Differences

I have spasticity in my left calf that sometimes throws off the proper movement of my knee.

I was searching around online for ideas on how to mitigate this MS symptom. I was struck by this cultural difference.

When I took this to my neurologist I was prescribed a trip to the physiotherapist and was suggested a consult with a yoga instructor. I went to the physiotherapist and was given 8 simple exercises to complete on my own with a follow-up appointment in November.

Every American and Brit I encountered online were prescribed a medication. From the sounds of it, quite a costly one for the Americans with some pretty inconvenient side effects.

Does anyone else find this strange? At first I thought it was a symptom of the profit motive in US health care, but when I found the Brits were getting the drugs just as often, I started to think that maybe its a regional thing. Maybe British Columbians are just less lazy? BC is a very activity focused place, Vancouver even more so. I wonder what the treatment of MS is like in Ontario, because that's the next likely place I'm going to live in Canada. Do the clinics there have all the stuff I have access to in Vancouver?

Just wondering.

Two steps forward...

348,290 steps back.

I have a job interview of sorts tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure I don't have what it takes anymore to "wow" someone at an interview. My confidence is barely registering, and it seems like every step I take to try to move forward gets me kicked in the face.

I have a difficult time explaining myself, my cognitive abilities are shot, my physical abilities are intermittent and I think I just really hurt myself doing a yoga pose I could do yesterday.

I had a very frank discussion with the social worker at the MS clinic yesterday, and I think that she's getting a better idea of what to do and say around me. But she keeps repeating statements such as "you are going to have to find new meaning in your life" and "you're going to have to reexamine what's important in your life" every time I see her.

The thing is - I didn't have a whole lot of meaning or important things in my life before MS, and I'm finding less reason to bother finding them with each passing day with MS. The things that I used to have so much interest in before make me physically sick now, and the thing that I thought would be calming and wonderful is causing me injury and making me feel like an incompetent.

I need instruction on how to do this yoga shit, and according to this book I need a whole bunch of supplies that I don't have in order to adapt the exercises to what I can do. I'm also having a difficult time trying to figure out how the movements work from photographs in a book. It's endlessly frustrating, because I end up just re-doing the five things I can remember Richard teaching me over and over again, because I know I can do them. I don't have any money for lessons or supplies, so I guess I'm just going to add this to "my new normal".

The decrease in my income is really, really starting to show. I need to get back to work ASAP or things are going to get awful messy very, very quickly. I truly hate my life most days, and I don't think that people understand because I don't "look sick". The Wellbutrin has given me more energy, but it certainly hasn't removed my daily desire to slash my fucking wrists.

I am sick of being life's little prison bitch. If it's going to sodomize me on a regular basis, it should at least have the courtesy to use lube.

An Exercise

I made a list of 100 Things I am Grateful For last night and over 50 of them are things that I just think are really cool or I like, (like my new Puma boots) but I'm not particularly "grateful" for them.

I think this is an example of why I am not a nice person.

I went to a party where I didn't know anyone and I was totally not myself. That's not cool, and a symptom of either Joe's paranoia of strangers rubbing off on me or a lack of self-confidence.

I'd hazard a guess that it's a bit of both.

I went out in the hot today and I didn't fail.