cleaned up my kitchen. I sit here thinking about the simple things, some that is lost to me now, others that I still hang onto. My husband got the shot ready, and put the shot in. I flinched, it hurt pretty bad tonight . Afterwards I cried my eyes out. My husband was heart broken for me, he felt terrible that it hurt. The simple things. This shot is so simple and yet so hard at the same time. Being married to me used to be so simple  (well not really) having a sick wife makes that hard.

Shot #41 is done and over now. I long for the simple things, I am not asking to climb mountains, or run in a marathon. I just want to feel the sunshine on my face, go for a walk and wash my hair. I just want to appreciate all those simple things that we take for granted . The clock is ticking, you never know when it might blow those simple things to pieces.

Tick..... Tick..... Tick.....

Until next week
Be Blessed
Cindi

Denial is a funny thing, I wonder how it effects us at time for the good, for the bad. Sometimes i think it help us when we are dealing with painful things, that we are unable to deal with at the moment, as long as we reach a point of facing and dealing with these things. Other times it can create havoc in are lives, and prevent us from functioning in the world in which we live in. We end up creating a world that can possibly be harmful to us if we are not careful. We find ourselves face to face with our reality and may be unable to meet it and deal with it accordingly.  

This past weekend I woke up and experienced a numbness in the left side of my face from my upper lip, and spreading up towards my eye, everything from my nose across my cheekbone and stopping at my ear. By Monday morning it still had been there and I needed to call the Dr. I hated calling him because I hated that this was happening to me. He told me to give it another 24 hours and if things hadn't changed that I needed to come in to the office to see him.
By Tuesday i discovered that now it had spread to my scalp and my teeth felt numb as well. I called again made an appt. for Thursday morning.

In the mean time I was feeling all sorts of emotions, fear, denial, and a host of others. It was as if I was staring my MS in the face. Like the MS said "HEY I AM HERE DON'T FOR A MINUTE THINK I AM NOT HERE , NOW DEAL WITH ME"   I was angry because I realized up until this point I was able to play that game of kidding myself into thinking I didn't really have this. For 40 weeks I have asked myself over and over every shot night why am I taking this dug I dont really need this . Now here I was facing my reality and damm if I didn't like this, not one bit.

I always thought i was facing this, I had no idea that I had created a world for myself that I thought was safe but in reality wasn't safe at all. There was a time years ago when my denial had served me well and was so necessary to my survival. But once i started search for answers and got them my denial became dangerous for me. The danger came because I never thought I would get worse, cause in my mind i didn't really have this. The danger came because once i realized that I can get worse, it was painful and scary and thankfully I have the love and support of many of my MS friends and my family to help get through it.

So it came time for the shot, its been 40 weeks now, and i am dealing with stuff that I didn't have to deal with before.
It was a late night and I never do well as it gets later. My husband had a hard time getting the shot in he said the muscle felt harder than usual. It was painful but over as quick as possible.

As I sit here posting this my shoulders are burning like they are on fire, i havent had that in a while so that was a little upsetting. I sit here and ponder the MS that is now staring at me saying hello, and I think of all the people i have met who are so much worse off then myself. The whole thing seems so unfair to all of us, but i am a big girl and smart enough to realize that I can't dwell on that one for too long. I need to let that go so I can move onward in the life as I now know it.

Shot # 40 is done and over. I have MS , it is staring me in the face now, and  there is no room for denial anymore, it is no longer my friend.  I am face to face with my reality, and I am meeting it and moving on accordingly its time to face tomorrow or even better today  .
Hello MS its me Cindi nice to meet you, now get out of my way!!

Until next week,
Be Blessed
Cindi

Recently I have read some sad things on the forums about people who have had family members turn their backs on them when finding out they have this wonderful illnesses called MS . As I read this stuff  I am left wondering to myself do we sometimes lose things that really we never had in the first place? I wish I could say that I am shocked and surprised by this sadly I am not. While its true when I hear this stuff my first reaction is shock but then after a second or two I am reminded of my glorious childhood and then its not so hard to understand at all.

What in the world would posses somebody to take one persons heartache and twist it in to an act of selfishness? I guess the answer could only be extremely selfish people. If I have an illness that can change my life forever and is scary and difficult why do some people rise up and stand next to me and then others make this all about them when I haven't asked anything from them other than their understanding? And really is it that hard to understand, I am sick.

My family has been wonderfully supportive about my health issues, I am blessed by them in ways that most times I am not even sure I deserve. My mother on the other hand has no idea I have MS, nor will she ever know until the passing of my grandmother. To spare an old women who is at the end of her life I have kept this from my own mother because I know she will tell her, and I would rather my grandmother go to her grave never having to bear this burden it would break her heart. She already bears the brunt of my diabetes and it has her heartbroken , if she knew that I now have MS added to my troubles it would devastate her.

In some of my selfish moments I wish my grandmother did know because she has been good to me all my life and sometimes I want to cry to her and feel her love and concern for me. Also because I have shared everything good and bad in my life with this women but this one thing about me will never be shared and it makes me feel her loss already even though she is still here. My mother is the most selfish person I know. She was/is an alcoholic, she abandoned me at the age 14 to live with her boyfriend. I was taken from her at 16 to live with my dad. The point is, everything, no matter what it is, she has always made about her. If she knew about the MS she would probably cry about how she gave it to me, or worse she would realize that I may not be able to care for her when she is to old to party her life away. In a mean way sometimes I can't wait to tell her just because I can't wait to rob her of this illusion that I am going to take care of her one day. Some people just don't understand that when a person is sick they are  sick its not about them at least in the sense of I didn't ruin my mothers plans if I am not healthy enough to care for her oneday but thats what will pain her the most.

I recently had a friend who I have been close to for 8 years become angry at me because I wasn't paying attention to her over the summer and calling her every day like I used to. meanwhile ask me how many times she called me? Not a one. I spent my summer in a self imprisonment and she is just angry that I haven't been knocking on her door and checking on her. What about the fact that I was too tired and not feeling well to even go food shopping over the summer?  Did she even once come over to ask if I needed something when she went to the store? Nope. She has talked about me to everyone who will listen, even my 12 year old daughter about how I stopped being her friend. The truth is she sounds ridiculous to everyone she has complained to.

People just need the attention so much that when you become sick they hate having even a little of that attention that you normally give them slip even a little, cause then it takes away from them. After all, its all about them.
Tonight was my 39th shot. My mother has no idea I have ever even taken one of these shots. In a way the burden of her knowing would be to much of a drain on me anyway. My grandmother will leave me one day never knowing that I have this wonderful knew challenge added to my life, thank God for that. My one friend has no idea of the personal struggles I have gone through since finding out about my illness. She has never even called in the two months I disappeared , even though she lives next door and saw my car parked outside all summer long. She is just crying that I am no longer her friend because I forgotten her and have taken from her for 8 years. I have taken nothing that I didn't give back ten fold. Whatever, she will never see any of this because then it would have to be about somebody other than herself. God forbid that ever happens cause  then maybe she would have to admit she was not being a friend to me either.

So we get ready my husband and I , and I thank God for the people I do have standing by my side through all of this. I have my husband and my wonderful in-laws, my kids, my brother and his girlfriend, my aunt who calls me every week to see how I am doing. My step mother, my dad. and my close friends that have not left me  for a minute. We get ready for the shot, it hurt a little going in but was over quick. I thought about the friend for 8 years that I no longer have and i thought about all my new found friends that I met on the internet that have filled in the gap for the loss of the one. God really does restore what you lose whether its family or friends or whatever, it is restored sometimes , no most times, with even better than what you had in the first place, cause after all you might never have really had it  in the first place.

Shot 39 is done and I as I sit here thinking of what I lost  a new close friend called me and we chatted about life and people we know and it helped reassure me that while I lost one close friend  God restored that and more with my new ones.  
Until Next week
Be Blessed
Cindi

I am 39 years old presently and in three days I will be 40. Today in the mail I received 8 cards from my oldest and dearest friend. We have been friends now for 30 years.We used to joke about how one day we would be old and sticking our teeth in a glass, and still raising hell where ever we went.  I am not sure where the time has gone, but in that time so much has happened. Many life changing things, one of them being my getting DX with MS.
It is interesting to me the people we become close to through out our lives. Some of them are in it for the long haul, others for a season. Still I have been blessed through out the years with many beautiful people, whether for the long haul or even in a season.

When I think about turning 40 I look back and wonder when did I get this old? At the same time I still feel like a little kid inside. We go through life and experience different things. Death, illness, loss, pain, happiness, joy, love, friendship. Its all there at different stages of our lives.

Today I was watching my first graders outside, and i couldn't help but wonder at them. They are so sweet and untouched by the many curves life can throw at us. I looked at them and wondered what was in store for them in the future. How many of them would live to be my age? How many would discover they have MS, or Diabetes, or cancer? Yet I watched them and wished for a second I could be that innocent again just for a moment. To run and laugh and be so carefree. To watch them play was amazing, they would make up all these pretend games, and chase each other all over the field with huge smiles covering their faces. I was in awe of their ability to be so untouched by life and yet be so full of life at the same time. How is it possible?  

I wish I could freeze that moment for all of them, so that they could be so beautiful and full of life forever. At the same time I have learned so much in this life that I wouldn't trade any of it whether  good or bad for anything. I often wonder what I would do over if I was given the chance. If I would even do anything different knowing that whatever I did would alter my life in a way that i would lose some of the most beautiful gifts I have been given even in times of adversity. Knowing that I can't imagine taking a chance with losing even the bad moments if it meant I would be losing the good. There is so much good here, that it would be not worth even contemplating about.

So I am getting ready for my 38th shot. Last week I ended up with a huge bruise because the shot went in wrong and the medicine sat under my skin. When I told my husband this he seemed so sad because he gives me the shots. I know he feels guilty when really I wish he wouldn't I am just grateful that he has carried this burden for me for the past 38 weeks. I was scared tonight and my husband looked scared to hurt me, or make a mistake as well. Thing is not all mistakes are bad, especially the ones we end up learning and gaining so much from after the clouds have given way to clear skies.

The shot went in and it hurt bad. My husband made sure he went in as deep as he could so that we wouldn't have a repeat of last week. It was over in seconds. My son came down afterwards and held me. I was clinging to him and feeling very thankful to have him. If I redid things who know if he would be there to put his arms around me, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Shot 38 is now a thing of the past, it is now 7 days until shot 39 . For now its over, I am counting down the days where I will not need to take any shots any longer. I am thinking of my Birthday and all the places life has taken me in the past 40 years. Some good, some bad, but I have come through them and i am not sorry for a single moment. I wouldn't trade any of it at all. In three days I will be 40 I am counting down the days and I find I dont have any regret at all. Heres to not regretting any of it, good or bad.

Until next week,
Be Blessed
Cindi