Thursday, January 01, 2009

Solu-Medrol and shaved legs

I shaved my legs for the first time in days. It was a little tricky to do considering my left leg and bum don't like cold things touching them (so leaning with my bum to the wall was out of the question) and my right foot is not very strong at the moment. But I did it. And I was in my well-lit bathroom. In my own bedroom. That made every moment of that shower feel like a little piece of heaven.

We got home last night around nine and decided on the way home to stop by at our friend's house to celebrate the New Year with them and all our other friends. We got home, spent a few minutes with my parents and then walked two houses down to the party. They weren't expecting us so it was a nice surprise. We stayed for about half an hour before I decided it was time to go home. I was standing in the kitchen and felt very hot. All that activity (read: standing) worn me out considering I'd only walked a little bit in the past few days.

I'm sitting here now with my home care nurse who hooked up the steroid IV. I've about half an hour until this does is all done. It takes about 2 hours for the fluid to work its way in. We have three more days of this until this course is finished and then no more drugs until we meet with my neurologist. I'm 33 years old and I have a neurologist. Definitely not something I *ever* thought I'd have to say. My neurologist.

It's scary. There have been tears. Breakdowns. Hugs. But on the whole we're doing ok. It's a day by day thing at the moment until we figure out how best to deal with the long term care. There will be dietary changes, lifestyle changes, attitude changes. I need to learn, first and foremost, how to deal with stress. Not better; just deal with it. I don't deal with stress very well at all and I believe that is a key trigger and reason as to why this happened to me. I don't know what it is about my body that made me susceptible to MS but I believe stress was the trigger. Perhaps if I lived a yoga-filled, deep-breathing, harmonious life in a peaceful ocean-side village this wouldn't have happened. Who knows. What I do know is that starting three days ago, we made a decision, regardless of the diagnosis, to be less stressed. We don't know how to relax very well. This week we had planned to stay home, relax, go out and do fun stuff. We ended up at the ER and in the hospital. Joe says, "We just don't know how to relax and take it easy."

No kidding.

Today has been pretty good. We had the home care nurse come by to show us how to administer the solu-medrol. That took about two hours. Then Rachel and Katie stopped by with muffins and sweet goodies from the New Year's Eve party. Then we had lunch. After lunch I decided that I was going to soak up some sun - the first sun I've seen all week. In fact, it was the first time I'd been outside during the day since Monday afternoon. Pulled up the pant legs, pulled up the sleeves and let the sun warm me up. If I had a hammock, I'd bundle up in a blanket and swing the day around. Amazing how some fresh, cold air clears the cobwebs and crazy thoughts. Clear mind. Calm thoughts. That's what I need.

Last pre-MS photo taken on Saturday

Sunshine after 3 days in a cave

Soaking up some much needed sunshine

IV line

Flowers from our friends Cate, Chris and Devin

1 comment:

maestrofjp said...

"I'm 33 years old and I have a neurologist. Definitely not something I *ever* thought I'd have to say. My neurologist."

Tell that to my then 27 year old wife last January ;-) I think we joked about the same thing. Funny to think our neurologist is on speed dial on my cell phone now. On speed dial I repeat. Never ever would have thought that 13 months ago.