Aloha

Aloha means hello & goodbye.

I have been writing this blog for 6 months now; since I got my diagnosis of MS.  You and I have been through a lot of ups and downs together.  I thank you so much for traveling this road with me and supporting me during this crazy time.

I have come to accept MS.  I have screamed, cried, laughed, broken down and pulled myself up over the past half a year.  I am done with thinking about MS every minute of every day.  I'm done with having it consume me. 

So, I am going to stop writing this blog.  I need to move on with my life and actually get on with living it!  I will leave this blog up and active for reference because there is a lot of information in the posts that will be helpful to those just diving into the MS pool. 

I wish you all the best.  If anyone would like to stay in touch, you can either leave a comment on any blog post (it gets sent to me) or you can email me (email address in my profile to the right).  I imagine I'll miss writing the blog but, I'm planning on filling up my time with other new and fun things.

Aloha my friends,
Love Ali
xoxo

Friend-ily Reunion

Hi everyone, I hope that you're all enjoying your Autumn (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere of course).  For anyone reading this from somewhere hot & sunny, well, I'm just really jealous. 

Anyway, when the weather gets colder, Canadians start to think about traveling.  I am personally looking VERY forward to my trip to Mexico this xmas!  Vitamin D from sunlight is apparently great for MS so, that's my excuse to lay like a vegetable on the beach for 10 days.

My friend Amy is doing a bit of a lateral trip this weekend and will be visiting me in BC from Ontario; a quick 4.5 hour flight across the country and not much of a weather change for her unfortunately.  We have been besties since we were 9 years old and haven't been able to spend a ton of time together since I moved away and she got married and started a family.  I am SO excited!

You know how we've talked about the things in our lives that make us feel better and experience some relief from the worry of MS (like pets, kids, yoga etc)?  Well, friends are a huge component of the happiness-factor in my life and I can't wait for four days of uninterrupted girl-time! 

Amy & I are those friends that spent nearly every minute together when we were growing up and, when we weren't together, were on the phone talking about what we were going to do next.  If you are a parent with a kid at home that never, ever gets off the phone, you know what our parents dealt with for decades.

We are going to do a lot of shopping, dining out, wine-drinking, whale watching and sightseeing over the next four days.  I've been having a bit of a recurrence in my MS symptoms over the past week so, I'm going to rest up like crazy tonight and then I'll be ready to go like a shot tomorrow.

Do you have any friends in your life that make a huge difference in how you handle your MS?  If you'd like to shout-out any of your good friends, leave me a comment or send an email and I'd be happy to give them a special mention. :)

All the best, Ali.

2nd Attempt...Tie-Dye For

I made tie-dyed cupcakes this weekend and they are so cool.  I mentioned a few posts ago that I was going to start trying new things with one of them being baking & decorating.  This is my second attempt and I made these!!!!!!!!

Trippy batter

Baked

Yum!

Just separate and dye your white cake batter in different bowls.  Then add them together (without stirring) right into your cupcake liners or cake pan.  Easy and super-fun!

What new things are you trying?  I figure I'll enjoy all of the mobility and fine motor skills I can while this remission lasts.  I know my colleagues, family & friends are enjoying my "experiments"!!!!  ha ha

Any ideas for what I should try next?  Just don't say flambe!

Gobble Gobble

HAPPY THANKSGIVING fellow Canadians!  I hope that you're all having a wonderful time with your families and are enjoying the tradition of stuffing yourselves, along with your turkeys.

I'd also like to say a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend Amber (for Oct.9th).  I hope that you have a wonderful year filled with happiness and new experiences. The new experiences part shouldn't be too difficult now that you have your beautiful little baby boy.

Enjoy everyone!  Love Ali xoxo

The Unfeeling Digit

I woke up this morning with a numb thumb.

As seems to be the case about 95% of the time with me, I wake up with MS symptoms and weirdness out of the blue.  I guess that my MS is also a night owl just like the person it inhabits.

I mentioned the thumb-situation to my boss this morning and we both worried about an impending relapse for a while. This is until our day took off like a shot and we both got too busy to think about it anymore.  By the time I left for the day, my thumb was back to its old self.  So strange.  Or maybe not...I'm still pretty new to this whole MS thing so, perhaps this is exactly what it's all about?

Let's check in with the experts.   (insert Jeopardy music here................)

Well, interesting...it turns out that numbness and tingling are some of the most common of MS symptoms with 90% of us experiencing them.  This symptom is actually called paresthesia.  A pretty name for something that's really annoying.

Paresthesia is caused by lesions in the brain and spinal cord (surprise, surprise). Temporary numbness can also be caused by external factors such as heat intolerance or being overly fatigued.  I don't know what the cause of my numb thumb was but, I'm really glad its gone for the day.

This symptom can also present as burning, itching, shocking and vibrating sensations - I've had all of these too at one time or another and I know that most of you MSers can relate.  These sensations don't usually indicate a worsening or progressing of MS but, are an ongoing thing that we will have to get used to and work around until there is a treatment or cure.

If the numbness etc. gets too much to bear, there are a couple of medications that doctors are currently using to alleviate some of the discomfort:  Tegretol and Amitriptyline.  Strangely enough, I have experience and knowledge of both of these drugs for unrelated things.  My grandmother took Tegretol and let me tell you, this anti-seizure drug is not something that you can use and still expect to stay alert enough to drive or even stay awake most of the time.

I was personally prescribed Amitriptyline back in the day when my first neurologist told me that I didn't have MS but diagnosed me with aura migraines.  Oh how wrong she was!  Anyway, this drug can lower your blood pressure severely and caused me to have extreme dizziness, nausea, see spots and feel weak.

So, it's up to you.  In my case, I think I'll just live with the numbness as the above medications mimic other MS symptoms and it seems like you'd just be trading in one thing for another.  Oh well, as with everything Multiple Sclerosis, it could be better and it could be worse.

To make myself feel better and lighten the worry of this stupid disease, I often give the MS acronym different names; today lets call it Mother Sucker shall we?  Do you have any other ones and how do you deal with your numbness?

Ali.

First Attempt and Overfilled

Hi everyone, I was going to post a bit about MRI's today but, I just finished my first attempt at actually baking something and I was so excited that I didn't burn the house down...I needed to share.  For those of you who know me, I don't bake or cook.  Like, only if absolutely necessary.

It's not like I don't want to, it's just that I hate the smell of cooking in my house and it seems like so much work for just one meal when I'm eating alone.  I'm a go out and eat kind of girl - I love everything about socializing over a meal and a glass of wine.

Anyway, I have happened across not one, but two, psychics over the past three weeks (totally by chance-I know, weird).  They both told me that I was stifling my creative talents and that I should branch out and try something new.

I have always loved to decorate cookies (when someone else makes the cookies and loads the dishwasher!)...ha ha  My mother is nodding right now.  So, I thought, why don't I learn to bake and decorate?  I went out and bought muffin tins, cupcake liners, decorative icing tips etc.  When I first brought them home I just kind of stared at them, put them away and forgot about them.

Tonight I was bored and decided, it was time.  So, I just made orange cupcakes with cream cheese frosting that I dyed lilac, lime green and pink.  I know that I'm no Van Gogh of cupcake-making yet but, I'm so proud that I didn't blow anything up and they actually taste good!  Check it out...

We can talk about MRI's later but, for now, I'm proud of my gimpy, amateur cupcakes.  Since I got MS, I've been trying to live every minute and experience all kinds of new things.  This is step one on the road to becoming the person that everyone wants to bring the dessert to their party...I hope. :)

What new things have you been trying?  Any suggestions?

UPDATE: I just realized that the title doesn't make much sense.  I forgot to tell you that I overfilled them and the cupcakes turned out to be HUGE!  Who knew that you're only supposed to fill the cups halfway (don't say "everyone").  Lesson learned...

Ali.