B&W Photo Challenge Day Five

July 10, 2018October 5, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 2 Comments

I was tagged a few days ago to participate in the black and white photo challenge by Kim author of I Tripped Over a Stone. If you haven’t “met” Kim or visited her website, please do. Kim’s blog is primarily geared toward living with Fibromyalgia, but it’s not only informative about her disease, she offers great advice and support for so many people no matter what they have on their plate. I definitely consider myself blessed to be able to call her my friend.

You know there are always rules to everything in life! The rules for this are straightforward. Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day.

Today I invite, Tanya, author of incurable dreamer to the challenge. A word of caution though before you check out her blog, reading her blog while holding a beverage is highly discouraged.

Tanya, please don’t feel like you HAVE to join the challenge, but please provide a proof of life picture? I could really use some of your humor these days!!!!!

I’m curious to see the world through your lens!!!!!

A long walk (part 2)

July 10, 2018October 5, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 17 Comments

Part 2 of A long walk

So there I lay on the floor in my kitchen. Apparently I was able to call my daughter’s name before I collapsed. When I “came to”, she was crying, yelling my name, and attempting to clean up the blood on my face and legs. She told me she had called 911 and asked me what had happened.

The paramedics arrived quickly and suggested that I let them take me to the hospital. NO!!!!!! This was not my first rodeo, and besides that how would I get home and who would stay with my daughter? After passing their “awareness tests”: “What day is today? What’s your name? Where are you? Who is the president?”, they gave me a list of symptoms to watch out for and left.

I let Thing Two put a contraption like this on my face/head for a few days, and I slept ALOT. ( being woken up by someone every couple of hours as the paramedics recommended) After about a week, I was left with remnants of a black eye, the swelling of my chin in the above picture and a bit of road rash on my hands and knee.

I tried to begin walking again after a couple of weeks, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house on foot. I was terrified that I would fall again and wouldn’t be able to make it back up. My neighbors and my kids had done enough “babysitting” ,and I didn’t want to be a burden any longer. I found myself on Amazon ordering a complete set of protection gear including hand/wrist guards and knee and elbow pads, but it would take a couple days to arrive.

Time for a road trip

Thing two went to stay with a friend for a couple days, and I hired someone to dog sit for the weekend. As I was making the 3 hour drive to Einstein’s current house, I started to get a headache. I popped a couple advil and continued on my way. (Advil tablets are a permanent staple in my purse, along with bandaids, xanax etc)

When I arrived at Einstein’s I immediately went to lay down and fell asleep quickly. My MS Bladder woke me up after about an hour and I tried to sit up. TRIED being the operative word. My head felt like it was going to explode, and I quickly laid back down. What the fuck was that?!?!?!?

After lying there for a few moments, the pain in my head disappeared and my bladder started screaming again. Once more I tried to sit up. This time my head did explode in the form of projectile vomiting. I managed to crawl into the bathroom, empty my bladder, and slept on the floor for the next few hours.

When I woke up, I cleaned myself and the mess up and crawled back into bed, where I stayed for the next two days.

What the fuck kind of ‘flu’ is this? Why did my head want to blow up everytime I sat up, and then the pain go away almost as soon as I laid back down? How was I going to get back home?

to be continued……

B&W Photo Challenge Day Four

July 9, 2018October 5, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 12 Comments

Today I invite Steve, from MSich Chronicles to join the challenge. Steve went to see “the Wizard of ….” on Saturday and I really look forward to hearing about his tale. The inside joke is that Oz is his first exploration into the world of medical marijuana for Multiple Sclerosis.

Steve, ~~please don’t feel like you have to join the challenge.~~ Wait, that’s not true at all! Please do feel all the peer pressure that I am putting on you!!!! After rereading the rules… I really do like the part about Seven black and white photos of YOUR LIFE.

I’m curious to see the world through your lens!!!!!

A very LONG walk

July 9, 2018October 5, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 27 Comments

I don’t know if I have ever talked about it before, but I used to be STUCK in a wheelchair. It was 2009, before I started Tysabri Infusions. I won’t give all the credit the that I am again walking to Tysabri, but it has been very effective at slowing down the frequency of my MS flares and relapses. There was also a stay in a rehab facility and a solid year of physical therapy 3 x a week once I was discharged. I have also been on Ampyra for, hmm I don’t know how many years as well. (If you have never heard of it, Ampyra is known as the “walking drug” for MS.)

A few years ago, I had worked up to being able to walk for a full mile at a time without having to stop or take a break. That’s NOT to say I wasn’t ‘down’ for the rest of the day, or that there were not a few falls ( and bone breaks ) involved, but I went from wheelchair to walking, and I was so proud of myself!!!! I had even begun taking my dogs for my morning walk, until that ONE DAY!

When I woke up that morning, I didn’t really feel like walking, but if therapy taught me anything it was IF YOU DON’T USE IT, you LOSE it. So I dragged my ass out of bed, brushed my teeth, coffeed, leashed the dogs, and headed out the door.

When my dogs went through obedience and therapy dog training, they were each ‘assigned’ different sides, D. O. G walks on the left, and SNUFF walks on the Right. (in the picture they are reversed) I wrapped each of their leashes around my hands tightly, and would soon find out that I had made a HORRIFIC mistake in doing so.

Both dogs could sense that I wasn’t feeling well and weren’t behaving as well as they normally did. (They were competing for my attention and walking under my feet.) I was very grateful to be rounding the last corner of the block (I was less than 200 feet from my front door)

The “Scene of the Crime”

This building was a barber shop, and the barber had come out to empty his trash. When he saw me he waved and called “hello” as he did 100 times before. For some reason, both dogs pulled in different directions and down I went…… literally something like this….

I landed directly on my chin and was pulled/dragged toward the un-offending man while he ran back in the store. (In his defense, he did TRY to come back out to help me up, but the dog’s seemed to have lost their minds when I fell and would not let him anywhere near me)

Somehow I got the dog’s under control and was finally able to stand up and limp home. I made it in my front door, called out to thing 2 and immediately collapsed again.

(to be continued)

I don’t think I made it clear when I posted this, this was a couple years ago. Sorry if I mislead anyone

B&W Photo Challenge Day 3

July 8, 2018October 5, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 11 Comments

Today I INVITE Tom, from Tom Being Tom to participate in this challenge. Normally at this point I say “please don’t feel like you have to join the challenge“, but THIS time to peek your interest, and challenge your competitive side, ( I’m remembering a challenge to right a blog post every day for the month of June) I CHALLENGE you!!

I would add a bad “over the hill joke here” (Tom just turned 50), but I hope I have peeked his interest enough.

So Tom, in the spirit, of Church day, I hope you participate. I even brought you a beer 😛

I’m curious to see the world through your lens!!!!!”