halloween'd.

no Halloween for me this year. Pixel gobbled a hank of hair out of my black wig, & really, who hasn't seen me dressed in my purple kimono?
i remember being young, when my mom was still a housewife & handmade all my costumes. waiting until it got dark & begging my dad to let me stay out with my friends til 8:30(!)
Halloween as an adult always equates to being drunk & dressed up. being drunk is out of my scope of activities these days anyhow. my brother & Mandy are taking the nieces to the mall for trick or treating, maybe i'll tag along. seems the thing to do, watch the kids enjoy it like it's supposed to be enjoyed.

in other news, i realized i really have to get on my hip replacement's revision before i'm out of kick ass benefits. this means within the next 6 months i'll have the whole damn thing renovated. it's like planning to be handicapped-- really, how does one best prepare? i have an appointment with the orthopedist on the 15th, so i guess that's as good a start as any. (eeeeek!)

on top of that, i'm working with a metabolic bone specialist to salvage whatever bone density i can in the meantime, before they go grinding more out.

i wonder if i was always destined to age & come apart so prematurely. i mean, i wasn't too careful with my health, but i have friends & family that really ravage themselves & their healthy as horses! it makes me feel a little bit like i've wasted a lot of time hymning & hawing around when i should have enjoyed the time i was trouble free to the maximum. one musn't waste more time regretting, but it's definitely a thought.

here's my future in a nutshell, just throw a herding dog or two in there.

c'est la fucking vie!

by default, i got up early!

ok so the time change is the only reason i got up early.
but after spending 6 hours driving to & from Northern California with my mom yesterday, i have a slew of ideas about things to do:

-housecleaning (is endless)
-laundry (is bottomless)
-wash Pixel, then apply flea preventitive
-sewing! (the hands are working well, albeit shakey)
-finish FAFSA paperwork & send it off!

this stuff will take plenty of the day, i'm sure. i still can't manage to get through a task without sitting down & spacing out for a bit. not to mention some Pixel walking in there somewhere....

ok, my blueberry wheat waffles (that i burnt) are gone, time to get to work!

maiming time.

....because i'm hardly killing it.

school starts in January, leaving me the next 2 months yawning in front of me.
thankfully, my hands are slowly coming back to life. i'm able to feel the cat's fur under my palm, & my own hair feels slick & soft like it's supposed to. (it was feeling like Brillo pad, which trust me, it really does not.) while this progress, i need to feel 100% normal before i will let down my guard against this exacerbation.

my Dad is particularly supportive of my recovery, which gives me a sense of ease that it's really ok to relax & just do nothing right now. my hands were limiting the activities around to fill the time, so it was nice to have some company this week other than Pixel & Geisha.

my old roommate Kerstin & i have mended our fractured friendship recently. she came down from Sacramento & spent the night last night. we had sushi at Kirala, rented Miyuzaki anime movies, & chatted about nothing in particular like old times. while there's still a tinge of sadness about having missed so much in each other's lives (she got married & got a new horse, i got a hip replacement & my beloved dog she knew passed away to name a few) it's still fun to joke & be silly like we used to.

when she left this morning after a big breakfast at La Note(les oeufs Lucas are always so good!) i was a little saddened. a familiar fatigue crept up on me & i ended up napping on top of my duvet for 3 hours. i called Andy & we took the dogs to the trails on Skyline to run some energy out of them, & the sun set behind us.
i wasted a whole day, again! other than breakfast & a dog walk, i got little else done.

not having a job to define me & fill my time is a tough thing get a grip on. i've worked at least one job since i was 17, & there was always a sense of pride in telling people what i do. my Dad said to me, 'you've got to find something to fill your time & work your brain. school will be your new job when it comes time."
if only i could convey my Dad's conviction in text....

so tomorrow: be productive. get something done.

opening move.

i woke up at 4 am on June 19th of this year with the inability to move the left side of my body.

3 weeks in 2 hospitals, a course of IV steroids & physical therapy later, i was given the tenative diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

2 months later, i am preparing to go back to my job at a pharmaceutical corporation, part time at first. i am there 4 days, Monday through Thursday, when i begin to feel sick again. numbness & fatigue were increasing down the right side of my body over the weekend. the following Monday i called in sick again, then & went to see the neurologist's nurse. she prescribed a IV steroid infusion to begin the next day. i didn't get that far.

4 am rolled around early that morning with the same paralysis & panic. the emergency room doctor started the steroids & sent me home; my friend called my parents & we gathered in my tiny living room. it was decided there would be no going back to work, the stress was an obvious catalyst. i can carry out my plan to return to school in January, we would address work when my symptoms had resolved 100%. no pushing it, no rush, just relax & heal.

so here i am.
this is me attempting to heal.
i have 3 lesions on the pareital lobe of my brain & an incidental cyst (that may or may not affect anything). my limbs have taken 5 weeks to slowly return to working order, save for my hands.
my hands shake & don't communicate sensations to my brain correctly. while they've significantly improved, writing is a chore & an embarrassment. folding laundry results in crooked piles of shirts too wide to fit in the drawer, & make-up application takes a sense of humor to endure. i can only feel extreme hot or cold on my palms with some delay.

the mind-bending dilemma begins here. (well....i suppose it's been hanging out since this all began.)
am i now an advocate? how do i address life as i knew it?
i've spent most of my days in my apartment since i first came home from the hospital. i am endlessly lucky to have a barrage of friends & a strong supportive family getting me through this. as i am scan the local city college course catalogue of pre-req's, i wonder if i was really happy with my job in biotech. did i like it well enough to commit my entire education to it?

i've decided it was the people i worked with that kept me from thoroughly enjoying my work, as well as the suffocating confines of the small department i specialize in. going back to school will open up some doors & raise the hypothetical ceiling, but the timeframe is just as daunting.

lying the hospital on a steroid drip, i had realized i hadn't done a thing on my mental list of 'things to do', the one who's real purpose is just to make me feel accomplished. the only thing holding me back from getting started?

myself. & all my procrastinating.

so while all this is frightening, fueling uncertainty & anxiety, i'm doing my best to squash all that down & meet the challenge head on. now for muddling through the waiting period until school starts & my hands come back to life......