In Other News...

my eye is healing well...I'm still scary to look at because now below my eye is PURPLE (i have some aviator shades that covers it right up), but 99.5 % of the swelling has gone down and my head is back to it's normal shape!  When i was growing up, i never had any major injuries to talk about - i think i'm making up for that these days in my "more mature" age!

NEVER a Dull Moment!!!

indulge me...this post might be a bit long.

So, i had yesterday and today off.  As it turns out, the reason that i took the days off fell thru and last nite i was in 2 minds about whether or not i would go to work today.  In the end, good sense prevailed and i decided to keep the off day and sleep in (i didn't have anything pressing that i had to go in for).  The last thing i did before i went to sleep was turn the volume of my phone OFF.  There's a reason for this.  Anyone who knows me well, knows that the ONLY thing that will actually get me up when i'm sleeping is my ringing cell phone and for reasons known only to God and herself, G2 ALWAYS calls me on my days off when she gets to her desk in the morning.  Last nite I said to myself, "Self, the last thing u want in the morning is to have to wake up by the sound of a ringing phone with G2 at the other end asking y u aren't logged on even though she knows that u are off." so what did i do?  i turned off the volume on my phone!

so i'm sleeping blissfully this morning - not even dreaming, fus (it was such) it was a good sleep - and all if a sudden i hear the doorbell; not once, but about 7 or 8 times in succession.  so of course, i jump up and i'm thinking "WTF!!  who the hell is that and y the ass are they ringing my bell like that??!!??"  i have to say here, that usually, i don't answer my bell - if someone is coming over, i usually know that they're coming and i'm expecting them - so naturally this morning, i was a little alarmed.  I looked out my window to see if i recognised the car, and lo and behold what did i see?  a fire/alarm emergency vehicle!  so now, i'm a little more than alarmed, trying to figure out what the ass was really going on!  i got my phone, looked at it and realised that i had 4 missed calls, 3! of them from G, so i called her back and asked her if she knew why there was an emergency vehicle parked outside the door.  That is when she informed me that apparently the Life Alert button had gone off (!) and they were trying to get in touch with me.  She was on her way home, K was on her way over and they told the Life Alert people that 1 of them would arrive soon to unlock the door.  She said that she was hoping NOT to get a ticket fus she was speeding to get to the house and was trying NOT to think about what she would find when she got home.  At this point,  i think more because i was jarred awake than anything, i could barely stand and really did not want to go all the way downstairs to tell the man at the door that it was a false alarm, so i called back the Life Alert people and asked them to please tell whomever was downstairs to leave because it was a false alarm.

Toward the end of all the explanations and phone calls (K2 and S were already getting ready jes in case they had to go to the hospital, so we had to call them to tell them that everything was alright), who should call but G2 - calling just to chat not knowing ALL the drama that she started.  when i gave her the story, she told me that she'd actually thought about calling at 4:30 this morning when she got up to watch the kiss meh ass wedding, but had a change of heart!!!!!!  see?  i know her so well, that i KNEW that there was a chance of her calling!!!

All in all, everyone had a good laugh after realizing that i was safe and there was no need for concern but now, i have to try to figure out a way to NOT set off the stupid thing when i'm asleep or maybe just NOT turn off my phone.  Better fete, G2 needs to NOT call me in the mornings on my days off so i won't have to turn off the volume to avoid her damn call!

AARGH!!! - Story of my Life (these days)

Well...i fell down again yesterday and had to go to the ER.  all in all, could have been much worse....Steups!!!

I was shaky after physical therapy, so it makes sense Y i fell (i s'pose)...what doesn't make sense to me is that i didn't hit anything, on my way down (just because of where it happened), but i have a black eye,  a bruise on my upper arm and a small one on my foot (all on the weaker, left side to boot).  i look like a boxer - with that swollen, purple eye.  It just so happened that I am off tomorrow and Friday - good thing, so i won't be very stressed out at work, so hopefully it'll heal properly.

 
My eyebrows are still HOT!

they did a CT Scan and everything looks good, so don't have to worry about that - it's just that i'm a Tyson look alike for now and a few more days to come i s'pose.  It appears that the swelling moved down my face too (my face looks a lil distorted there)  - my cheek is now swollen but the side of my head isn't.

argh!!! "happy" "happy" times!!!

Ramblings

i hope that a good Easter was had by all; i had a good one myself.  It wasn't a rough Lent, but i tell you, i couldn't wait to sink my teeth into some meat.  In fact, can't wait to go to Eclipse to dig into some Veal Osso Buco and lamb meatballs that they put on the menu duuring Lent - mmmhhhmmhhmmm.  Everytime i went during Lent, i had to just hang on to the aroma emanating from others' plates and imagine how both dishes taste.

i mentioned last week that i started going back to physical therapy.  Well this morning was the 2nd session and again, it went well.  The therapist had to walk me to my car though because had i walked on my own, i probably would still be trying to get to the car.  It always amazes me (altho i am NOT asking any questions and just running with it) that when walking, i am a righteous mess, but put me behind the wheel of my car and smooth sailing.  NO PROBLEMS WHATSOEVER!!!!  i swear if that is ever taken from me, I'm not sure what i would do.  I've said this before, i'll say it again - in my car is the 1 place where i feel like i'm on a level playing field with everyone else and i can take on ANYONE, ANYTIME (and i will win).

Anyhoo, i got home, got out of the car, took 2 steps to the door and fell right outside the front door.  it wasn't a bad fall - in fact, it was one of those times when i just said, "fuck it, i'll just take this tumble and move on." i didn't try to fight it.

I'm inside safely and SITTING; will try to keep the movements to a minimum today :-)

Happy Easter!!!

PT

i'm breathing a sigh of relief...things weren't as bad as i orignally thought they were, so everything's well with the world again.

i started physical therapy this morning.  I was going last year and then i don't remember what happened, but i stopped going - started back this morning.  This place was recommended by the MS Sociey of GA so i'm hopeful (i know that there can be no guarantees).  Things went well; we'll see how it goes this time around.  it'll be 1 hr sessions each time - havent decided if i will go once or twice weekly yet.  she did her evaluation and as usual i tested well.  I have noticed that all my muscles when tested individually work really well and are always strong. 

• they push down on my knees and tell me to push up and vice versa? done
• pull up on my feet and tell me to resist and vice versa?  no problem
• in a seated position, they try to close my legs while i push out?  piece of cake etc etc

Put all the muscles to work together and take 3 steps and that's when everything goes to shit!  oh goody!

anyhoo, so this is the 1st day of many more to come, and as i said - i'm hopeful, so we'll see...

Stress/Anxiety

It really is amazing how ur body reacts to stress (at least i hope it was the stress).

i messed up at work...and didn't realize my mistake until kinda late...not too late, but it was late.  I didn't stress out over it too much on Friday and Saturday, but last nite, i was a slight basket case and well this morning before i went downstairs - WHOA!!

one of the things that happens to me normally, when i'm nervous or anxious about anything is that i get cold - it's quite funny actually - it could be 100 degrees and i would be freezing my ASS OFF!!  so put that together with my normal unsteadiness (heightened with cold) and u can just imagine what u get.  I mentioned before that i think i may be getting worse (hopefully it's all in my mind); funny thing is that i only notice it during the week when i'm working.  On the weekends, i'm okay but during the week, not so much.   Am I stressed out at work?  No..not until now!  so this morning, i was just a righteous mess...

of course, i'm hoping that it was because i was stressing over the fallout at work and nothing more!

"You are a Nightmare"

That's what the nurse who told me about the port said to me last week Friday.  LOL!!!  She's an IV nurse; she normally gets it on her first try, but someone else usually has to call her over...Friday, they had to get 4 vials of blood for all the tests to be performed and as usual, the "molasses that flows thru my veins" had to be coaxed out -

• i had to let my hand hang naturally
• the needle had to be pushed in and drawn out (not all the way) a few times,

...and after all that, she didn't even get 3 full vials!  Steups!  By this time, the 1st chick was fed up (she knew i was also in pain), so she called over the IV nurse and as she walked over, she looked at me, sighed and said, "u really are a nightmare".  Of course that sparked ah set of jokes about their groaning on the Friday that they see me walk in, "oh geez, here comes Stacey - lemme pretend to be busy, someone else will get to her" etc. etc...

LOL!!  Who knew that the infusions could have turned out to be happy happy times :-)

Funny...

i always find it funny when other people can make jokes about my situation.  So i mentioned that i gave blood the other day.  It was a blood drive sponsored by the bank, so i'd emailed the coordinator 2 days prior with a couple questions (i'd never met the man before).  I walk into the room where they've set up and when i signed in, (same fella happened to be the one with the sign in sheet) he said to me, ur name is familiar...have we met?  So i told him that i'd emailed him a few days ago, bla blah blah...we engaged in ah lil small talk and i went on my way.

When i was done, i said goodbye to everyone and started my trek to the car (i swear that it was a 8 mile walk to the car)!  Now, whenever I'm walking (esp if it's a tight space) and i hear someone behind me, I move to the side so that i don't keep back anyone.  So...i heard someone coming up behind me, so i just moved over so that the person could go head...it was the same guy and as he walked by, he said, "boy Stacey...u not going to be winning any races or setting any records there huh!"

Now someone else might have been offended/get their panties all in a bunch - i thought it was funny as hell!  I laughed and i laughed hard!  As it turns out, we were heading to the elevator and he ended up having to wait on me to get to it :-)

i always appreciate a good laugh/sense of humour.

Size DOES Matter

so yesterday i went to give blood...i've spoken about being a blood donor before, the diameter of the needle is (--) that big; the needle is HUGE (as far as i am concerned).  Anyhoo, when u go to give blood, they swab the area with iodine - wiping(scrubbing) it clean.  the chick yesterday did that and left the iodine on my skin; it's a dark brown liquid like substance.  After all that, she had no problems and stuck the needle in with ONE shot - NO PROBLEMS, normEl, normEl.  The blood flowed with no issues and i was actually done in 10 minutes!!!

I am convinced that the size of the needle makes a helluva difference; i doh care what the professionals think/say..it MUST be the size of the needle.  Y is it that when i go for my infusion, my veins don't corporate??? they play the "i don't want to come out and lime" or "catch me if u can" games AND my blood never flows; in fact, recently, the lady had to use a syringe to plunge and draw the blood out of me!!!!!  i think the veins see that "blood donor" needle coming and jes boil down like bhaji (settle/calm right down).

I'm a pint low...go easy on me :-)

Speak No Evil

When i started working at the bank, i was in a banking center.  I worked at many centers and they were all extremely busy.   Whenever things slowed down a bit, it was taboo for anyone to utter those words, "it's kinda quiet in here" or "today's been really slow"....ultimately if someone uttered those words, the "Nationsbank bus" would pull up and let loose hoards of customers...

I've been avoiding this for a while now - for fear that it might actually come true/be true...

I think my walking is getting worse.  

It'll be 12 months on Tysabri on Friday; it's working i s'pose - no additional scarring on my brain - altho, i haven't had an MRI on my spine since the original one last year, so who knows what that might show when i go for 1 this year (i'm assuming that i'll be sent to get 1).

Quite frankly, things are (feel) worse during the week than on the weekend - go figure!  I'm still trucking, but i still hate having MS too!