Just rambling...

Purple - good color. It's one of my best friends' favorite colors. Warning - if you're going to finish reading this particular post, don't expect anything close to making sense... Lots of those, the "..." thingys... which are pretty cool if you use them. I like them a lot.. they're that unspoken "pause" in writing that can't always be taken.... see? wasn't that pefect?

Ever watch that tv show "Chuck"? I love it - he's such a cutie!! He's vulnerable, goofy, and stumbley... in such an original way that he makes it fun to be a geek! Course, I am a bit of a nerd... My office uses me as the grammar police - they ask me to proof-read some of their stuff every now and then. I know that makes my mom proud.... realizing I could still diagram a complex sentence properly. How sad is that? Extremely, and I know it - and my honey still loves me anyways!! Really, she doesn't have any room to talk since she does mathmatical equations in her head to make herself go to sleep!!! I'm not that bad!!

What about beer? I used to not be any type of a beer drinker... that used to be my sign. If I was drinking beer - friends were drawing straws to see who was holding my hair back while praying to the porcelin goddess later that night (or morning if it was that bad!) Now, I dunno - they say your taste buds change as you get older, right? My latest favorite is Corona Light - 2 limes. YUMMERS! And, it makes spastic legs soooo much easier to deal with.

I probably should be headed off to bed now - I've gotta be at work very early tomorrow morning. UGH! See ya latro!

Ike pics...

Back yard... Luckily that missed the back porch.
This was the tree in front yard... again, lucky it went away from the house.
The sunrise on the 14th... how this is so beautiful - blocking all the destruction off to the sides.

Estimates...

Ever need estimates on home or auto repair? You call and schedule the free in-home consultation. They tell you why their product is so great, better than the other ones. Then, you decide where your personal give and take points are and what you're willing to sacrifice. It's not necessarily a horrible process, but it's not exactly stress-free dealings either.

We've started the estimate process after Ike. We got the roof done today and are faxing it off to our adjuster. To borrow a great phrase from Tommyboy - HOLY SHNIKEYS! Course, we can't do anything until we get the roof done... since the gutter people can't do anything based on the old roof, and we won't fix our ceiling if the roof's going to leak during next week's forecast rains, and won't do the carpet until the other stuff is done. Sheesh!!!

I'm not as stressed as I thought I'd be during this though, since I feel like I sort of do that a lot with having MS. Like, when you're first diagnosed and are told your treatment options... Do you want to possibly suffer through the "flu" every other day? Do you want to do a shot every day? Do you want to deal with that horribly long needle once a week? What are you willing to sacrifice to still feel comfortable with your choice afterwards... and how hard is it to change your mind? Obviously, when we get the roof we chose on - LOL - not going to be so easy to change that!! But, it wasn't hard for me to change from treatment B to treatment C for me.

I met with my neurosurgeon this week. (Didn't ever think that type of doc was in my future!) Luckily, I liked him a lot - he's very straightforward and a bit of a smart-ass! And, he does NOT want to cut me open immediately. He agreed that I was too young to have that bad of a degenerated disc (with slight protrusion) but he was glad to see that I still had pretty good movement and not a lot of pain. I refused pain meds at this time.... I hate how they make you feel (and plug you up - UGH!). So, we're going with a month of PT. All I need is to shrink my inflamation 1-2 mm. Tiny little millimeters... About the size of "." in the body. That much little space will make my life a lot better. Amazing!

Course, if he had immediately said surgery - I might have taken his word for it but still gotten another "estimate" for my body. As it is, I'll go make friends with a physical therapist next Wednesday and work on getting my body back to "work-out-able" condition. I miss being physically active!! This has nothing to do with MS - but that sorta pisses me off. I mean, isn't MS enough to worry about without having a totally separate problem too???? *Shrug* Oh well, that's me. If it's not one thing, it's usually another. I'll just get hugs from my L, the pups, and my friends and no it'll all be all-righty!!!

The 1st of October...

Okay, life is returning to normal and I'm hoping to get back to a little more "blogging" normal. The adjuster had come and gone (need a new roof, new gutters, new fence, new flooring) and are now waiting on the insurance settlement offer. In a catch-22 where we now have to replace the roof, no matter how much $ they give us, because they've noted damage. Oh, well... the roof's 16 years old and it's better for resale value; not that we're going anywhere soon, but this isn't going to be our retirement home!

Back to work in my normal hours, with my normal (well, not really) co-workers, and all the goings-ons there. Where did September go? Ike took it along with everything else. Some GREAT news: I became an Aunt again (for the 8th time!).... Zack was born on 9/29 (I was hoping to share my bday today!!) at 7lbs 7 ozs, just under 21". He's the 3rd boy to my middle brother and they told me they are not going to try for a girl... which is fine, since my oldest brother has a girl and my step-brother does too... I was the only female grand-child in my family and loved being spoiled-ass rotten.. in a very good way of course!!! I can't wait to get up and see my newest family member!! I have a close friend/co-worker that has been trying to have a baby for a while and got a very early initial good news from her doc - we gotta wait til the 17th to find out for sure.... I'm keeping my positive thoughts cenetered on her!!

Have my appointment with my neurosurgeon tomorrow to discuss my L-spine MRI issues. They called today to confirm the appointment and it was an actual human being, and not the computerized reminder, so I figured it was very important... it was actually my normal neuro's nurse calling to check on me. Have I said how much I love my neuro and his nurse practitioner and his staff? Especially after reading some fellow posters' horror stories of their medical "experts" experiences.... I hit the MS doc jackpot! I'm very anxious to know whether or not I'm going to need surgery or just a bunch of PT.... I'd probably be more anxious about it if we hadn't just survived a hurricane in pretty good form - amazing how you get perspective from things, huh?

Let's see.. I seem to following the "brain dump" in this post, needing to get various, random thoughts out of my head. Ohh, neighbors and how great they are!! OMG!!! Amazing and wonderful and awesome our the neighbors - there's a reason I live outside the big city (although I've heard some wonderful stories from friends & co-workers about their neighbors in the city as well). We're all making sure everyone's getting what they need, not getting ripped off, and sharing info on insurance, repairs, and recipies... I'm glad that the bonds we were semi-forced to share during the 1st week after the storm don't appear to be fragile or temporary. We're supposed to be all bbq'ing in the cul-de-sac here soon. Can't wait!!

Been sleeping a lot here trying to catch up from working the night shift for 2 weeks. Amazing I did that for almost 5 years and actually preferred that shift on the streets. My boss and I were chatting in her office on Monday and she asked how I was doing. I was fine and so didn't think twice about the question until she asked again and made sure that I understood she was asking about how my body was reacting.... ie, did I think I was going to end up with another flare-up cuz of the mobilization and stress on my body and did she need to prepare to have me out for a while. And, she is a friend as well, so it wasn't just from an admin standpoint. I told her that it's MS - who the hell knows. I feel fine right now - I didn't remind her of my doc's appointment tomorrow... I cover that in the morning. Actually, I might cover that the following morning when I might actually know something. The worst thing I think about sometimes is not being able to do my job.... I love it (as I've mentioned a few times) and have no freakin' clue what I would do without it... When I did my rounds with optic neuritis, that was the one fear that I could never squealch or conceal - it was constantly bubbling at the surface. And, it's still a fear I have every time I have to get a new MRI, bloodwork, or visit the doc - will this be the time I get info that changes my life... more so than my dx.

I dunno - I consider myself still an MS infant. I'm past the newborn stage but I'm still stumbling around trying to figure out what happens if I put my right foot in front rather than my left. I still have some of that paranoia about this new world that I don't trust.... but I know I'll graduate to being a child - and enter that stage where I have no fear and will do whatever the hell I want and dammed be the consequences. My docs, nor my partner, probably won't like that stage, but am I ever looking forward to it!!

BTW, I also finished Teri Garr's book (amazing how she got that part after being told she could not have 2 consenants (sp???) in her 1st and last name - I wonder if it's worse if you have the same 2 letters in both your first and last name.... Does the double LL mean anything special??? The book was great and she's another heroine with MS to add in my brain about looking at how she's still able to accomplish soooo much while dealing with a crappy chronic illness. I love alliteration!!!!!

As hurricanes go...

I guess this one wasn't as horrible as it could have been - but it was not fun either.

Howdy! Sorry I've been gone so long, but this is actually one of the first chances I've had to post. I'm back at work after my 1 day off since Ike hit. We've been on 12 hour shifts since the day of the storm and I am working 6p to 6a. Good thing I have not been battling fatigue issues with the MS, and what I'm feeling is just regular fatigue!

My men/women in blue down here are busting their tooshies on the streets - I've been in the office handling the younger violators and other issues with my investigations. All of us are running on generator power in our bodies, and most of us dealing with home issues as well.

On the home front - lost the fence and 1 pine tree in front... luckily when it split in half it decided to fall towards the street! The tree in back lost most of it's limbs in the back yard. We have some type of roof issue as we have water on our ceiling and already had to kill some black mold.... bleach is a wonderful thing. Luckily, we only went w/o power for 5 days. One of my co-workers still does not have power on the North side of town. Did you know brick is porous enough that it will get "soaked" through with the right combo of wind/rain? Well, apparently Ike was enough of a combo for our house - we'll see how the adjusted handles that issue - it's covered but we might have to vacate the house depending on what they deem the "problem" to be... If it molded the sheetrock, then all the insulation and all affected walls must be re-done - hence a home evacuation for a while. (That's worst case scenario and I'm trying the reverse psych trick on it!!!)

My partners' sister fared okay and only lost a part of the fence. My parners' parents lived on the island's west end. They got lucky. Our home, the sister's home, and the parents' home caught the clean side. We are doing the happy dance and singing our praises!! I feel for the east end of the island and Chambers and Liberty county (where a couple of friends have lost quite a bit - but no lives hurt/lost!). But, L's parents have a home to go to when the island gets livable again. They lost the dock, the boat (I suggested we put a pier under the bow side and make a downstairs bar of it - B liked the idea as 1/2 the boat is over the canal and half on the bulkhead - I'll get a pic posted as some point!), and all the downstairs.... including a fridge & freezer that's probably in the bottom of the canal... but all the windows, doors, stairs, and roof are okay.

We had an co-worker lose an aunt when the tree that crashed through his house fell on top of her room. We've had numerous co-workers lose their houses and had family/friends' houses lost. We, luckily, have had very few co-workers injured during the response to the emergency. Myself and my partner experienced first hand the goodness in people's hearts - and I will have tons to post about our neighbors later - as several neighbors took time away from their damage to help me with mine when they realized what hours I was working, telling me and my partner to just accept it as thanks for a job I do... I'm cried then, and I'm tearing up now just typing about it... I've had confirmation that there is so much good in this world still - among neighbors and strangers alike, as I see all the volunteers stepping up to the plate during this time and doing what they can, when they can, for complete strangers.

I have MS, it doesn't have me. We here in southeast Texas had Ike, but it did not get us. We will do whatever we can to make us thrive again - and it will be bigger and better than ever... Galveston will be even better than it was - because it will be. We, the citizens, will make it so.

So, now that I've typed your eyes off with this post - Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers during this time. I'll be back to posting normally again soon. I'm adjusting to my new normal after Ike, just as I adjusted to my new normal after my dx.

: ]

If you live by the coast...

You might get a hurricane.

Yup, Ike is on a bee-line for Galveston, which means H-town will therefore be majorly impacted. Which means I go on 12 hour shifts starting tomorrow and probably won't be "off" until Sunday or Monday (or later) depending on damage and clean-up stuffs.... I've been in a couple of tornadoes and survived Rita (where we got the clean side) but this one is a little scary.

My partner's parents came to our house tonight from Galveston - they're hoping they have a house to go home to in a couple of days. We're not under mandatory evacuation where we live, so while I'm at work my partner and her parents will be riding it out at our house, with our 3 pups. We've taken some precautions and will most definately lose power in the afternoon tomorrow - the winds should hit close to 70-80 by the mid-afternoon tomorrow... I've got my "supplies" packed up for the station.

I probably won't be posting for a little bit - if I do, then that's a very good thing (or, if you don't particularly care for my style, it might not be!!) Course, there's another HUGE pink elephant in the middle of my brain I'm not going to blog about now because Ike is a HUMONGOUS pink elephant.... seems my L-spine MRI series was, and this is a direct quote from my wonderful NP, "SUCKED". I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to see a neurosurgeon because I have a nerve root compression between my L5 & S1.... and according to the radiologist, it's bad enough to recommend me as a surgical candidate for repair. Talk about freaking out this morning. I called my best friend, who's a doc, and she told me that was actually good news. Sorta like if you had to chose between a broken ankle or a sprained ankle, you'd want to take the broken one because it gets set, it heals, you move on.... with a sprained ankle it has to be nursed back and watched and treated gingerly....

Despite my saying I wasn't going to talk about it - I already said too much!! Oh, well, I just hope I have a relatively secure home to come back to myself in a couple of days!

Ike is a 4 letter word....

I live in Brazoria county, which got issued a mandatory evacuation order at 10 tonight. Course, I will be leaving my house to head to my station as we're expecting to be activated.... meaning 12 hr shifts until the hurricane and any after-effects are over. I did it for Rita (the one right after Katrina that nobody remembers!). I love my co-workers and think we have a great unit, but sleeping at the station on the floor and waking up and having to re-visit those horrible high-school shower scenes in the women's locker room are not my ideas of a hurricane party!

I'll know more tomorrow by midday. I already called my supervisors and they said they had not gotten any orders but to expect it. One of my supervisors is trekking her kids to her in-laws in LA tonight to be back for a possible activation... Funny, huh? But, LA will be spared for this one hopefully.

I actually visited the downfall of society (aka WalMart) tonight and stocked up. Some for my honey who will be leaving our town for higher/northern parts and half for me to take to the station. All non-perishable, easy to eat stuffs. Now my main concern is my Copaxone... we have a fridge to store it in and our station should go to generator power if we lose it, but it's still on my mind. I'm sure I'll be fine... See you on the dirty side!!