a better tomorrow

So that’s what keeps me smiling… I will feel better tomorrow. While the progress has been slow or seemingly non-existent, I will keep smiling. It’s been 9 days now since I noticed the numbness inside my mouth and lack of sense of taste. While I will say, things don’t taste quite as AWFUL, they still certainly don’t taste great. Don’t know if I’m just adapting, or actually getting better though. Today is also day 5 since I started the prescribed regiment of Prednisone to combat my symptoms. The stuff is wicked. Turns me into such a bitch. Also causes water/sodium retention, so I’m feeling a bit like the Pilsbury dough boy and thirsty all the time. After two days on the Prednisone, this fitness nut was ready to toss the scale off my 5th floor balcony. I don’t deal well with seeing the pounds adding on! I decided the best solution was to not step on until this is all over. 🙂
Another challenge with the meds is I went from sleeping 9-11 hours a night, to barely able to sleep at all. I’m exhausted, but wired. It’s frustrating…
BUT…. I WILL FEEL BETTER TOMORROW

Matter of taste

Day 4 of no sense of taste. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but let me say, it SUCKS. The things I love to eat now taste like crap. 😛 Even my favorite breakfast of oatmeal and blueberries makes me want to gag. Hopefully I will be able to get an appointment with my GP today to see if he can be of any help. Otherwise I will have to wait until next week to try to get in with my MS dr.
Came home from work last night at 9 ish and pretty much went straight to bed. Even slept right through the night! Rare. With a complete lack of interest in food, I’m getting weaker and weaker. Needless to say, my fitness regime has been lacking. 😦
Here’s to hoping for a better tomorrow…

A little effort please

Yesterday morning, my oatmeal just didn’t seem to have my flavor… As the day continued, I learned that nothing seemed to have much flavor. On top of this, the inside of my mouth felt like I had just left the denist and everything was frozen.
Skip to today – just doing some dishes this morning, and I dropped a mug on the floor. Yup, shattered. After sweeping up the broken mug and grabbing another, I parked it on the couch for a quick coffee date with my girl. Somehow drooled coffee onto the couch. Great start to the day, but I just laughed it off as usual. 🙂
THEN on my way to work, my right arm and right side of my head/face went numb. At this point, I wasn’t laughing anymore. Continued on my way to work, but when my key holder showed up I left to go to the hospital to get checked out. While I’ve experienced many relapses before, many of which involved numbness, today felt different. I’ve never been through numbness in my head before. When I got to the hospital, the triage nurse told me my symptoms pointed towards that of a stroke, but because I had MS she wasn’t sure what to do. I was quickly taken into the Acute care section, but as soon as the dr read “MS” on my chart, he didn’t put ANY effort into any further diagnosis. I’m sure I’m not alone on this one. Yes, I have a critical illness that many people don’t understand (often myself included) but it would be nice to see a dr once in a while that you didn’t have to ASK to not take the easy out. Too many times I’ve heard “that could be just a symptom of your MS”.
What if it’s not??

Back on track

Today’s the day I get back in the game. Fitness is a passion of mine which I’ve not been able to put much effort into lately. I could make a pile of excuses like: I just don’t seem to have time, it’s hard to find the desire after my 1.5-2.5 hour drive home from work, and a big one for me – I just don’t have the energy! But these excuses won’t get me back to the level of physically fit that makes me happy.
SO today is the day. I’ll be using the help of http://www.myfitnesspal.com to keep focused on healthy eating, and setting a gym schedule to get back on track. Being physically fit and eating healthy has helped me keep MY MS symptoms relatively under control when they attempt to affect me physically. It helps with strength and balance, and keeps my stress levels good too.

Recharged… Mostly.

What a difference 10 days can make. February 7th I was stressed to the max with getting ready to leave my store for a week, getting ready to leave the country for a week, and having a 10pm hockey game the night before a 3:30am pick-up for the airport. I avoided voicing my worry over that last part to anyone since I knew there wouldn’t be much sympathy considering I was heading to the sunny south for a week… But the average person doesn’t get what even one night of missed sleep does to me. Anyways… I got through it all and made it to my week of pure bliss in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic 🙂 Spent the remainder of Wed., and all of Thurs. and Fri. soaking up the sunshine with the girl I love. It was wonderful. Saturday we booked an excursion zip lining, touring “monkey jungle” and visiting Cabarete, a famous parasailing beach. While I had heard Cabarete was an amazing spot that had to be seen, I was less than impressed. The vendors on this beach were VERY aggressive in trying to get you to buy something. Even wanted to charge us to sit in one of the chairs on the beach. Have to say, we were happy when the bus was there to take us back to our peaceful little hotel. Unfortunately though, a bunch of people got sick after the excursion… Ange was very ill the next morning and I was not feeling well for the next few days either. At first I figured it was just MS symptoms of weakness, fatigue and dizziness, but when I discovered I wasn’t the only one, I wasn’t so sure. Long story short, the last few days away were not as wonderful as the first. And just to kick us while we were down, Mon. brought a full day of solid rain :S Ange and I played more games of cards then we’ve ever played…
While I was happy to return to life as usual on Wed., seeing the snow falling softly today did have me longing for the sun and sand for a moment. The vacation did it’s job… I returned to work and life rejuvenated and refreshed 😉
I won’t even begin to get into the drama that surrounded our whole day of return to Toronto :p

Tropical therapy

A week in the sun may not be a cure, but the mental relief is unbelievable… Some find it hard to tollerate the heat, I find the cold a real challenge. Yet I live in Canada? Hmmm…<

small request

To all my friends and family, a small request which would mean the world…

I don’t expect you to understand me.  I don’t expect you to understand why I am the way I am, as much of the time I myself do not.  When I say I’m tired, or can’t come party ’til late at night, I need you to be understanding.  I will never expect you to understand, as to understand is to live it, and I would never wish that upon anyone.  This being said, I do ask that you please be understanding. 

I promise to always try to be understanding of you.

Thank you, Kate.

snow balling

So… the last month or so has felt like the worst I’ve experienced.  This April will be 7 years since I was diagnosed with MS and up until now the symptoms I have experienced surrounding each relapse have been mostly numbness and mild to moderate “fuzzy brain”.  There have been a few painful relapses too.  Felt like my entire side was frost-bitten and being stuck in a hot bath constantly.  Those were not overly fun, but this one has been the worst.  I have never before felt this lack of confidence in myself as right now.  My memory has been badly affected all along, but when I had to look up the words to our Canadian national anthem I was pretty deflated.  The physical issues I can generally cope with fairly well, but when my mind is affected I have a really hard time with that.  I work in a field which I really do enjoy.  Retail management is not for everyone, but I like the interaction with people, the ability to coach and mentor my staff to achieve awesomeness, and I have a love for photography which I am surrounded by every day.  December is a tough time of year in retail though.  There is a lot of long days, pressure to meet goals, and grumpy stressed out people.  Normally, something I deal with no problem.  This year it hit really hard.  Never have I felt like maybe I can’t do something until this year.  Never have I had a day where I’ve considered asking for a leave of absence until this year.  My mind shut me out.  I couldn’t think right.  I couldn’t process situations.  I couldn’t plan my day.  I couldn’t stay focussed on anything.  It was scary, and I didn’t know what to do.  Thankfully I’ve started to bounce back.  Started to get my mind working with me, instead of against me again…  I’m not completely me again, but I’m celebrating the progress as it comes. 

AND counting down the days ’til I leave for vacation 🙂  Praying that the week away will help relieve some of the often unbearable fatigue that comes with MS.  Those who don’t really understand, REALLY don’t understand.  It can be like nothing you could ever begin to imagine if you haven’t lived it. 

A week away from it all should be a big help in getting the me I know back….

first steps

I’m not an avid blogger, but after reading spending the last hour reading through a page created by a friend, I was inspired to give this a shot.  The part that really roped me in was learning the details surrounding my friend’s challenges dealing with something we both share in living with MS.  What I found incredible about this blog was the openly honest form in which it was written.  As another person dealing with this complicated disease, it was easy to understand the struggles and celebrate the little victories along with her.  My hope with starting a blog of my own as well is that I will be able to provide others with the sense of comfort in know they are not alone.  For those who have MS, this will be relatable.  For those who don’t, maybe I will be able to help you gain even a little more understanding of what it’s like…