Mondays....

are really great when you don't have to go to work! I'm sitting at home watching Ellen's continuing quest to get George Clooney on her show. I watched football all day yesterday - much to the honey's delight! LOL I was very happy that Arizona won and now we know who's going to the super bowl. YEAH! We're hosting the party this year, but there's only a few of us that actually care about the game... me included!

Nada much else going on.... Well, that's not true. I go back to the neurosurgeon on Thursday. Have some pain coming back in the back and buttocks that should not be there. I'm very pissy over it. I'm fine as long as I only have to walk on a forward only path, very slowly. But, ask me to pivot or switch directions quickly and it's not a pretty picture... Okay, I've got to go on a shiny side-note here... I've got Ross' voice in my head screaming "PIVOT, PIVOT, PIVOOOOOOOOOT" and then the genie in Aladdin saying "It's not a pretty picture"...

Okay, I'm back! I really hope I'm just being paranoid and this is normal. However, I don't think my back should be spasming like it is and those pain points are in the same spots prior to the surgery.... We'll see what the doc says. I'm wondering if he's going to order an MRI or CT or something to see if there's anything floating around back there still... I'm trying not to be tooo worst-case scenario in my thoughts but it is hard... and it does make it easier to laugh at one's self afterwards. What happens if there still is stuff that's floating around and they need to get it out?

I don't want to go through any type of surgery again... I don't want to go through that again!! I'm wondering if my best case scenario is just that I've got a pissy back and I'm going to have to learn to live with some pain... I'm sure that's it. I'll just get to the doc and have him tell me I'm being paranoid. : ]

I had a point when I started this entry and then I lost it very early... and then I don't have it back but thought of something else. I was watching the previews to some new tv shows and one of them is about a woman with multiple personalities. The director/producer of this show is Steven Spielberg. He mentioned something to the effect that everyone has multiple sides to themselves, it just isn't usually so distinct as to interrupt their daily lives.. meaning it's not a mental disorder as much as everyone's way to fit into different sides of their lives.

I think I have a very distinct work side of me, and I think most of the people that know me would agree. In some ways, it's very obvious. I hardly wear make-up. I should - lord knows the size of my pores I inherited from my father on top of the extremely fair skin don't make for a good combo. I just don't - especially at work. When I was on the streets in uniform I just couldn't bear crap running off my face. Now, even in plain-clothes, I just don't see the need to make myself different for work. Everyone asks me if I have court if I come to work with make-up on, because that's one of the few reasons I would.

Another reason I distinguish my work self from everyone/thing else is because of what I do. When I was on the streets, it was a little easier just to talk about calls and reports and the occasional exciting event. Now, doing what I do - well, I don't really want to bring that kind of kharma home. Do I need to vent sometimes, oh yeah - and that's where I'm lucky to have support for when I do need to bring it home.

I think the big difference between us having a "work" category for ourselves is the fact that our core remains the same. I'm still the hyper, blonde, German-Irish girl that tries to remain a Toys R Us kid at heart. I don't qualify as the girl next door but I lived across the tracks from that girl!! (Remember by trailer park references!!! LOL) And, now I've been working on incorporating my MS self into my work and home self. I'm struggling lately with integrating my MS self into work. I know my back is not technically an MS flare - it's acting like it. I'm struggling with it...

Everybody at works knows about MS... they have from the beginning. I think most of them have - I dunno, forgotten is the wrong word but it's not the 1st thing people think anymore when they see me. Which is good because that was an akward stage for a while right after I came back to work after my initial diagnosis. Now, with my back, I think it's come back a little into the fore-front. Even my co-workers possibly wonder if I'll be around to deal with stuff or help them out. It just set my mind to wonderfing about those kinds of things - about our different selves. Hell, I'm even a little bit of a different person online - I'm a lot more negative here - it's easier to vent about the crap that's bothering me here - y'all know more what I'm going through anyways and it lets me be my "normal" (heavy emphasis on the quotation marks!) self offline.