Good News and Bad News

It doesnt seem right to start this post with "here's the good news" - because the bad news is so sad. My grandfather, Russell James Crouse, passed away yesterday. He had a history of heart troubles and in an emergency surgery yesterday his heart was too weak to recover and he passed away in the operating room. He will be so sorely missed but all of us who knew him - he loved Christmas time, collecting Hess trucks each holiday season. He restored and built wooden boats and was married to my grandmother Doreen for more than 50 years. He entered every contest and never wasted a chance for a mail-in rebate.


His service will likely be in the next few weeks - he loved the Mt. Dora Antique Boat Festival so the family will gather and give him a water farewell in Mt. Dora.

In other news - we ordered new flooring. Anyone who has visited knows the nightmare that is our floors. The previous owner did something to disguise the nasty conditions of the actual grout of the tile - and his temporary fix apparently had an expiration date of more than a year ago. My breaking point was on Sunday when I spent 40 mins back-breakingly mopping the tile floor only to look back and see it didn't look any more clean than when I started. I physically can't tote a mop and bucket and scrub like that anymore and I sure wont do it anymore for a floor that doesnt look clean.

We decided to lay laminate over the old tile - no mess, installed next day (though we cant actually be there to supervise until the first week of July so there is some delayed gratification). But it will be lovely. We're doing the common areas and the kitchen - the bath room will have to be tackled in another manner but it's small so that's a DIY job.

What it looked like when we moved in:


What it looks like now - chipped and cracked sealant:

What it will look like with the wood installed... the Latte color will match the dog!

Speaking of the dog - he got a new school spirit dog collar. Go Bulls!

Lastly, a quick update on me with the meds. I've now stuck myself for 4 days with few mishaps (last night I forgot to uncap the needle before putting into the autoinject machine thingie and it was a mess to clean once I realized what I had done. Then another 40 mins before I could try again!)

My fridge is overtaken with the needles and I get some pretty nasty injection site issues but all-in-all I have to convince myself this is for my good. Copaxone isnt something that is making me better - it's design to make it so I dont get worse. I make the analogy that it's like birth control - you know birth control is working if pregnancy DOESNT happen. I know Coaxone is working if I DONT get attacks. In the meantime the injections just kinda stink having to do each night - but what doesnt kill me makes me stronger.

Our weekend was nice and quiet - sort of.

Friday night we knew we needed to stay in considering Tim had a call out he knew was happening at 3am. He got maybe 4 hours of sleep before leaving to go handle that mess - and of course I enjoyed the nice warm bed solo until he got home about 9:30. Days like that are somewhat annoying though, because I'm asleep while he's busy and then he gets home and gets in bed right as I get up with things to do.

The nurse from the drug company had set an appointment with me for between 1-2 on saturday... She called no less than 3 times trying to move the appointment and after freaking me out by threatening to come when the house was a wreck she eventually said she'd be at our house at that same 1-2 hour... Sure ya will... I woke Tim up about 12:30 because I refused to deal with this last alone. I already knew she had no regard for people's schedules and over the phone she sounded either tired or drunk. I was not excited as it was at the prospect of sticking myself (eeek) and then to have this lady as my appointed "coach", I was definitely going to need backup in case she made me cry - it was Tim's job to bounce her from the house if it came to that!

Well, as annoying as she was and she was MORE THAN AN HOUR LATE I still managed to learn how to inject myself. She was less than pleased with my resistance to injecting myself with real meds while she was there - I'm sorry, I'm not letting someone else dictate when I take a medicine that affects me less than favorably. It had been 2 days on the meds, this lady wasn't gonna win that battle. I will administer that when I darn well feel like it - and that was when she pretty much got the "thanks for coming" bounce out of my house!

Later that night while Tim sat at the table next to me I had the courage to jam it into my thigh and overall I was just so proud of myself that I didnt notice how badly it was burning! My method of heat the site with a hot pack, inject, immediately apply ice pack seems to be helping the site reactions. I've not left one bruise or a lasting bump yet. BUT the real test will be next Thursday when I run out of the 7 approved injection spots and have to start repeating the cycle.

Sunday was wild. I had volunteered to help in the church nursery and was told I'd most likely be with the littlest ones. Which was fine with me. Sure it meant diapers and kids who can't tell you what's bothering them BUT it also meant they would sleep some of the 90 mins they have with me. I was first with the 1's with about 5 toddlers and then they needed me with the babies who could crawl and somehow I landed with 4's - and yeah, it was me and 8 of them... with actual cirriculum to teach! Elijah praying for rain.. oh the irony considering how slammed with rain we would be later in the day. I ended the day with a little one combing my hair while we played beauty salon until her mom came - did I mention her weapon of choice was a fork from the kitchen playset

AND I didnt know this... but there is one-sided glass in the room so from the hallway people can look in but from the inside we can't see out - yeah - who knows who was watching me. I'm glad we all got out of there in one piece and i have 6 weeks before i'm on the rotation again. I'm glad the KIDS survived - what were they thinking leaving a novice with NO training with 8 kids? They had teachings and I was supposed to know what time to take them to the playground and to music . ..that is a bit much without anyone telling me what was expected - but we made it. And now I know what to expect next time and to demand a co-teacher!

Now it's Monday - back to work. The rain meant the grass needed to be mowed and thankfully our lawn guy is a mind reader and was cleaning it up when I left.

No turning back now

My night was… um… interesting. Tim’s been acting supervisor of his group this week so he was working until 9:30 pm and maybe I had psyched myself up to thinking I could get out of the injection since he’d likely be late and tired… yeah – that’s not how it worked out. He got home about 9:45 and walked right in and got the needle from the fridge – he was apparently really excited about stabbing me with a sharp object ;) A little too excited if you ask me. But he did make me laugh about it (which is also not a good thing as you're about to be speared).

He’s not one to read instructions – good thing I had read them previously – but it didn’t matter because he was gonna do how he wanted to do it - after all, he's the Paramedic. He didn’t let the meds come to room temp which I think might have been mistake #1. I have a high tolerance for pain but the mix of worry and overall sadness of having to do this step in the first place kinda put me in a tailspin.

Tim is an awesome injection giver though. I could have done without his paramedic narrative as if he was producing a “how-to” video – just stab me and get it over with. But the second the meds were in it was burning ... BAD. He did a great job at moving it around (which maybe you’re not supposed to do, but it helped). No sooner did he remove the needle I got instantly flush, hot, had to go sit down under the air vent – lost all color in my face, had shortness of breath and tightening in my chest. All normal side effects to this drug – oh fun! Yeah, it's daily...

I put ice on the injection site to ward off any welts (which worked sort of, I still had what looked like a large reaction to a bee sting) My arm was sore the rest of the night, couldn’t sleep on that side and even this morning it’s sore but there is no bruise or welt so we did at least something right.

Next step will be to learn how to do this to myself… ack. And fast - Tim heads to NYC for a week at the end of the month.

MS Meds - Day 1

There's benchmarks in every life and I suppose today will be one of mine. July 30, 2005 was the accident that brought this all to the surface, October 4, 2007 was D-Day (diagnosis day) and now June 19, 2008 brings the first dose of drugs in my efforts to slow the disease.

As I type, my 90-day supply of syringes are in a fridge at my office, one most people dont visit so it shouldnt raise questions. Tim is prepared to administer the first dose since the nurse provided by the drug company sure hasnt made me a priority this week.

I've borrowed (ok, stole) this from another young woman's blog about her MS journey because her feelings so mirror mine that I couldnt have said it better myself - then why try, right? (Here's her full blog - gotta give credit where credit is due: http://www.rathnait.net/blog/multiple_sclerosis/)

"My disease is currently in the very early stages (as indicated by only one lesion on the brain) and has not done a lot of damage at this point. The "disease-modifying drugs" they use apparently slow the progression of the disease in addition to helping curb the number of relapses a patient experiences. So, starting the long-term treatment is supposed to help me continue to live well and normally for some time. This is reassuring, though only slightly. The fact is, they really don't know much about what causes the disease and what makes it progress; studies have shown that these drugs do help (or I wouldn't have agreed to take them) but in a lot of ways it feels kind of like a stab in the dark. I won't know if they're working and they won't necessarily make me feel better on a day-to-day basis. The idea that you're measuring success by something not happening seems a bit odd to me, but then again I think I prefer that to having another relapse as proof that something is not working."

Who knows what tomorrow will bring - this drug doesn't cause the flu-like side effects of others but being the first dose I know not how I will feel tomorrow. I don't look forward to the large welts that can occur at the injection site, or the burning rush as if you just spilled poison under my skin BUT somewhere in this there is my God who loves and cares for me and created me in His image...

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God." Philippians 4:6

A different side of me...

So, here’s a side you never thought you’d see of me – my insides! Basically I had my neurologist follow up after having the brain MRI on Monday and overall I got GREAT news. At my last scans in September last year I had 3 lesions that illuminated under contrast – indicating they were active areas under attack. This time, I have only ONE! (As indicated by the arrows pointing the nasty white bugger out below at the bottom of the pics)… He scared me a bit when he said that any farther back and a lesion that size would almost surely blow out my vision or if it were in the center brain cord I’d likely be disabled (walking, wheelchair, etc) – so praises to GOD for the lesion not being there!

He was very surprised that I’ve done so well for 3 years without any meds (it’s his belief my MS started in July 2005 after we had the car accident in Oklahoma) – and he’s encouraged that I’m ready to start them as soon as they are delivered… which should be some time next week if the mail-order pharmacy ever processes the order. The drug company has great support – if you ever have to get a disease then get MS so you can be treated by the group at Shared Solutions ;) the makers of Copaxone. (Sounded like an infomercial there, sorry).

So – that’s my Friday the 13^th update…

How do you rate

This is the strangest group of questions - but you know I like to excel...

99 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

MRI Today

I have an MRI at 4pm today so please pray.I ’m expecting God to provide good results – no new activity, maybe even restoration of old damage. This scan will be used as my new “normal” since the last scans were taken almost 9 months ago when I had the eye problems. I almost always have a reaction to the dye they inject to get the pretty pics of my brain (lethargic afterwards, basically useless the rest of the night. And I will likely start the injection meds in the next 10 days – it takes a while for all parties to compare notes, get all paperwork signed, drugs FedExed and then a nurse to come to the house to show me how to stick myself. Not that Tim cant do that! And let’s be honest, he’s gonna stick me for the first week or more until I get comfortable. Ugh – this entire process just stinks! I reserve the right to pout about it. But I’ll be fine.

See ya later ya'll

Another one bites the dust - our area is so full of people who dont ever plan to stay here that we end up saying "goodbye" a lot more than we'd like. Then again, we've been here almost 6 years and never had the intention to stay this long either.

This weekend we attended a party for our friends Dr. Justin and Angela who are moving to San Antonio for him to finish his residency program in podiatry... sigh - we will miss them, and we had a blast at their party.

Justin & Angela (they were Texans to start with so they're happy to be going home)...



The cake should have said "we'll miss ya'll"






This is Tyler - so tired he couldnt event finish a bottle!

Photos from the weekend

Another one bites the dust - our area is so full of people who dont ever plan to stay here that we end up saying "goodbye" a lot more than we'd like. Then again, we've been here almost 6 years and never had the intention to stay this long either.

This weekend we attended a party for our friends Dr. Justin and Angela who are moving to San Antonio for him to finish his residency program in podiatry... sigh - we will miss them, and we had a blast at their party.