Not Prepared

So, I just realized that I have a doctor appointment next week?!

ALREADY?!!!!

I’m not even recovered from last week as of yet?!

I am not looking forward to my April appointments and they start next week! I have one next, two the following week, and one the week after that!

My Mom asked me again today about changing the appointments, and I told her that I can’t because these have to be done as soon as possible!

April 9 is urology and hopefully, she can address my calculus, because I am becoming increasingly aware of it as of late. I already have a CT scan scheduled for June and this other doctor, I saw last week, added to the scans. I will see my internist before I have the CT scan and I will let her know about the request for more scans.

This all seems so big to me right now! Tears come so easily now! I wasn’t prepared for that either!

My Mom commented a while back about why I am getting so many scans and I let her know that I am not healthy. It’s necessary that I get these scans.

And it’s a little scary to be honest and I wasn’t prepared for that either!!!

How Could I Not?!

I never would have thought that my life would be how it is now 24 years into this disease. But as the rain is coming down on my roof, how could I not?!

My life is so small now and I watch the same movies. I’m already gearing up for my April appointments!

It is the third appointment of the month that is going to be a doozy!!! I’m already thinking about what time I will have to wake up because my appointment is at 10:45 a.m. downtown!

Serious

I think that I’m finally realizing how serious things are now. I have four appointments in April. Three doctors appointments.

I’m seeing the first doctor to address what they found in my ultrasound in January. Then I am seeing my dermatologist because I have skin tags on my neck and it hurts when I take my medical device off. And then the final doctor is because I have lost so much weight.

I will get a referral for nutrition services again, but I think it’s something different. I will get a CT scan in June so maybe we’ll have some answers. I pillaged in silence today and I dropped two wafers. That stinks! I did it at the tail end because I was tired. It was my last pill that I was putting into my pill box.

Bummed!!!

So, I was just reading uplifting story about a young girl, her siblings, and her mom.

I was absolutely enjoying this read, and it was about an Easter offering at church. Her dad had just died and they were just scraping by but hearing the pastor say that, they decided to try to save money. The pastor shared with the congregation that they were going to give a special offering for Easter for a needy family.

I was loving reading the story because I could tell that the special Easter offering from the congregation was for her family. I read how it was raining on Easter morning and they did not have an umbrella so they were soaked and her sister’s foot got soaked because she had cardboard in them to patch the holes.

I read about how some kids were talking about other people’s attire and were all ‘judgy’ and stuff. I read that the priest was addressing the congregation and her mom gave each child $20 to give and she put in $10. They had saved $70 by scrimping. They decided to just get a 50 pound bag of potatoes to eat so they could save money for the family.

But then I started to cry a whole lot and so I put my phone down to blow my nose, and I lost the post!!!

I read the story on Facebook so I’m scouring Facebook to see if I can find it again. I’m sure I will, but it will take some time. I’m totally bummed that I didn’t get to read the entire story!!!

Pretty Scary

Tonight is the eve of “Go Time” for April but I don’t even get paid until next week! Let me ’splain ya:

This appointment was made by my doctor in January. She made this appointment after my ultrasound found that I have a calculus in my bladder.

So, I have a bladder stone. I am hoping to get it addressed at the urologist tomorrow. And then after I go downtown to Henry Ford, I’m going over to Meijer to get a measles vaccine because I am no longer immune. I found that out from a blood test from my other doctor last month.

After this appointment, I have one more week to rest before go time again… with two appointments. And then one more appointment the following week. I really can’t wrap my head around how serious it is getting for me… This is all pretty scary!!!

Spinning.

My head is spinning!!! I saw the urologist today and I liked her a lot! She put in orders to move my CT scan to an earlier date. Now, my CT scan is May 13. I will call the other specialist who piggybacked on the CT scan for more scans to move his orders to May 13 as well. I don’t want to have the June appointment.

Do you see how my head is spinning, now?! So we were in the hallway from the urologist and my Mom called (because she is for real my caregiver no) and made the appointment for May. From there, since we were at the main hospital, I got blood work done there for my CT scan in May.

After we left the hospital, we stopped at the post office and got stamps to mail cards and I got my MMR booster because I’m not immune anymore from Meijer.

I know that I will crash tonight and I’m concerned that I will awake probably about five or six in the morning (like I did last month) and think that I have to go because we went somewhere today.

My brain is completely changing now and doctors appointment keep piling up! I told my Mom that I remember when I would just see my neurologist once a year for probably the first 15 years that I had MS. Now, 24 years in, I am still collecting doctors. My head is COMPLETELY spinning!!!

I have two appointments next week and one more the week after. Today, Dr. K. (that’s her name) told us that 23 pounds of weight loss in six months is a lot. I knew it was! I wonder what I will weigh on the 22nd?

Challenging

Today, when I woke up, I saw that I had a message that my ibuprofen prescription was refilled. I messaged the prescription in yesterday in MiChart and also messaged the specialist to change his orders for my CT because the urologist changed her order and I don’t want to go twice. That will cost me $90?!

I seriously do not know when my life changed like this but this is all there is now. I now have three doctor appointments in May as well. I had three in March, four in April, and three in May because the urologist moved up my CT scan and I am going for my visual field test that is overdue but my eyes are still my eyes! That visual field test is going to be bad (meaning that my vision will be quite bad) and I’m already gearing up for it now.

It seems like 24 years in is big time. I never thought it would be like this and I can’t believe that it is now. There’s nothing for me to do except to accept it and deal with it. I was told once that I’m not going to die from MS, the real challenge is that I have to live with it. It’s definitely getting challenging now!!!

“Me Neither.”

When I woke up today, I thought about what I had to do and today is pillaging day. My Mom came into my room to get me out of bed, and I looked at her and said, “ I don’t know how this happened.”

I was speaking of the hum-drum daily tasks that are getting so much more difficult and I’m homebound now. We made another appointment yesterday for June. I wasn’t ready for this to happen. In March, April, and May, I have three appointments each month. These are BIG appointments that I’m having!

When I said that to my Mom this morning, she just answered, “Me neither.” I didn’t drop any pills today either and I did it in silence for the fourth time. I think that’s my new thing!!!

1/2 Done.

My hair is cut. Eyebrows waxed.

Central A/C installation tomorrow.

Early dermatologist appointment Friday. My skin is changing…

Internist on Tuesday. I wonder how much I weigh now.

I already saw my first doctor for this month and with my haircut finished, I am 1/2 done.

Deferred Gratification

Today is holy Thursday. That is my favorite day of the church year! I have gone to so many holy Thursday masses and I have cried at pretty much every one. I finally remember when Mr. Flint washed my feet in my religion class! Surprisingly,I got something new out of father Mike’s homily today.

But, there was another reason that I was looking forward to holy Thursday because I finally was able to get my air-conditioning fixed today!!!

I have awakened all week to an alarm. It’s definitely wreaking havoc on me and I have to wake up to an alarm tomorrow as well, a really early alarm! I have a doctors appointment at 10:45 in the morning. It is so hard to get up and out of the house! But we are doing it and I am determined! I will totally crash this weekend!

Rob got here about 11 today with an assistant named Randy and they left at about 1:30. At about one, he told my Mom to turn the AC on to 60°. He worked a little while longer and I was sitting in the living room, eating my lunch and my nose got cold!?!

He also told my Mom that it was going to be 75° on Monday so it looks like we got it fixed in the nick of time!!! my AC died in the summer of 2016 and my brother got me two window air conditioners for both my bedroom and Sean’s bedroom.

I thought that I would be able to get it fixed before now but it’s all about deferred gratification! A professor told me about that in one of my classes and he said that all of us ‘college kids’ have ‘deferred gratification’ because all our friends are getting what they want now and we are getting an education. Or something like that. It was a long time ago!

I was excited that the appointment was set for my AC! I thought that I would shed one single prideful tear down one cheek. It’s always my right cheek when that happens. But let me tell you what happened when I heard that power tool.

The tears began welling in my eyes immediately and streaming down my cheeks! I put my hands in my sweatshirt arms, and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes to stop crying. My shoulders were shaking and. everything! I really can’t believe that I ‘ugly cried,’ but this deferred gratification feels SO good!!!