Respect, repeat and welcome...

Have you ever known about someone that you read a biography of when you were just a child yourself, perhaps one that you weren’t yet told to take on because it was not in the realm of your issuance of homework? But for some reason you felt the desire to read that particular true story because the synopsis that was given to you intrigued you so much that you in your immaturity at the time became lesser due to the need to know?
For me it was the book the Miracle Worker about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, her teacher.
As you all must know that Helen was an amazing woman stricken by a severe fever causing her, as an infant to become deaf and blind all in one foul swoop!
Helen becomes a wild child with no way to communicate, but Annie Sullivan tames and teaches the small extraordinarily strong banshee into an educated remarkable woman.
In the 1962 version of the movie Patty Duke played Helen and Anne Bancroft played Miss Sullivan. It was one of those stories that came in play form and so I read it that way, and it was wonderful and amazing to my twelve year old self; later on when I did get to see the movie with my father, which in itself was unusual since he worked so hard and so he really didn’t have the time to do it, but wow, what an impression the story made on me!
We are so impressionable at that young age anyway, but the resilience and perseverance of the whole story was overwhelming!
I do hope that today children are told to read the true story that resonance is unfailing and timeless!
The times we live in now are so hard for many or that should be most, but knowing that we as human beings have the ability to deal with anything tough and come out of the other end with amazing grace is a story of biblical quality, but so apropos for the times we all live in now.

So besides when things get difficult for me with my own ills I try to think of how much worse they could be, and at times they had been. I won’t elaborate on that tonight but believe me things have been much, much worse for me…the best part is to know as I have said before and what my father used to say is: it is always darkest before the dawn and when you have reached the bottom all you can do from there is go up!
And so when we all know of someone who we admire for their unrelenting gumption to succeed no matter what, and Helen was that person for me, my heroine!
And oddly enough I had nothing going on in my life to relate to her personal ordeals when I was a child, except the average trials and tribulations of growing up that we all go through…but now and perhaps for the last few decades as well I do go back to that tremendous story of her survival and it lifts me up to knowing that I too can endure so much more!

Moving on…I am again taking a big step in my voicing of my political opinion and really don’t want hate to follow what I call my logical spilling of my feelings…
Any-who, I am a strong believer in America and I am proud to be called an American and with that moniker goes all the freedoms that have been fought for us such as the freedom of speech, freedom of religion and you got it… I suppose you all know where I am going with this…yes, freedom to worship in a building of your faith.
As I have mentioned before in just our immediate family we have Lutheran, Catholic and Judaism as religions and so I am one of those people who feel the need for all people’s to have the freedom of being a law abiding worshipper of your chosen faith, including Muslim.
These people who are building a Mosque are not building a battleground and they are not the militant ones who bombed the Twin Towers, or flew into the Pentagon, or crashed the PA plane. They are Americans too with all the rights that we Americans share. Why have we all forgotten that we are a melting pot, and that many of our own personal ancestors came here because of religious persecution and the inability to practice their solemn beliefs?
I love our country mainly because of our history that was all inclusive not limiting to just, you or you, or you the way you think or believe; have we all forgotten?
I sure hope not!
Please dear fellow Americans understand that is what our president is saying, he is upholding out true American laws and beliefs!
Check your history books or ask your family about why they immigrated here.

If anyone is still reading now I will give you a short update of my condition if I have not lost you: My eyesight has not improved. I am still very tired but my headache and neck ache has diminishing significantly from yesterday, but still dull pain accompanies me throughout my day today when I least needed or wanted it. And I have been hopping in and out of bed to rest when I can.

The last part of my dissertation for tonight is, and I hope I have not scared her off since I am so proud to see that I have been fortunate enough in acquiring another follower! Welcome dear new person I will try hard not to bore you, but for what the cost is of all this entertainment … all that is going through this small withering mind of mine is… you get what you pay for! LOL!
Truly you are so welcomed onboard this lunacy ride of mine!
And I do hope that I never ever turn you off…

Happy night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too!

PS END OF COMBAT IN IRAQ!

PSS My spell check again is not working and since my eyes are compromised with my brain intellect as well, please forgive all grammar and spelling mistakes!

Steroid Free!

Yes! Spoke with my neurologist yesterday as I believe I told you all last night and if the glucose level went back up to a dangerously high one then I should stop the step down pills, and so they did make my glucose go up and for me to need an additional insulin shot and so as of late last night I am no longer on the, ‘cure’!
But supposedly the three days of the IV infusions of the 1000 MG. of the Solu-Medrol should be enough anyway to help with my optic neuritis if we caught in time, and hopefully make me better. But I won’t know for some time yet…

Meanwhile I have been receiving many caring phone calls all day saying that they have information for me or just wondering how I was doing!
Nice. I also had the privilege to share my networking ability of all the resources that I had acquired while searching to help myself and that made me feel very happy.

I am still not seeing any better out of my right eye and lefty has been misbehaving too, and scaring the bejeebers out of me. And I really don’t know why I have been sort of dizzy most of the day; could it be withdrawal from the heavy steroid treatment or something else? I did feel the need to nap again, and that childish leisurely habit seems to becoming all too familiar these last few days.
Well when your life is not that exciting I possibly could become tired just from the boredom of it all?

My senses are not being utilized for what they were intended, to be used without stopping!
I can still hear and smell things fairly well and unfortunately (I am saying unfortunately only because my appetite has not diminished at all!) taste things too since the metallic residual sensation has diminished somewhat, but my eyesight is definitely impaired and staring at a TV or computer screen is slightly challenging and if done for too long a bit painful!
The balance issue which I have had for a few years now due to the Ataxia seems to have become much worse as of today! I really do hope it is just temporary, but with my vision impaired as it is perhaps that is one of its reasons for its amplification or of my perceiving it to being that way. You close your eyes and try to move normally!

Also my body temperature appears to fluctuate constantly, from being too warm to too cold, and back again and again, how odd?
As I said I did go off the steroids and perhaps this is just the way a cut off quickly reacts to ones body, since previously it was done slowly and I do not recall this happening; nope it did not!

In fact as I sit tonight at this computer I am perspiring and our house is the same temperature that it was last night when I did not have this problem…Ah withdrawal, gotta be!
Well, at least I am not going manic or some other lunatic type reaction, whoa, what a thought, but I have heard of such things and I am sure you have too?
I don’t care what anyone says drugs are drugs even if prescribed by doctors.
And right now physically my ability to sit here unencumbered by pain is not that great, and so I will most likely be calling it quits very shortly!
Sorry, but I have to listen to my body and it’s crying a great big OUCH!
Happy night to all and to all count your blessings and I will too!
And, a BIG Thanks for being there folks; I do REALLY appreciate it!

PS Hubby has become my male nurse with administering the insulin shots when I needed them and also taking my vitals, BP pulse and temperature too what a guy! Thanks to him I am running on awareness!

Pin cushion here...

To be honest the IV’s are all over but the testing of my glucose is not, and neither are the insulin shots since I still have the step down pills that I am taking, and my normal daily Copaxone injections forever, thus the pin cushion comment.
The fluctuation in my glucose numbers has been lower than they were to put it into perspective if you only understand the A1C test Saturdays was equivalent to 11 and Sunday’s was a 9, but now my numbers are, about an 8, still significant enough to require an additional insulin shot this afternoon, at a slightly lower dose though. Hopefully this does not mean I will have to contend with diabetes, which is in the family, and it will diminish after time passes like it did last time, but it took over six months!
I did speak with my neurologist this morning to keep her informed about the weekend and what occurred. We discussed whether or not I should continue with the step down pills and she suggested if the glucose goes too high I should discontinue the pills since the IV infusion alone should be enough and that the pills are not always necessary.
Then I asked for a time frame when I might being seeing, yes seeing some improvement in my vision in my right eye. Her answer was within two weeks and if not that would be it; the loss of sight in my right eye would probably or more than likely permanent.
Now is where I tell the world to not wait on this sort of thing, for it would be foolish and could spell disaster not unlike what I may have to live with from now on.

There is no known surgery to fix vision loss from optic neuritis, and even if I got another cataract in this right eye that I used to call my good eye that won’t fix it either or Lasik or any other!
Gosh I feel so stupid, and hopefully all this current worry will be a moot point in two weeks when I look back and see how silly I sounded when the vision has returned!
But to be honest I did wait a bit too long…Two to three weeks is usually the cut off and foolishly I waited about twice that!
A week should be the required time to allow for such things of this nature, and if still blurry go to the doctor!

The continuation of my acquiring a large number of FB friends has continued most of the day and the tally is up to 625!

I also heard from our Canadian, six months of the year neighbor from their summer home in Montreal.
They informed us that our neighbor who passed away this winter well his daughter who lives here in Florida is extremely ill and will be having quite a bit of her internal organs removed since a mass that was found inside of her, no mention of cancer thankfully, so hopefully benign but its called the Humpty Dumpty procedure where once all is removed from her pancreas, stomach, and gall bladder etc. will be taken out she will be put back together again! They passed on her note to us, I suppose thinking that we knew her but we have never ever actually met her, anyway her attitude about the whole ordeal sounded tremendously positive! What a gal, perhaps we will be fortunate enough to meet her when she feels up to it and is hopefully on the mend.

We currently have a gentle rain falling, and the thunder and lightening seems to have passed.
Oh, many are wondering how if my eyesight is so compromised I can write this Blog… let me explain, my left eye has the cataract lens and is working fairly well for close work, but the problem that I am finding is that my dear sweet righty, bad one now has trouble staying out of the way, and eventually causes a headache, neck ache and exhausts me since it doesn’t know what to do yet, but is trying to do what it can’t.
Got it?
In other words I can see close due to the left one but my inability to see clearly is compromised due to righty fighting for positioning and thinking that it is all right, but not! OUCH! The battle goes on, since when you are right handed supposedly you are right eyed?
On that weird analogy I will bid you all a very happy night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

603 and 323

Good news first… 603 is my tonight’s tally on my FB friends, and hooray to that! And thank you all!

The 323 is a last night’s nightmare of my glucose number that caused me to have to call the wonderful on call RN to come back to my home from hers way down in Fort Myers to give me an insulin shot, because as many of you know that glucose number is not a good one!
But to the good within a short time it went to 312, then to 271 by the time she arrived from her hour haul, and by the time she left I think it was down to 237 or there about.
The six unit dose apparently was sufficient to do the job, because by this morning very early at five thirty A.M., I told you I’m an early riser, it was all the way down to 105, and this afternoon, 160 at 2:45 P.M. then down to 156 by four P.M. so we still are monitoring it, but have three syringes one of 2 units and two others of four units each if necessary. I did just finish dinner at five thirty, what can I say we are in our sixties so we eat early, haven’t any of you heard of early-bird dinners?
So it will be checked once more or so if need be in a few hours.

Foolishly I told my FB friends about my situation, and I think I may have turned many of them off, because for all the sympathy I did get was less than two percent of the FB Friends group, oh well. I suppose that sociology test did not go too well.
Revealing TMI is too overwhelming and proved to be an embarrassment to myself and many others, especially when I elaborated on about the details!
Reality check and note to self NEVER give too much away, mystery is much better than too much info! Feeling stupid is not that unfamiliar to me, been there done that too, too many times before! Agh!

Fortunately, having been in this situation before it is refreshing in many ways since I do know that this to will pass. Personal history is almost as good a learning experience or tool as world or American history!
But what I have just proven even when we do learn it we are on occasion doomed to repeat it! HA!

Carrying on in this vein of harping on health issues is not what I wanted to do with this Blog regularly, but when you haven’t been out and about for a while this is all I got right now to discuss with all of you, so for that I am truly sorry. What I would like is to know about local venues having something indoors in the air-conditioning going on that I can scooter around at? And Hubby and I would be there in a flash! You betcha!

Who said this writing thing would be easy night after night, although I did for a short period of time deviate from all this boring health business. After reading the online paper this morning I found a mistake in the one section, and OH NO, this is not going to make any of you happy because yes it was maudlin, I do read the obituaries on occasions, sadly my reason is because when I did volunteer for all those years the mean ages of my friends were around seventy-five since I did work with seniors and fifteen years later and me being out of that world of that now for nearly two years I wonder if they are still with us or not, got it?
Any-who, this morning the online section of obits had the police blotter arrests on it not the dearly departed and so I contacted the editorial department but the head of it instead of the online editor, which was an enormous faux pas, but you see I had not done this sort of thing in quite some time and I forgot that the new guy was in-charge of the online items. Sincerely I just wanted them to be aware of the mistake there was no malice intended, and so I do apologize to him. Boy what a big ooops!
I did receive two emails about the issue first from the head editor and then from his under-counterpart saying that it was straightened out right away! Oh well, talk about a bad day…we all have them, but look at it this way “tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your/my life?" LOL! An oldie but a goody!

On that silly note I will bid you all a much happier day tomorrow even if this one was great and also for your night to be happy as well, and don’t forget to count those blessings and we will too!

PS Mr. Pres. you and Sasha looked like you had one wonderful swim in the Gulf, we all really loved that picture, a so happy daddy and daughter one, brought back some of my own memories of me and my dad! Gosh I’m tearing up…

594, and a bit of frustration after two IV infusions...

I am in a mixed emotions sort of day… since I am so thrilled that I now have 594 new friends on Facebook when only about a month ago I started my campaign to have a million when I only had 34 friendly peeps on board, hooray! And I would like to thank each and every one of you!

My reason for also having still of a bit of frustration is the fact that after two days of the IV 1000 MG. of the Solu-Medrol infusions I have not gotten any difference in my sight yet, and yes I do know it could be awhile after treatment by days or even weeks, but it is still a wee bit disappointing. And last night I had a bit of a scare when my glucose level rose to 260, but believe it or not after drinking a cup of decaffeinated green tea my glucose went down in just a half an hour to 251, and with another cup and hour and a half later it was down to 207!Could I be on to something or perhaps I was just stressed from the initial number and it relieved that?
I did have an RN on call who was ready with insulin if need be, and we spoke by phone and fortunately I did not need to have her come back to give me those shots! I also was running a low grade fever that still this morning was fluctuating on the high side; steroids are no fun folks believe me!
Well, tomorrow is the last IV dose and then on Monday I start the step down pills.
Meanwhile I spent some time trying to find out more about my fate with this Optic Neuritis and I read some of those chats about the topic and some were so sad and negative. And a few made me want to cry because as most do know I am sure that MS is usually a young person’s illness where many in the twenty to thirty age group are the first diagnosed, and getting the optic neuritis can be an initial indication that the Multiple Sclerosis will follow in fifty per cent of the cases of who do get it.
Blindness can be caused by optic neuritis too and when left untreated for too long and it can be a tremendous faux pas in not acquiring speedy treatment. But you see, no pun intended, oh all right it can be intended, since sometimes this enigma of a symptom of blurriness can mean all sorts of eye problems that are less extreme in the affects to your sight and might very well diminish on their own accord or have many other types of treatments including cataract surgeries if that is what it is. What I have learned and do hope not too late is that medical intervention when things aren’t right as soon as possible may be more beneficial and proper to do especially if you have a history with all sorts of eye problems like I have had. Foolishly I am now praying, yes, this Agnostic child of the almighty he/she perhaps or not, that I will not lose my sight in my right eye for good because I waited too long to take care of the problem and hoped it would go away, which to be fair sometimes it does even with optic neuritis! But sadly it didn’t.
I also discovered that what can bring it on are too warm temperatures, ha!
This is Florida in August, and most days I have felt like a prisoner in my own home in the air-conditioning, and now even with my pool calling to me to do my ROM exercises, which I had to put on hold due to my nasty shoulder sun exposure problems then the rains chilling it out, and now it causing this eye problem of too much sun exposure even with my very dark sun glasses and the heat, heat, heat! What can one do?
Seriously, what can one do?
My only form of exercise has become my enemy to my health and that is too weird to wrap my head around! Think of it, the exercise is good, but the heat and sun are not, for me! Oh well, if any of you out there have any ideas let me know, OK?
And I do mean that folks! You are nearly a few thousand strong on this and now with my FB friends too why that’s nearly my million, LOL!

On that short note of required silliness ending I will wish you all a very happy night and to all count those blessings and we will too!

PS welcome to Florida Mr. President and First Lady Michelle and Sasha please enjoy your stay!

Friday the 13th, oooooooooooo, oooooooooooo, who's afraid of this date?

Well you should be!
I’m joshing you; the fear of Triskaidekaphobia is a real problem for some people.
Personally, I have mixed emotions since good and bad things for me have occurred on Friday the 13th.
Shall I elaborate?
Hurricane Charley arrived six years ago on a Friday the 13th and destroyed our home and I wrote about just what happened on that infamous day on last year’s fifth anniversary, if interested you can access my Blog from that date by copying and pasting this link I think: http://tobi-adayinthelife.blogspot.com/2009/08/friday-august-13-2004.html

My niece died on October 13. 2006, consequently the same day I had, had an MRI for my MS and the results from that, at that time I was told that my MS was stable, boy has that ever changed! And today I was able to get my first of three Solu-Medrol infusions for my optic neuritis; which could be considered either good or bad. So I am torn with the date’s power of that number and its occurrence on that day of the week.
Most will argue it is only a day of the week and a number!
And that is so true… or is it?
Below is another site that you might want to try to find out all the reasons that fairly sane people believe the date is to be feared, well if not a scary date but one to take in with much respect.
Copy and paste this info if you dare to see some logically or maybe not so logical reasons for this date’s notorious reputation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triskaidekaphobia
Most of us just go about our business all day long without regard of what each numerical date may mean in the broader sense, in the bigger picture, or call it the scheme of things…
We as human beings generally just go through life with knowing birth dates, anniversaries, holidays and the like, but some dates are not that important and as many would have you believe just another day!
Why September eleventh 2001 was just another day to most until that horrendous infamous happening occurred of the Twin Towers, Pentagon and PA and nearly three thousand lives were taken, December seventh, the day Pearl Harbor was hit, comes to mind and I bet that was just another day too at one time, why probably on December sixth.
You see my point is that unless we personally can relate to a specific date it means nothing in the grander scale of life itself. Sorry for such ghastly emotional examples, but you know me…
And so I have come to respect people’s reasoning of what gives them chills of remembrances good or bad, and interestingly enough that’s just another commonality of human nature, and so my sociology experiment goes on…
And yes, I do have an awful lot of time of my hands.
In my opinion observations, by answers to questions that I have posed to people, also when my eyes work better just watching the world at large gives way to many diagnoses of the ids of persons in this generation, and I do so love to try and learn…for when we stop that energy we become brain dead!
On these weighty concepts, who knows it could be those heavy doses of steroids causing all this!
And again I have asked too many questions of a dear old friend, but she being the gem that she is answered them for me, and for that I am sorry but thankful.
And another thank you goes out to the lovely woman who at one time I was able to call my editor for I was fortunate to have her edit my By-lines that I wrote way back for the local newspaper and she is now one of my FB friends and has offered to edit this…nah that would be too presumptuous of me and who reads this drivel anyway! LOL!
Sorry, my faux pas, but you all know me by now… my followers and avid readers who remain anonymous! LOL
Now back to a wee bit of silly that felt good! And so, happy night to all and to all count those blessings and we will too

Hooray! The answer was found!

http://www.walgreenshealth.com/whc/patientPortal/hcare/jsp/hcare_home.jsp

The above link is to my IV Angel’s company that finally made my life and medical problems more manageable.
You see, today after banging my head against the final wall and hopefully I thought for the last time since I thought that late last night I had my problem solved but actually my bubble was burst earlier this morning.
What happened was the fact that I realized that I had quite a bit of my non interest for two years credit care account available for me to utilize for my dilemma, voila!
And I truly thought my problem was to be solved by that realization and that I would call this wonderful hospital who was giving me this great discount down to only fifteen hundred for what they claimed was actually a forty-five hundred service!
And now I had the means to pay them too! Wow what a concept!

Unfortunately, when I called though they said that they did not have an account with CreditCare and unless you did they would not accept them or vice a versa.
So I was still in my same situation!
Then out of no where I thought why not call CreditCare and ask them who does cover my type of need, and they said perhaps my Ophthalmologist who did my cataract surgery and so I called them, and of course they DID NOT!
But they thought another eye doctor in Fort Myers might and they gave me his name and phone number, he DID NOT EITHER, although their office there knew of someone who did do infusions exactly of the type that I needed for optic neuritis!
And they gave me the name of the person; let’s say Ms. K, my now called IV Angel Lady!

She took all my info and also that about CreditCare to see if they would pay for the medication, but while she did try with them my curiosity and good business sense had to know how much their medication and the rest of it would be and she told me… Well, she said the one gram is the same as 1000 MG. of Solu-Medrol in IV form will be $63.11 per dose, and so I figured it out, and for three days it will be, $189.33! And the nurse who will be showing you how to do it will be $90.00 a day! So I figured it would be a total for three days at my home, yes they come here, at $459.33, but again I was wrong since she would only be there the first day and available if I needed her more! So my actual total will be….drum roll please…..$279.33 in total!!!! And so I said even if CreditCare can’t do it we can hooray! I had been saving and I did have a little bit more than that and so we were good once again. My biggest fear is that my illness will be responsible for us losing our home.
WOW what a concept; why at this rate I can afford to have OPTIC NEURITIS, almost five more times! Hopefully I won’t though!
Shame on you local hospital, when more than fifty million citizens are un-insured in America and many more are under insured! Padding those services for you’re over the top profit that is really repugnant in this day and age and not very nice at all!

The company is Walgreen’s Option Care and as I said I put the link to it on the top of this Blog for you all to access if your need is there, just copy and paste.
What apparently happened a little over a year ago there was a merger between Option Care and Walgreen’s that in my book appears to be a marriage made in heaven!
And so now if anyone out there needs assistance in any of their very long list of available medical options you can go to their site or call them on their toll free number which is there too, and find the local one nearby you!
I was so thrilled with my find that I had to let most of the nicest people who with honesty and compassion tried their hardest to help me out, and so I notified them of this incredible find just as I am you too!
Isn’t this what networking is all about, really?

And so on my happiness find I will tell you too to have a very happy night and to count those blessings and we will too!