Writing a post so they won't delete the blog. I'm thinking of returning!
The Kettle's On...
Have a seat and let's have a cuppa and chat.
Doggie Mom, Wife, Knitter, Moderate-to-Liberal, Reader, Writer, not necessarily in that order
- The Kettle's On...
- Every now and then I think about adding to this page. Every now and then, I actually do.
Friday, April 12, 2024
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Home of My Soul
I love Scotland.
I recently made my 6th trip there, and as always, I wonder how I can get there permanently. Some places call to your soul--that's what Scotland is for me.
We've traveled the cities, the Highlands, the islands, the Lowlands, the distilleries, the woolen mills, the pubs, and so much more.
I've just returned from the latest adventure, and again, I'm wondering how I can get there on a more permanent basis. Maybe semi-permanent. We could buy a flat in Edinburgh or Inverness and rent it out when we aren't there. It would be a great home base for train trips everywhere else.
It's a wonderful daydream: a smallish flat, cozy but with modern updates, within walking distance of a great pub. We could attend Whisky festivals, Highland Games, and Hogmanay. It's just the 2 of us and no one visits us at Christmas, so we could spend Christmas there, drinking in another country's traditions and adding them to our own.
They are struggling right now with Brexit and the desire to be independent. I understand there are political issues anywhere I live, but anything would be better than the politics we are dealing with here.
Sometimes, I just want to run away. That's when I look at real estate sites, historical sites, what to do sites, and on and on. My next trip will be the Shetland Islands and Orkney. I've been to Orkney before, but this time, I want to spend an afternoon or a day with an archeologist, touring dig sites. That would be fascinating, I think. And Shetland for the textile museums and the wool, of course.
It'll take a while to save up again, but save up, I will. And once again I will travel "to pick the wild mountain thyme/all around the blooming heather."
I recently made my 6th trip there, and as always, I wonder how I can get there permanently. Some places call to your soul--that's what Scotland is for me.
We've traveled the cities, the Highlands, the islands, the Lowlands, the distilleries, the woolen mills, the pubs, and so much more.
I've just returned from the latest adventure, and again, I'm wondering how I can get there on a more permanent basis. Maybe semi-permanent. We could buy a flat in Edinburgh or Inverness and rent it out when we aren't there. It would be a great home base for train trips everywhere else.
It's a wonderful daydream: a smallish flat, cozy but with modern updates, within walking distance of a great pub. We could attend Whisky festivals, Highland Games, and Hogmanay. It's just the 2 of us and no one visits us at Christmas, so we could spend Christmas there, drinking in another country's traditions and adding them to our own.
They are struggling right now with Brexit and the desire to be independent. I understand there are political issues anywhere I live, but anything would be better than the politics we are dealing with here.
Sometimes, I just want to run away. That's when I look at real estate sites, historical sites, what to do sites, and on and on. My next trip will be the Shetland Islands and Orkney. I've been to Orkney before, but this time, I want to spend an afternoon or a day with an archeologist, touring dig sites. That would be fascinating, I think. And Shetland for the textile museums and the wool, of course.
It'll take a while to save up again, but save up, I will. And once again I will travel "to pick the wild mountain thyme/all around the blooming heather."
Thursday, August 31, 2017
Yes, I have MS, but ...
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2006. My friends
and family were upset and scared for me, but I just felt relieved. Thank goodness I have a diagnosis! Now I can
do what I have to do to control this. Within a few weeks, I realize the
only control I had was giving myself a shot every week to slow down the
disease. But I thought, I’m not that bad
off; I can live with this.
I was also relieved because now all these weird things that
had been happening had a reason, a reason other than I was depressed and/or not
working out enough. There were literally dead spots in my brain! No wonder my
personality changed from the nice girl to the paranoid, angry girl. No wonder I
had no energy and my husband, Al, would come home from work to find me in a
deep sleep on the couch. No wonder I had excruciating pain in my left cheek
that no amount of painkillers would stop. No wonder “Black Water” played on the
radio every time I was in the car. OK, maybe that was just dumb luck, but it
sure felt like I must have had some transmitter in my head. But, even with all
that, I thought, I have this disease, but
if this is the worst it’s going to get, then I can live with it.
The nurse practitioner I saw explained MS as an orange, outdoor
extension cord. That covering over the wires is like the myelin sheathe around
the nerves in my body. The extension
cord’s outside cover can get worn, so the wires get exposed. With MS,
inflammation causes the wearing down of that sheathe, resulting in exposure of the
nerves (This is why I had to take steroids during an exacerbation—I needed to
reduce the inflammation. Steroids are miserable, by the way.) The outside cord
still works for a while, but eventually wire connections break, so it stops
working. My whole body doesn’t stop working, but those “wires” along a neural
path will break, resulting in scars, which are the lesions in my brain and on
my spine, so communication from my brain can’t get through and that’s why my
foot and left hand always tingle. It’s why the muscles in my left leg contract,
feeling like a full-leg shin splint (it’s called spasticity). It’s why I get
brain fog if I get over heated or stressed, which is a nice way of saying that
I can’t complete my thoughts. It’s also why I have fatigue that forces me to
take a nap whether I want to or not and still have pain in my cheek. But still,
even with a disease eating away at the insulating myelin sheathe, exposing and
breaking neural paths, I have a mild
case. It could be so much worse—I’m lucky this is as bad as it might get.
I spent a few years in therapy, learning cognitive
techniques to control the paranoia and the downward depression spiral. Yes,
sometimes I know it’s happening and I know I’m spiraling, but I just can’t stop
it. Those are my lost days. Lost because I don’t have the energy to fight it,
so I give myself permission to wallow a little while until I can turn it
around. I might miss a party or turn down getting together for a night of
knitting with my girlfriends or not want to spend time with my husband and at
it’s worse, lie on the couch watching Netflix shows I’ve seen thousands of
times. I don’t have a job because I just don’t think I can handle full-time
work because of the flair ups of my symptoms and the depression. But, I’m still
not as bad as other people. I have a
relatively mild case, and I can still live with this.
By 2013, I found the best gym in the whole world. MS Forward
is a gym created by a man with MS for people with neurological disorders. I’ve
never enjoyed being at a gym until this one. It’s circuit training and group
therapy all in one. I get stronger, I lose weight, I have energy. My doctor is
impressed, my husband is relieved, and my church benefits because I start
volunteering with youth. I go from chaperoning on a mission trip to creating a
Jr. High Youth program, to being hired as Director of Children and Youth. I
describe myself as the poster child for “Who knew?” because I had never seen
myself in this kind of job. I love it, and holy cow, I’m good at it! Sure, the
tingles in my leg and hand were a little worse and I develop an MS hug, which
is a tightening of the muscles around my ribs, causing a pain in the center and
around my chest, but that wasn’t all the time. Maybe they were wrong about my diagnosis because I feel great, most of
the time.
My pastors tell me to remember to take care of myself and
protect my free time because working in a church can take all your time if you
let it. My husband hates this job because I’m always working, and I don’t have
time for him. I ignore all this because I feel needed, appreciated, proud, and
fulfilled for the first time in a very long time. But maybe “overfilled” is a
better word. I stop going to the gym because I have to go to this meeting or
get some work done or “fill-in-the-blank” needs me to do something. I start
gaining back the weight I had lost, and I start catching everything going
around. What did I expect, I worked with walking petri dishes. But I’ll get over it; I’ve been feeling so
good, this has to be temporary.
The problem is that infections bring on MS symptoms and make
it harder to recover. And with a worn-down body, comes worsening MS symptoms.
And with stress and anxiety, comes even more worsening MS symptoms. Then my
boss says, “Are you moving slower?” And I’m not recovering to where I was. Then
I have to work from home because I don’t have the energy to get to work. Then I
have to leave in the middle of a church service because if I don’t get home
right now, I won’t be able to drive myself because I’m about to collapse. Then
Al goes with me to the neurologist. My doctor says, “I eventually have to have
this talk with all my patients—you can’t work full time. This disease will
progress.” Unsaid part—“and you’re helping it.” Well, I’ll just get back to the
gym, cut back on my hours, and I’ll get back to where I was. “I don’t know if you can get back to where
you were. This may be your new normal.”
I tried part-time, but apparently, I’m not a part-time kind
of person. I kept doing more, quickly returning to the same tiring hours and
the same stress. Things fell through the cracks, and I was embarrassed,
frustrated, and felt like I was letting everyone down. Then I started to have
another relapse. As I sat on the couch, crying, with my head on Al’s shoulder,
he says softly, “You know what you have to do, right? You know it’s time.” And
I write my resignation letter. I have MS,
and I have to take better care of myself because this disease progresses.
I’m regular at my gym again, but I’m not the same. It takes
a year before I can do the balance exercises without having to catch myself
before falling. I’m working on regaining my stamina, but I’m starting to wonder
if it will ever happen. The dumb bells I use are 6 and 7 pounds, rather than 9
and 10 like they used to be. Sometimes I have to take naps when I get home from
the gym. Sometimes I just have to take a nap.
I have MS, and it’s frustrating.
After a year and half, people are glad to see me looking so
well. I thank them for their concern and support, and silently for not
mentioning my weight gain. I miss my life at the church and feel ready to do
some volunteering, so I take a semester to lead the Sr. High Youth. I can’t do
it the way I used to, and it’s frustrating. I take them on the mission trip,
but by the last day, I’m moving slowly with a stiff left leg and can’t
participate in some of their last-day, fun activities. They understand, but I’m
embarrassed and frustrated. A week after I get home, I trip in my home and fall,
hitting my head on the granite countertop, resulting in 11 stitches over my
right eye. I have MS, and I have to
accept that I may be able to do some of the things I used to, but not at the
level I used to.
I am better, a lot better. I’m doing more at the gym, I had
a good check up with my neurologist, and I’m looking into some volunteer work
or who knows, maybe even a part-time job. We’ll see. My health has to come
first. I have MS, and it changes the way I live my life.
Kell
Saturday, August 26, 2017
The Irony of Wanting and Not Wanting to be Heard
I’m restless. I’m frustrated. I’m tired of talking to the
vast emptiness of Facebook and Twitter in short, easy-to-read sentences and
paragraphs that barely go beyond the surface of what I really think. I do like
the challenge of Twitter and saying what I think in 140 characters, but it is a
bit limiting sometimes.
There is an irony, however, that although I’m frustrated
with feeling like I’m fruitlessly talking to a wall, I’m wanting to return to
writing on an abandoned blog with no readers. (Then to find out I can’t get to my old blog, so I had to start this new one.)
Social Networking is an odd thing, turning something we do
in person into something we do on a computer. Networking has evolved from
connecting wires for machines to communicate to connecting people to other
people for career enhancing to connecting everyone through communication machines.
You can connect with people from your past, famous people, people who think the
way you do, and people who don’t. When I first joined Facebook, I didn’t use my
real last name because I didn’t want to talk to people who knew be in the
past—not quite the concept of a social network. But I got tired of my friends
talking in shorthand—finishing discussions they started on Facebook—so, one of
them got me set up.
I pretty much kept up with family and friends, a few
celebrities, and groups. Then I realized the other use of social
networking—voicing your opinion. Every now and then there would be a political
outburst, but I was able to ignore it because it was their wall—their opinion.
I mean, I didn’t want anyone contradicting me, and there is that pesky 1st
Amendment, which I believe in and support, so even people who say things I
don’t agree with have a right to say them. Caveat—they have a right to say it
as long as they don’t encourage violence or cross a line with obscenity and
hatred, i.e. white supremacists cross a line.
Then the presidential election started winding up, and I
found myself on Facebook and news websites even more. There were more political
outbursts that I wasn’t able to ignore. Then Donald Trump was elected
president, and the world turned upside down (humming Hamilton song to myself now).
But I felt constrained. I didn’t want to be rude or upset my
conservative friends and family by showing my real anger and fear of this
administration, and I didn’t want to upset my liberal friends and family by
showing my frustration with what seemed to me over-the-top complaining and name
calling. But what drove me crazy about both was the victimhood and fear
mongering. I’m guilty of it, too, and am tucked in nicely to my bubble.
Eventually, though, I couldn’t take one more person demanding that I make a
phone call to my representative or click a vote for some poll. Worse, were the
people telling me to get over it and to, most recently, quit making a big deal
out of everything and just calm down.
I ask you, what woman likes to be told to calm down? Cripes!
So, here I am, typing and rambling on trying to make sense
of all these feelings and finding words to use to describe them. It’s not just
politics. I’ve hit my 50s, so there’s a bit of a mid-life crisis going on, too.
But there’s good stuff, too, I can write about. I have a great husband, the 2
cutest dogs on the planet, I knit, I spin, I weave, I write, I read, and I’m
sure there’s a lot more out there I want to learn about.
I just need an outlet to help organize my thoughts about it
all.
Kell
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Writing a post so they won't delete the blog. I'm thinking of returning!
-
I’m restless. I’m frustrated. I’m tired of talking to the vast emptiness of Facebook and Twitter in short, easy-to-read se...
-
I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2006. My friends and family were upset and scared for me, but I just felt relieved. Thank goodne...
-
I love Scotland. I recently made my 6th trip there, and as always, I wonder how I can get there permanently. Some places call to your soul...