MS and the Month of March

Once again it is MS Awareness month, shared with Breast Cancer Awareness. Breast Cancer has always received the most press during our shared months, but now maybe someone should come up with a ribbon for COVID as well. I’ve heard rumors about cures for breast cancer, I know there are vaccines for COVID, but still there are no cures r vaccines for MS, one of the truly orphan diseases. It gets two months of awareness per year but for those of us living with MS there are no months of respite at times. It just keeps on going and going but not as cute as the Energizer bunny. More reliable than Timex though, it just never stops completely even though it sometimes slows down a bit. At least it used to slow down a bit for me but for the past few years it just keeps on and on with the fatigue getting worse every day.

After saying it doesn’t slow down I have to admit I’ve had a short energy spurt these past couple of days. And true to form when I get an energy spurt I tend to overdo things a bit just to catch up on the things that have fallen by the wayside during the other months. So I’ve been moving furniture lately. One chair has been where my kids placed it 7 or 8 years ago while another one has been in the same place the 22 years I’ve lived here. My lift chair is kinda heavy so I seldom even try to move it but a couple of days ago just decided to give it a nudge from the usual place next to the window where the cold air was getting in. The first little nudge worked so well that I got behind it and gave it a shove, I can now sit there without wearing a fuzzy hat and muffler to keep the cold off my head and shoulders. Now that I have started that I’m going through papers that were stacked behind the chair on some shelves that were too close to get to and getting rid of a lot of trash that way. Looking at some of them makes me wonder why I ever saved them in the first place, and why I kept them in the second place. Recipes for dishes I have never tried because each time I came across one that looked good I wanted to try it. Just never got around to actually doing that for most of them and the ones i have tried and liked are now in recipe binders. Ya know, big stacks of paper get kinda heavy after a while and I think I’ve personally filled the big dumpster a couple of times without even trying. And always shaking my head at the waste of paper and ink involved.

I’m also going through the bins of fabric, pulling out all of the tiny scraps that I once thought I would sew into a quilt. I still make quilts but it’s been a long time since I used a postage stamp sized scrap in one. And half inch strips of fabric? I have to wonder if I ever used any of those since each seam is a quarter inch one. I think — no, I know I am a hoarder when it comes to a lot of things but happily I’m recovering from that lately. I do find myself wishing some of those tiny scraps were a lot larger though since the fabric they came from was so pretty. But of course, there are also the scraps that are so ugly I wonder what I was thinking about when I bought them. Probably not thinking at all at the time, but now out they go.

Speaking of quilts, I’m working on one now for a granddaughter who is getting married in April. It won’t be finished by her wedding day but she will know it is coming soon. Now to see if I have a photo of it:

KODAK Digital Still Camera

Since their favorite colors closely resemble mine I had the red and navy they requested already on hand for some future occasion and this turned out to be just that occasion. The quilt has several names, depending on how the blocks are set together and I think this setting is called Windmill. In another setting it can be Flying Geese or Birds In Flight among several others that I have forgotten after the 65 years since I began quilting. One of my favorites though, whatever it’s called.

I’m still dressing Barbie and some other dolls even though I’ve slowed that down until the quilt is finished.

KODAK Digital Still Camera

Still fun to do and lately I’ve been finding more of the needles I’ve dropped over the years — most of them under, inside or behind the chairs I’ve moved as well as the shelving units that are being scooted around each time I open a new place for them. Some of those are just being dismantled since I don’t need them all after tossing out the papers and fabric, but I’ve learned to hang on to the shelves until the end of my energy spurts puts me back in the chair. I’ve given too many things away thinking I’ll never need them only to discover that I actually do need them after all.

Ah well, while the MS allows I will be getting back to it all. One thing about an energy spurt is that I don’t need much sleep until it’s over. I have wised up enough to know that a rest break every 15 minutes is absolutely necessary though. Old dogs can learn new tricks after they break a few bones due to ignoring the obvious. Remember, wear orange at some time this month is support of the millions of us with MS who are still here.

I’m Still Alive

There was some doubt recently as to when or whether this would be true for very long when I began having another series of minor strokes, but even though they continue I’m still beating them.  This time they took my speaking ability for a little while but ya just can’t keep me from talking for long when my mind is made up that I have something to say.  For that matter, I’m gonna talk even when I don’t have all that much to say just because no silly brain fart is going to tell me what to do!

Okay, now you might have noticed the prominent orange in the opening photos. You may have forgotten this, but October is MS Awareness Month and orange is our color, so once again I’m flying my logo, created for me by MichelleMarie, my friend and fellow blogger of http://tellmeaboutit.wordpress.com.  I am forever grateful for this gift from her.  The orange rose was a give from Paul Militaru, a wonderful photographer from Romania which incidentally is the home country of three of my grandchildren.

I had hoped to do some research and quote some statistics about MS on this beginning of the month, but the best laid plans in my case often go astray, or whatever the word for wrong is.  I know the word but not the spelling and my spell-check just gave up the ghost where that particular word is concerned.  Ya know ya just did a real job on something with your spell-check throws up its hands and gives up.

Okay, even though I don’t know the numbers, what I do know is that MS shares this Awareness month with Breast Cancer, and they get most of the publicity.  I also know that the number of people affected by MS worldwide is much larger than the number of people affected by Breast Cancer.  MS is considered an orphan disease, one seldom mentioned because there is no cure and not a heck of a lot of funding, although that is beginning to improve.  There are some new protocols out there that are helping a lot of the people affected by this disease.  I’ve had it since age 11, and now 64 years later it is getting worse each day.  Unfortunately I’m unable to take the disease modifying drugs because my system has a weird habit of causing side  effects that I would just as soon leave rather than take chances with, so I’ve lived a long time with it now and I can live with the fact that some day it just might kill me — in about 25 or 30 years from now.  Since I really don’t want to live more than another 20 years though, I can live with that!  My mom and grandmother were both 96 years of age when they passed on, and that sounds like a good round number to me.

Okay, I just put a new battery in my Dell laptop and it’s beginning to bounce all over the place, so someone is trying to tell me it’s time to shut this down for today.  I have some serious naval contemplation to do tonight, as well as more decluttering, (huge sigh), a never ending ordeal.  So y’all have a good night and remember to say “hello” to the disabled person holding up that line you are in.  They  aren’t enjoying it any more than you are.