This time last year

Today marks the first anniversary of the last time I saw my maternal grandmother alive.

She was mostly incoherent, and at times I'm not sure she remembered who I was. She was happy most of the time. In an instant she would change to horribly angry then to weeping sadness and then back again.

My grandma, the grandma from two years before she went into the home, was awesome.

The woman who died in December 2012 was just a shell of her former self. I don't miss her. I'm glad that that woman is out of pain, no longer a victim to her failing cardiovascular system that stole her mind.

I miss my grandma, a lot. I wish I could talk to her.

A group of people with MS walk into a bar...

I've belonged to two MS groups on Facebook (I remain a member in only one), and probably a half a dozen other sites or forums at one point or another. On Facebook I've had some problems with being friended by women who think it's great that we both have MS and then being defriended shortly after they see the stuff I post to my wall. I post a lot of stuff about marriage equality, trans* equality, anti-bullying, anti-racism, atheist organizations, feminism, intersectionality, and rape culture. I also swear a FUCK of a lot.

This is apparently a problem.

It probably doesn't help that almost NEVER a happy person. I choose not to waste my energy seeking an ideal I've only been able to obtain in 10 to 30 second increments. I get the orgasm, I drink the cocktail, and/or I find the perfect thing, it's perfect for a moment, then it's done, and so is being happy for that day. I am content most days, but this constant drive to "Happy" is just one of those insane perfectionist, crazy making, unachievable ideals.

Fuck that shit.

That worldview don't go over so well with the chronically ill. I have yet to see the benefits of trying to be fucking happy when it comes to curing any of my MS symptoms. I try to remain positive around my friends and loved ones, if only to make sure that I am not alienating myself from them.

But the biggest thing I've learned in the past three years is that sometimes the only thing I've got in common with a person who has MS is the fact we both have MS. That's not enough to build a friendship around. At least for me.

91 instead of 89

Betty White is going to turn 91 next week.

My grandmothers never made it to that age, and neither were close to Betty's level of vigour and health for years before they died.

Every time I watch Betty White I get sad a little because I want MY 91 to look like Betty's 91, not the 89 years both my grandmothers made it to.

I have MS. The likelihood that my 91 is going to look like Betty's is... probably overly optimistic.

But I think that I can do something that can make it not like my grandmothers'.

Given the recent medical history in my family, I could stand on a nuclear reactor core and not get cancer. However, if I eat nothing but meat and potatoes or sit down for too long I will have severe dementia for the last three years of my life before having a stroke or brain bleed.

Cardiovascular disease will kill me. It will kill me like it killed every. single. one. of my grandparents.

I want to be Betty, not my grandmothers.

So what do I do about that?

I guess I could start by not fuelling my waking hours with caffeine and sugar, and go back to eating real food of carbohydrates and proteins. 

***

I'm the kind of person who eats half a pint of Ben and Jerry's or microwaves a bag of popcorn for supper because it's easier than thinking about cooking. I am not a big fan of food and generally only eat until my stomach stops growling. This often leads to a growling stomach a short time later. I have to be in the mood, as well as hungry, to eat. I don't like to eat for no reason.

***

I could also stop being the kind of person that thinks half a pint of Ben & Jerry's or a bag of microwave popcorn is dinner.

***

I could also become the kind of person who gets dressed every day. Or the kind of person who gets dressed every day and leaves the house.

***

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

This year can fuck off.

Someone has been doing laundry since 8AM! It's almost 5PM.

Next building has in-suite laundry. I am making sure of that.

***

That said...

I want to say I love you and thank you to my husband, Joe, and my amazing friends, Erin, Amy, Kit, Justin, and David for making 2013 less shitty because I have you in my life.

***

I'm looking forward to someone giving me a job in 2013.

I'm looking forward to making some changes to our living arrangements in 2013.

I'm looking forward to trying to get back to Wisconsin in 2013.

I'm looking forward things going better in 2013.

I'm looking forward because I am not looking back.

Home again.

Went to Ontario, gave eulogy, hung out with my parents, my sister, and my aunt, went home.

Things I learned on my flight home: 

There was a glitch with the map feature on the plane so I flew 47,736 kms in 2 hours and 40 minutes from Winnipeg to Vancouver via Berlin, Germany. Awesome supersonic plane technology I guess.

The temperature at 9,000m altitude was 20 degrees warmer than it was on the ground in Winnipeg.

Chicken and bacon quesadillas are awesome.

C.C. and Coke is awesome.

I could not find someone in my home town to be a bad influence on me, for the first time in my entire life.

So my grandma died.

I'm writing the eulogy.

I've got a four and a half hour flight to Ontario, by myself, on Friday.

Then I get to deliver the eulogy sometime after 1 PM on Saturday.

Then I get to spend two days with my family, though I am not sure where.

Then I get to check in at YYZ before 9 AM on Tuesday which will mean that I get to spend several hours on Christmas Day waiting for my Vancouver flight in YWG.

(Look that up.)

I'm exhausted. I'm sad. I think I might be dehydrated.

So I'm going to brush my teeth, get into bed, sip my first and only vodka and Coke of the day(don't knock it 'til you try it, but it is better with vanilla vodka), and hope that it puts me before midnight.

I'll try to put pixels to blank text box on Friday, but no promises.

Home again, Home again, fiddle-dee-dee

Two weeks of travel, family obligations and a little bit of touristy activity has left me exhausted and in love with my own bed.

On my trip;

I went to a southern Baptist church for the first time.
Joe met two of my first cousins, my dad's older brother and his wife and my dad's first cousins and their parents for the first time. It was the first time I had seen any of them, except for one first cousin, since August of 2003. (Joe said his favourite part was the dinner and drinking "party" with my family. That made me happy.)
I ate half-runner beans for the first time.

I did not swear in front of my mother-in-law.
I went to the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum four days before he died. I got a pen and two post-cards.
I went to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the National Museum of the United States Air Force. I got a "Rosie the Riveter" lunch box and Space Ice Cream. I saw a NASA Super Guppy land to deliver some stuff for the museum.
I watched almost a whole Major League Baseball game without falling asleep.
I went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and had a bonding moment with a middle aged black woman when we sang Soul II Soul's "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" together and she called me "sister". This happened when I was exchanging the t-shirt I bought the day before when it didn't fit right, 20 or so hours after I finished visiting the museum. We had this moment less than a day after I had been moved to teary-eyed silence over the endless ways humans have managed to create to do harm to each other. Visiting the Freedom Center made me want to be a better person.

I also got a new set of towels and two sets of sheets, the Martha Stewart Homekeeping Manual, a copy of A Modern Girl's Guide to Life, three white long sleeved tshirts and a new pair of yoga pants because I dropped a full bottle of Gem Crush nail polish on my old ones.

Again, I would like to thank everyone who knows where we live and knew we were going out of town for not breaking in whilst we were gone.

I am almost 100% certain that I have forgotten to mention a lot about our trip.

Roots

When I am unemployed I start hanging out on Ancestry.ca. I've had some breakthroughs with the most difficult side of my tree. (Other than when Miss Smith married Mr. Jones and daughter Jones then married Mr. Brown) Finding out your great-great grandfather probably drank himself to death isn't a great feeling. I have figured out from Google that a cause of death of "phthisis and gastritis" is usually linked to "unrepentant drunkenness".

Figuring out that's why your grandfather never knew his grandfather and why his father never talked about him is sad.

I continue my search for the person I look like.


Today is Mother's Day. I called my mum to thank her for giving birth to me. She said "Oh, you're welcome."

YAY4Mums!

Searching for the Words

In the story of my life, my Catholic Confirmation was really the beginning of my honest-to-goodness questioning of what faith was and what was expected of me. I remember going through the whole religious process with not a whole lot of concern for the spiritual aspects of confirming my belief that I would be a Catholic for the rest of my life. I remember being concerned that this was far too large of a decision for a 10 year old to be making. I remember really wanting my confirmation name to be linked to my family some way. (I chose Theresa, my great grandmother’s name) I remember being upset that my aunt couldn’t understand why I would ask her to be my sponsor because she didn’t remember that she was my godmother. I remember giving far more consideration to my appearance and remembering things we had to repeat than I was about any relationship I was supposed to be developing with god or Jesus.

Part of the process was going on a “spiritual retreat” to the convent nearest to our school. Worst. School. Trip. Ever. We went to the convent at Mount St. Joseph for a full day of prayer and contemplation of our future life as “full patch” members of the Catholic faith. I recall a nun and a priest giving a speech to us. I don’t recall any of my classmates taking it all that seriously. I spent some time just wandering around the grounds trying to figure out what the nagging feeling was. It was a feeling that something wasn’t right, not necessarily that something was wrong, but just… not right. I don’t know that I could put my finger on it even now, but I found myself walking in circles around the garden path trying to figure something out, to no avail. I remember a classmate teasing me for taking all of “this god stuff” too seriously. Was I taking it too seriously? Probably, but not in the way that I was being teased about. I was not devout. I was sure I was not doing the right thing.

What I really wanted was to grab someone and beg them to help me find the language to put that feeling into words. But I was there in a convent, surrounded by people who’s job it was to make me a good Catholic and my peers who were just thrilled we weren’t at school. I just wasn’t sure that confirmation was right for me, but I knew that I didn’t really have a choice about it. My robe had been rented. My stole had been named and symbols of my Catholic faith dutifully glued to it. My aunt was coming to be my sponsor and family was coming from out of town. I even managed to score a new 10-speed bike in black and silver out of the deal. I was going to be Catholic for life because that’s what my parents were and as their child I was going to be Catholic too. Catholicism was the only religion available to me so I didn’t know that there were other options, other than the faiths that would go door to door trying to spread their faith. I didn’t know then that a few short years later I would increase my vocabulary when it came to all things of faith.



This entry is an edited excerpt from the as yet untitled memoir I have been writing this year.

Math

When I was born…
I had a mum and a dad.
Two grandmas and two grandpas.
Three great grandmas and three great grandpas.
Two aunts and two uncles.
One first cousin.

When I was five…
I had a mum and a dad.
Two sisters.
Two grandmas and two grandpas.
Three great grandmas.
Two aunts and two uncles.
One first cousin.

When I was ten…
I had a mum and a dad.
Two sisters and one brother.
Two grandmas and two grandpas.
Two great grandmas.
Three aunts and three uncles.
Two first cousins.

When I was fifteen…
I had a mum and a dad.
Two sisters and one brother.
Two grandmas and two grandpas.
Two great grandmas.
Three aunts and three uncles.
Four first cousins.

When I was twenty…
I had a mum and a dad.
Two sisters and one brother.
Two grandmas and two grandpas.
Three aunts and two uncles. (The third uncle is still alive, he’s just not my uncle anymore.)
Seven first cousins.

When I was twenty-five...
I had a mum and a dad.
Two sisters, a brother and a brother-in-law.
Two grandmas and one grandpa.
Three aunts and two uncles.
Seven first cousins.

When I was thirty...
I had a mum and a dad.
Two sisters, a brother and a brother-in-law.
One nephew and one niece.
Two grandmas.
Three aunts and two uncles.
Seven first cousins.

When I was thirty-five...
I had a husband.
I had a mum and a dad.
I had a mother & father-in law.
Two sisters, a sister-n-law, a brother and a brother-in-law.
Two nephews and one niece.
Two grandmas.
Three aunts and two uncles.
Seven first cousins.

Now at age thirty-six...
I still have them all, except I’m down to one grandma.

This is my family's math; addition and subtraction over the years. Even though we've lost the matriarch of my paternal family, we're still a bigger bunch than when we started out.

I wish I knew my grandma better than I did, but what I did know made for some lovely memories.

My heart was with them yesterday, even if I wasn’t. I am filled with gratitude that I have had these people in my life; even though I have disappointed them, have major personality clashes with them, they drive me crazy and I drive them crazy. They are my people, my clan. I miss them right now more than I ever thought I would.

I hope that my grandmother had a good life and that in her last moments she was able to recall that there were at least 19 people whose life was forever changed by her being in it and loved her for it.

Bittersweet

Happy Mother's Day to my mum and my Grandmas. I have truly been fortunate to have these three women in my life. I am glad that I finally got old enough to appreciate them.

But today is shared with a sombre anniversary. My grandpa died 11 years ago today. The day in 1999 was also Mother's Day but since Mother's Day isn't always on May 9 he died on May 9 not Mother's Day.

They say that young girls imprint on their paternal influences and end up marrying their fathers when they become women. I don't think that's true in my case.

I often wish that Grandpa had been alive to meet Joe. I think they would've got along like peas and carrots. They're a lot alike.

I miss my grandpa all the time. I wish that he could have seen me get my life together because he died when I was such a mess and living a life in disarray. I wish he had been there on the other end of the phone when I found out I had MS, if only to calm Grandma down.

I realize that not everyone gets to have a Grandpa, let alone once as great and wonderful as mine, in their life on a regular basis for almost 25 years of their lives. I know that I am fortunate to have had a pretty wonderful man and a powerful example of what a great husband could be in my life.

But I am regularly sad that he seems to have missed out on the best years and the years where I dealt with hardship and challenges in a non-destructive way. He deserved to see more and better of me than he did.

So after celebrating on the phone with two of the three women without which this life of mine would not have been possible I just had to say that I miss my Grandpa and I wish he were celebrating with the mother of his children today.



Edit: I do know how to spell "sombre" I just don't always get the editing right.

Listography 9 - List the People You Love the Most

(Other than the first three the remainder of the list is random as long as its understood that I love Lady Gaga MORE than Simon, Finn and Virgil. Possibly combined.)

1. Joe Kidwell
2. My mum.
3. My grandma.
4. Erin
5. Drew
6. Joe's mum.
7. Lady Gaga
8. Simon
9. Smart people.
10. Mrs. Gillespie (though I'm pretty sure she's dead. What the hell, I'll add dead people to this list.)
11. Finn
12. Whomever created the Colagallo. (It's a cocktail that includes tequila AND Coca-Cola!)
13. Louise Arbour
14. Coco Chanel (see? More dead people!)
15. Virgil
16. Cathy Hickson (also dead, but most of you don't know her)
17. Sherry Trafford? Meuris?
18. Christian Louboutin
19. Oscar
20. Ben
21. Donna

My problem

"You viciously oppose free will. You avidly tell people what they should think."

- Anonymous response to my online survey

If opposing free will is calling members of my family out for sending racist "jokes" and for being angry when someone says it shouldn't matter, then call me vicious.

How I even know these people, let alone come from the same gene pool, is a constant source of bewilderment for me.

It is true that you don't get to pick your family, but I have never been more grateful that I live 3000K away from these people than I am right now. They were so loving and concerned when I was sick, but now... now I'm just too bloody opinionated. Now I'm just a high and mighty bitch who has no place telling other people that what they think is wrong.

So, the only two people in my immediate family who are still speaking to me are my parents and maybe my brother. (we don't talk. not because we hate each other, but because we don't talk on the phone) How long that lasts after this message gets out is questionable. My sisters think that it is more important to defend stupidity than to accept that they were and are wrong.

I can't believe we grew up in the same home. I am crying because I had no idea that my family was capable of such hate. I am sick to my stomach.

I thought there was a chance that my sisters and I could be friends now that we are adults, but I was wrong. It shouldn't be surprising, but it still hurts. I am sure that the two of them can come up with enough problems with my past that will justify this in their minds.

I'm done.

The Personal is Political

I've tried really hard to just talk about me in this blog. MS has fundamentally changed every idea or dream I've ever had for myself, and I wanted to keep this blog about that. It seems that the time has arrived where my personal struggle with MS and what that means to my future has transected the political.

I am quite cognizant that the United States of America is probably the most sovereign nation on the planet and they (in the broadest sense of that word) really, really don't care what people from other countries think about them or their life, liberty and the way they pursue happiness.

That's what makes this post so hard to type. The love of my fucking LIFE is a born, raised and militarily-served American citizen. He also lives in Canada, and has for almost exactly 4 years. Together we've been watching/reading everything going on in the US as it is filtered through the Canadian media, as well as how it is filtered through CNN, MSNBC, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I think it is driving us both nuts.

(Fox News Network is available in Canada by subscription only on digital cable. My access to what is going on on that network is limited by what gets posted to youtube and any commentary offered up by the aforementioned media sources)

I've read that there is some concern that advertisers pulling their ads from television "news" shows under threat of boycott gives those corporations control over the news content. I'm not sure that's exactly what's going on. Sure, there is the immediacy of a boycott, but I also have to think that those companies don't want to be seen as being on the wrong side of the issues brought up by the likes of Glenn Beck. I remember seeing a PBS documentary about the history of the Coca-Cola company. In their quest for worldwide market domination, they didn't want to be seen as "Georgia hicks" and were among the first companies in that state to hire black sales people. When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated they knew the world would be watching, and provided much of the transportation needs of the King family during their period of public mourning. I'll bet that few people in the US or around the world know that MLK once called for a boycott of Coke. I think this speaks to the power of being on the right side history.

I've been reading that people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and even Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) are openly comparing a mixed race man to Adolf Hitler (the mind boggles, Rush), who's a racist who doesn't hate white people (for realz, Glenn?), who then spend hours of a national broadcast outright lying, misrepresenting and purposely misquoting anyone who disagrees with them, (but that's okay when you're on FNN, right Sean?) or suggesting that states who disagree with the current administration could secede the union if it was in their best interests (don't mess with Texas, right Governor?). Gun nuts have been encouraged to bring side arms and assault weapons to public meetings, including those held by the president. Dissent is manufactured by health insurance and petroleum companies and anyone with a tin foil hat is encouraged to "put the fear of god" into their elected officials. This includes death threats and veiled threats of other personal harm, if need be.

All the while I'm watching this, I can't help but reminded of this:

In the ongoing International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the individuals behind Kangura (Kangura was a Kinyarwanda- and French-language magazine) have been accused of producing leaflets in 1992 picturing a machete and asking “What shall we do to complete the social revolution of 1959?” - a reference to the Hutu revolt that overthrew the Tutsi monarchy and the subsequent politically orchestrated communal violence that resulted in thousands of mostly Tutsi casualties and forced roughly 300,000 Tutsis to flee to neighboring Burundi and Uganda. Kangura also published the infamous "10 Hutu Commandments," which called upon Hutus to massacre Tutsis, and more generally communicated the message that the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) had a devious grand strategy (one feature article was titled "Tutsi colonization plan").

"There was an FM radio on every roadblock, there were thousands of roadblocks in Rwanda," a police investigator said. He told the court that in prison interviews "many people told us they had killed because the radio had told them to kill."

At the same time the "Birthers" are using "Kenyan" as code for "nigger". Jon Voight is wondering aloud if the president is purposely trying to start a civil war as if wanting to take the country in a new, fairer, more just direction is tantamount to treason or some race-based conspiracy to get back at "the man".

Then I hear that "holy men" can inform their flock that "The same God who instituted the death penalty for murderers is the same God who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals - sodomites, queers!" and "God... commanded it and said they should be taken out and killed." And these people can do that because of the 1st Amendment to the constitution of the United States of America. If one of this man's "followers" kills someone, I hope that he is prosecuted for murder the same way Charles Manson was. In my opinion they are both men who are a danger to society.

The world is watching, America. I know that a lot of people don't know or don't care, but they are watching. And if the country explodes in violence or even additional, needless crazy-making behaviour, the rest of the world is going to throw their hands up and just write America off as a place where the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Why does this matter to me? As I said, I'm married to an American citizen who would like to again live in the country of his birth, and so far he says he's committed to having me, his Canadian wife, live with him.

But as the days pass and I watch all this seething resentment, racism, classism and white privilege run amok, I'm skeptical that I would like living there. See, on the surface, I'm exactly the kind of immigrant almost all Americans could live with. I'm white, of European ancestry and a born English speaker without a "hoity-toity" accent. But I'm also far more liberal than just about any American I have met (my husband included), I'm a pro-choice, sex-positive, anti-death penalty, childfree feminist, a homophile and an atheist with a disability who believes that government is what we call it when we decide to do something together for the greater good.

Not very American, huh?

What gets me right in the throat, every single time, is when I see footage on youtube of the people who attend these town halls is that they seem to think that they're advertising to all of America how great it is to be American and what is great about America.

In truth they're just showing the world the worst and most ugly side of what used to be an amazing nation of innovators, social progressives and statesmen. I used to think that President George W. Bush was an aberration in American politics, but it seems that at this time and place President Barack H. Obama is. Right now, what is right about America is seriously being eroded, undermined and beaten to a pulp by what is wrong with America.

If I do move to the US with my husband, I want it to be with hope and positivity, not with me kicking and screaming and then just doing it because I can't afford the divorce. When I was a kid, the US of A was a magical place. I'd like to feel that sense of wonder and excitement again. I know that in the grand scheme of things the complaints of one little Canadian "don't amount to a hill of beans in this world" but I felt compelled to say something. I also don't imagine that I have access to an audience that will care two minutes after reading this.

I'm saying this because I love my husband because of who he is and because of the kind of person where he was raised made him. He loves his country and wants to live there again and I want to want to live there as much as he does. I now realize that this whole post could've been summed up in one single sentence.

Get your shit together, America.

Float On

I've been heading out a lot more with my collapsible cane collapsed in my purse. I'm walking better at short distances, my skin is starting to behave, and next week I'm going to get my hair did for the first time since November. I went to a political function today and it was strange to be looking close to normal.

I hereby ban the use of the word "grassroots".

*stamps foot*

Vancouver maybe gets one thunderstorm a year, and tonight's is a DOOZY. Bolts of lightning. Rolling thunder. Gun metal grey sky. It's awesome-sauce.

Instead of sleepy pills I am going to open this bottle of wine, convince my husband that math can wait until the morning, and find a movie to watch.

My paperwork is in the employment agency and I'll be getting a call on Monday or Tuesday to get my date to meet the job developer.

I made my grandma cry yesterday, but she totally deserved it. Yesterday and today she started with baby steps to start caring for herself because I told her she was acting like she never wanted to see me again. I also told her that if she died before I got back east, it would be her own fault.

I also told her that if I wasn't allowed to give up, she wasn't. We'll see if it sticks. I'm hopeful but not optimistic.

Pretty Good

Today was an incredibly surprising day.

I had a really crappy night. Pounding heart, uncomfortable muscles with twitches, a tension headache across the brow, and major anxiety.

I woke up this morning and my legs worked. My body didn't ache. I didn't have a headache, nausea or feel like vomiting. The pressure behind my left eye was gone and the continuing blood-shot look of that eye continues to decrease. I felt *good*.

I didn't feel back to normal, or like I did a year ago, but I felt good. I felt like maybe I was making some progress. Like maybe things really could be different in a couple of months. Last night was the first case of side effects of the solumedrol steroid treatments. Five doses and then I get side effects. Great.

Speaking of side effects, the reaction I had the first time to this treatment likely wasn't caused by the treatment, but the fact that I had a slight case of double vision that was causing vertigo. My EEG showed some crazy stuff going on with my ocular nerve before the treatment, and it took over two weeks for the treatment to shut it down. So, 17 days of puking was caused by my eye. How about that?

It's weird, I have felt so crappy for so long to have a day like today (a day I've been dreading for more than a couple of weeks) is really inspiring. I can't shake the feeling in the back of my head that it's all going to fall apart again, but today was good.

In about 15 hours I will be past my period of cytotoxicity and will be able to kiss and drool on my husband again. I am going to try a new remedy to ease my dry, flaking, screwed up skin tomorrow, and try to get back into my routine of vitamins and supplements to make up for the fact that I really, really can't cook.

I wore makeup to the hospital yesterday. It's the first time I've worn makeup in months. That's a big deal, but it felt really good to actually give a shit about my appearance.

The thing that freaked me out the most yesterday was that I couldn't remember being there a month ago. I mean, I know I went, I know that my friend Rina took me there and met me at the nurse's station to pick me up, but I couldn't remember where I went in the hospital, I didn't remember the nurse, or the room, or anything. The nurse remembered everything about me, including what kind of hat I wore the last time. She remembered my husband's name, even though he wasn't even there the last time. It was weird. I was incredibly upset that I couldn't remember anything about my first treatment other than the guy who was in the next bed was kind of a jerk.

Ahhhh, cognitive difficulties. Or trauma. Who knows really?

I have a difficult time being patient with myself, I have a lot of things that I have to work out financially and career-wise. I wish I was capable of drinking more wine with friends and being able to fall asleep at midnight or getting up before 1 PM.

About getting up before 1 PM, my mum is telling my grandma I have MS tomorrow. So, I have to be up at 9:15 AM to suck back enough coffee to be coherent enough to talk to my grandma. She's a little emotional, loves her grandkids, and has a blood pressure issue. I don't want her to have a stroke over this, so there's a ledge she will need to be talked down off of.

I hope mum has a lot of tissues. This is going to be a tear-jerker for her.