The Sabres lost again tonight. That's three down to Ottawa and so I'm having a personal pity party moment. Unless you're from Buffalo, which though I lived there, even I can't comprehend what it means to be a Buffalonian like my husband, you can't imagine how down you can get over this.

I believe and yet....as someone near and dear once said to me, "There's a lode-stone under Buffalo."

 

Saturday mornings are the best time of the week for me. We start early and make our once-a-week, round-robin grocery shopping trip, stop by the post office, go home and unload the car and then take the two labs to the field. There we sit in our camp chairs and hit tennis balls out into the field for the dogs to rummage through the long grasses and hunt them down. In the background are the hills. The sun, shining through clouds, highlights some of the trees and shadows others. Occasionally eagles will land on a far branch and watch. The dogs rest when they're tired, unseen in the tall grass except for the tip of a wagging tail or the occasional paws in the air as Max rolls on his back next to her. Eventually, they return with the ball, ready to run for it again. It is peaceful, often humorous and totally relaxing.

Have a great weekend...
 

Tandem

Confirm

Satisfaction

Knowledge

Predictable

COMPASSION

NOUN: Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it. See synonyms at pity.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English compassioun, from Late Latin compassi, compassin-, from compassus, past participle of compat, to sympathize : Latin com-, com- + Latin pat, to suffer; see p(i)- in Appendix I.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/47/C0524700.html

So, why a month ago did I finally tell a doctor about the previous diagnosis?

When I first moved out here it seemed my decision to avoid telling my doctors about the diagnosis was the right thing to do. The eye doctor I saw one year after my move was able to get my vision to 20/20 again. I started riding the mountain bike and after the exceptionally nasty falls I had when I first arrived (due to my not riding for such a long period, you understand), I was riding with more comfort and confidence. I even managed to get up to 18 miles round-trip to a summer festival in a near-by town over that summer. The farthest I had been able to ride.

Over the next year, that seemed to change. It started feeling like I was riding though thick mud. We changed bikes, fixed tires, and changed bikes again. I would improve and then back-slide again, sometimes not able to make it even two miles without tiring. (this was, of course, due to age, lack of stamina, practise and anything else I could use). I started noticing I was unable to read street signs again and my night-vision was again full of flares and starbursts. (due to my advancing years and need of a new perscription). Then three months ago, while I was waiting on my eye appointment to arrive, I started having trouble climbing stairs (where my computer is) and even walking from the couch to the kitchen was an effort. (due to over-work or S.A.D., of course). The depression came back full force as the ability went down and then the eye appointment arrived. The 20/20 was gone and so was their ability to correct it. They could find no reason for the problem and it sounded all too familiar....

I was scheduled for a follow-up six weeks later. I finally told the doctor about the MS and he scheduled another follow-up When I arrived, he did little more than talk...for over 30 minutes. He told me about a friend of his who had MS, talked about how they had improved the treatments and then the kicker...how MS can get worse if you don't treat it. When I thanked him after 30 minutes for the amount of time he was spending just talking to me, he told me that he had deliberately scheduled time to just talk to me because he felt it was important that I get treatment. A doctor who schedules time with you just to talk about you going to another doctor?

Shades of denial crashed.

I'm still not ready to say the fatal words "I have...." yet. But, I'm willing to talk to the clinic and see what they have to say. I'm willing to take the tests they wanted me to take before. I suppose that is improvement. I'm willing to accept that just perhaps the muscle fatigue, the depression, the vision issues and a few other choice tidbits might be due to something other than my advanced years on this earth or lack of sleep.

Five more days to wait...



Later...

 

Ignorance

NOUN: The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/75/I0027500.html

I went through a rough period a few years back. I had moved away from family and friends to take on a job that put me under extreme isolation. Sometime during that period of time, I started suffering waves of depression and mental confusion. I know now, that these can be symptomatic of MS. At the time though, that thought never crossed my mind. I simply thought I was going nuts

It got to the point where I gave up my job, moved back around my family and started a job as a waitress...an old former occupation, I felt was a no-brainer. Now, by this, I mean no disrespect to that profession. I happen to know a number of that occupation who are rather brilliant individuals and if customers heard what went on the in the back, they might refrain from some of their snotty comments. However, I digress... What I mean to say is I was a waitress for so long while my son was growing up, slipping back into that particular job felt like a comfortable shoe and eliminated much of my stress levels.

After about two months at home, I began to feel somewhat normal again until one evening during a particularly busy, hot, stressful shift, I suddenly had another disconnect. It was rather strange. I knew where I was (working) and what I was (a waitress) but could not seem to make the connection between taking the customer's orders and giving them to the cook. The actions seemed to have gaps in them. When the cook would give me the food, I knew I was supposed to do something with it but could not think of what that something was. My mind, particularly verbal skills, seemed to be short-circuited. Little gaps between what I knew and how to express it. Of course it only took about a minute before my co-workers realized there was something seriously wrong. They whisked me off the floor, thinking it was a blood sugar issue, had me sit quietly and rest, drinking down some orange juice and, after about 20 minutes, I felt fine. Everything was back to normal and I finished my shift without a problem.

But that night, as I drove home, I was having trouble seeing. Car lights seemed to glare and flare into giant starbursts, particularly with my left eye. Fortunately, there was little traffic and I made it home safely. The next morning I noticed a difference in how my eyes were perceiving light. One eye saw the world in warm hues while the other eye looked out through cooler hues. It was as if each of my eyes were seeing through warm gold or blue filters. Naturally, I went to the eye doctor. They tried to get my eyes back to 20/20 vision and found that impossible. What was worse was a subtle attitude the doctor had as he had me take test after test and finally told me he wanted me to see a specialist. The specialist ran a few more tests and then called me into his office. There he told me that he suspected I had MS.

Now, by the attitude of the eye doctors and the battery of tests, I was expecting detached retina, degenerative disease, a mini-stroke or what have you. The word MS had never once popped into my brain, even remotely. I had never met anyone who had MS, there was no one in my family who had MS, I had never spoke to anyone who had MS and knew nothing about MS.

Ignorance.

Because I knew nothing about MS, except that it sounded quite horrible, I was willing to accept a stroke, a massive vision failure, diabetes, or any known disease my family is subject to, but not MS. Nope. Not me. Couldn't be. I went through the motions, went to the clinic, had an MRI and heard my MS doctor say, "Yes, this shows characteristics of MS. It is late on-set and not a severe case."

Instead of being grateful at the "not a severe case", I simply denied I had it. Since there was no conclusive test guaranteeing me I had the disease, therefore, I simply chose not to have it. I stopped going to the clinic, filed my MRI results and the doctors letter and moved clear across the country. There I could live in ignorance and keep all of my doctors in that same ignorance, never mentioning my previous illness to any of them.

Until last month....
 

Wait

INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1a. To remain or rest in expectation: waiting for the guests to arrive. See synonyms at stay1. b. To tarry until another catches up. 2. To remain or be in readiness: lunch waiting on the table. 3. To remain temporarily neglected, unattended to, or postponed: The trip will have to wait. 4. To work as a waiter or waitress.
TRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To remain or stay in expectation of; await: wait one's turn. 2. Informal To delay (a meal or an event); postpone: They waited lunch for us. 3. To be a waiter or waitress at: wait tables.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/0/W0010000.html

Okay, why first inertia, then denial and now wait?

It is the clock ticking away until I finally talk to the doctors again...a thing I've put off for three years while denying that there is anything amiss.

Three years ago I was diagnosed with late-onset MS. I didn't like that diagnosis, I promptly decided that all the doctors were nincompoops, and since I moved at around the same time, it gave me the perfect opportunity to simply ignore their diagnosis and go on with my life. Well, it seemed a good plan at the time...

More tomorrow.
 

Denial

From the verb, Deny

TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: de·nied, de·ny·ing, de·nies
1. To declare untrue; contradict. 2. To refuse to believe; reject. 3. To refuse to recognize or acknowledge; disavow. 4a. To decline to grant or allow; refuse: deny the student's request; denied the prisoner food or water. b. To give a refusal to; turn down or away: The protesters were determined not to be denied. c. To restrain (oneself) especially from indulgence in pleasures.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English denien, from Old French denier, from Latin dnegre : d-, de- + negre, to say no; see ne in Appendix I.
SYNONYMS: deny, contradict, contravene, disaffirm, gainsay, negate, traverse These verbs mean to refuse to admit the existence, truth, or value of: denied the rumor; contradicted the statement; contravene a conclusion; disaffirm a suggestion; trying to gainsay the evidence; negated the allegations; traverse an indictment.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/85/D0138500.html


That tendency to revert back to the five year old who believes that hiding under the thin cotton bed-sheet will keep all the monsters away.

 

Inertia

NOUN: 1. Physics The tendency of a body to resist acceleration; the tendency of a body at rest to remain at rest or of a body in straight line motion to stay in motion in a straight line unless acted on by an outside force. 2. Resistance or disinclination to motion, action, or change: the inertia of an entrenched bureaucracy.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin, idleness, from iners, inert-, inert.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/12/I0121200.html

It is the sludge that prevents me from taking a step forward, and then, when I finally do, I always wonder what took me so long.

 

Okay, my husband sent me this link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17632436

Artificial trees? Does anyone else see the ridiculous in this? They worry about risk to humans and the ecosystem with leakage. Uhhh, why not just plant real trees, stop burning down the Rain Forests and come up with an alternative to our current energy consumption? What is so hard about that concept?



 

I read instructions. When I get a new car, I read the Owner's Manual...new software, I read the User's Manual...new appliance, I read the instructions.

Sometimes, when you wish to go from A to C, you simply must stop at B. If you don't, and then it doesn't work...well?

I find instructions somehow comforting. It is like getting my bearings on something new that has entered my life. Winging it has never been my strongpoint and the few times in my life where caution was thrown to the wind, directions were unknown or ignored, the results were less than satisfactory. I enjoy the little tips and tricks I pick up in instructions. It is not spontaneous, but it works for me.

Yet, my husband is not really a spontaneous individual and when it comes to spur of the moment, I am much more likely to decide something at the last minute. He knows pretty much what he wants to do and where he wants to go and does it according to his pre-set plan. So, if it is not being spontaneous, what is it that makes one person an instruction aficionado and the other a fly-by-the-seat-your-pants?

 

The cry to go to war is an admission of the failure of negotiation. By default, that puts primary importance on the skills of negotiation and secondary importance on the skills of war.

The concept of a Department of Peace, counter to the Department of War, has long been sought in this country. Perhaps seriously training diplomats and negotiators is long overdue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Peace
 

I haven't written in my blog in so long. Everyday I think about it and after watching the news, particularly Democracy Now! (my favorite news program), what I would have to say would be so much more of a rant than anything else. The words stupid, incompetant, crazy, deluded, obscene, insane and manical would spew through my post like so much venom. So, I've restrained myself, and sadly this blog has gone untouched.

Just thought I'd let you know why the long haitus. Maybe I'll post again in two years.
 

Okay, now I've heard everything.

There was a tragic shooting at a mall. Yes, we've heard it before--in our high schools, our malls, our McDonald's, our post offices. Someone cracks, grabs a gun and starts shooting. People understandably are distraught and outraged and look for solutions. It has happened before and sadly, will happen again. Bad things do sometimes happen to good people.

So why, the title? This time the solutions I heard put forth to prevent violence in the malls were typical for this over-reacting, freedom give-away time we live in. They were: put armed guards in the mall, put dogs at the doors, put metal detectors at the entrance.

Who thinks of these things? Do they live on some other planet? Have they never been to a mall?

Oh yes, such great ideas. Just look at how smoothly traffic flows through the airports now. I used to love to fly--now I detest everything about it from buying my ticket, to being in the airport, to the actual flight until mercifully, I find myself in a car leaving the airport at my destination. There is no customer service in flying anymore. So, let's now do the same thing for the shopping malls. Let's put metal detectors at the doors with guard dogs and watch the customer's flock to shop.

The world has gone crazy with paranoia and the Orwellian tendencies of the paranoid are legendary. Unfortunately, it also seems to be catching.

I've said it before and I'll say it again--the terrorists won a long time ago.




 

Many moons ago when I was in computer support, people would call on the phone and expect me to know the answers. I didn't know all the answers. What I did know was this:

I do not know all the answers, but I am willing to look for them.

How nice it would be if we all applied that statement to our lives. Instead of our simply saying "I don't know", and accepting it at that, to be willing to try and find out.

We humans have become entirely too lazy.



 

February grows difficult again. I noticed the building anxiety today. As it draws near to my sister's birthday at the end of this month, the little knots in the stomach, the sudden waves of depression, the empty feeling in my heart, the twinges of regret, all float in and out of my awareness. It's been six years now since she died and it's always around her birthday that seems the hardest to move through. On some days I just miss her terribly. This was one of them.

Later...