All Bruised Up

so i fell down yesterday.  I just wrote about falling last week and i fell yesterday - it's almost like i called it on myself.

Anyhoo, it was a good"ish" fall.  I actually fell hard on concrete on my knees in the parking lot in front my house.  i thought that my knees would be in a mess, but it turns out that they are okay...the tops of my feet however is another story.  Because of how i fell, i was in a precarious position against the car and had to drag my (upside down) feet to get out of it.  Ended up with 3 whiteman bruises the top of my right foot.  I was carrying a Target bag with some stuff and all the stuff stayed in the bag - so all in all a good fall, nothing to complain or write home about.

happy times!

Boat Rides

So...

• boatride in NY was standing room only and we know how well i do that!  good thing i didn't go
• boatride in ATL was perfect - good thing i went!!!  

App there were 85 people on the boat and as A put it, if there were 86 people, it would have been too many.  We snuck all our drinks onto the boat, we had room to get on bad and thoroughly enjoy ourselves.

a few pictures....

 

"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 :-)

Happy"est" Times

so OB is here.  He came in on 11/7 and he's been "terrorizing" me ever since.  He AND G are taking jabs at me every moment that they can....talking about how slowly i climb the steps, how i get into the car - jokes cyah done (continuous trash talk)!  My mother comes in tomorrow and i know that it'll be us against them for the entire time that she's here.

It's all good though - that's how we do.  I've said it before, I'll say it again - if i don't laugh, i'll cry and from where I sit, laughing is the better option!

Infusion Time "Fun"

Anyone want to take a wild guess as to how many times i was stuck last Friday?

anyhoo...so i went on Friday for my 6th (time flies when u're having fun) infusion.   The head nurse (andrea) walks over and starts trying to get my vein to corporate (applying heat, tapping it, flicking it).  It looks like it's going to be a good day but then she goes in and... has no luck....the vein is just not on this infusion business and has better things to do i s'pose.  She calls over someone else...she nails it!  woohoo!!  we are on a roll here.  This time because it's my 6th one, they need 3 vials of blood for whatever blood work they have to do.  The chick says that she'll wait to get blood after i've gotten the medication. (skip ahead 2 hrs)

Andrea walks over and says, "lets get some blood and send u on ur way."  She takes the syringe and whatever other apparatus they use and inserts it into the IV, pulls back on the plunger and - NOTHING!!  She thinks that the vein that we're in is kinda tiny, so she'll have to go in somewhere else. (skip ahead 45 mins)

By this time, both my wrists and forearms are sore and 2 other nurses have seen me.  Remember i said that they needed 3 vials of blood?  they got 3/4 vial!!!!  My blood just didn't feel like flowing.  At the end of it all, Andrea said that they will just take it and do whatever testing they could with what they had.  I was so happy to hear her say that because i really wasn't in the mood to try yet another time.

so...at the end of it all, how many times did i actually get stuck?  7!!  twice for the medication and 5x for the 3/4 vial of blood - sooooo NOT what I signed up for!

Happy Times!

Had dinner with my fellow MSers last nite.  we had a really great time and it was good catching up with them - i haven't seen then since the end of the seminar.  We exchanged war stories of the past few months, laughed, they commented on my walking and just had an overall good time.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, my friends and family are the best at supporting me and making adjustments etc, based on my needs but there is nothing like talking to and swapping stories with other MS "sufferers".

Anyhoo...tomorrow is my 1st Tysabri infusion; I have to admit that I am extremely excited.  I am hopeful and staying very positive about what this treatment can do for me. 

• The risk of the brain infection is in the back of my mind, but way way back; I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

I'm already enjoying NOT sticking myself everyday...in fact i was supposed to be off of it for 2 weeks prior to the infusion, but i stopped it about 3/4 weeks ago :-).  I go in at 1:00 tomorrow afternoon and will be there for 3 hrs (pre-infusion work/infusion/monitoring) - honestly, i can think of a few better things to do for 3 hrs on a Friday afternoon - but hey!  I chose a Friday afternoon so that I have the weekend to recuperate if necessary.

Wish me luck (from across the miles, oceans, continents etc)!!!

Carnival *sigh!*

I cannot play mas again! WOWZER!!! it's just too heartbreaking to be in the middle of it and not be on the road; hence my breakdown in DC last year.  One of my favorite lines in "Unconditional Love" by Machel Montano is "we hypnotized by the music from d truck so we walking for miles"; it's such a true statement and really captures the essence of Carnival...well 5 mins into walking those miles, my ass would have to stop! 

We have come up with a way around it of course...we only play in bands that we have contacts/know the leaders, so that we can organise for me to be on a truck.  For the past 2 years in DC (it's the only mas that i actually play in up here), I've been a fixture on the drinks truck in one of the bands - and that's my parade.  It could be worse, it could have been that i didn't even have that option.

I don't think that i want to go back home for carnival ever again - at least not while suffering from Foot Drop/weakness.  While i am not a burden to my friends here, i know that Trini carnival is a whole nother beast and i cannot/will not slow them down besides, if i cried down the place in DC, what the hell would happen on Independence Square!