Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XIX

5)

4)

3) And now for something completely different...
  

2)

1)

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XVIII

5) The one thing I miss the most about my life before MS, was that it was a luxury to not appreciate how awesome my life truly was.
4) 

3) I have my first MS support group on Thursday and I get to find out how much better people are at MS than I am.
2) A cooling vest is a MS necessity. 

1)

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XX

5) How do you hold a runner on first? No, who's on first?

4) 

3) I just use #3 to ice the reader.
2) I was correct about the The Los Angeles Rams and how they will be the 2019 Superbowl Champions.
1)

Multiple Sclerosis and Me

What's it like being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis? The easiest, and arguably, best way, to describe this "snowflake disease" is simply that it's suuuper weird. 

Disorientingly weird, like being drunk all the time. It comes along with all embarrassing consequences of drunkenness, like stumbling or passing gas in public places, but without having touched an iota of alcohol. 

You're fighting an opponent you're woefully outmatched against.  Because MS is always changing the playing field. Changing your sensations, Changing your recollections. Changing you. Sometimes it's gradually and minimally, others it's suddenly and entirely. But the changes occur regardless. 

You have this acute awareness of how different your actions and feelings are from the way things used to be. You feel strange, disconnected from your once familiar body, that's now a home to a host of odd symptoms. 

It's hot all the time, scalding hot, Your body moves in unfamiliar ways called spasticity, but you just know you can't do things that used to feel seamless, like dribble a basketball or move to the beat of a song. Those nerves are long gone, lost to wherever it is nerves go once MS is done with them, along with your memory. Replaced instead by tremors, incontinence, and persistent non-stop dizziness. 

I don't know how the remaining chapters of my story will end—I don't even know how to end this blog post—but nowhere in those pages will it say that I gave up the fight against multiple sclerosis. 

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XVII

5)

4) Truth.

3) Stem cells may be the key that unlocks the Multiple Sclerosis mystery. 

2)

1) I long for this day too...

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XIX

5) What does your 2019 forecast entail?
4) Spoiler Alert: The Los Angeles Rams will be the 2019 Superbowl Champions.  
3) Calvin and I share similar hobbies.

2)

1)

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XVI

5) There is a tremendous amount of depression associated with multiple sclerosis. It affects not only those diagnosed but also strikes the team of caregivers surrounding them.
4) 'Or just', controls my MS life. 

3)

2)

1) When you're having a tough MS day, I hope all my MS friends out there remember to keep smiling!

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XV

5) 

4) 

MS Brain Fog

3) 

Ann Romney

2)

 

1) These days...

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Idiom Edition

id·i·om - NOUN an expression whose meaning is not predictable from the usual meanings of its constituent elements, as kick the bucket or hang one's head, or from the general grammatical rules of a language, as the table round for the round table, and that is not a constituent of a larger expression of like characteristics.

5) Pot calling the kettle black. 
Definition: A hypocritical statement. 
Example: NASA astronauts are easy. Just because it's hypocritical doesn't mean it's not true.
4) Won't touch something with a 10-foot pole.
Definition: To find something unappealing and not want to associate with it 
Example: "I'm not touching QAnon with a 10-foot pole."
3) Traded hair for teeth
Definition: Made a bad trade e.g. traded something which grows back for something permanent. 
Example: "Broke up with my college boyfriend. I traded hair for teeth on that one."
2) Thick as thieves 
Definition: In the 18th century, 'thick' meant being closely allied with and thieves were thought of as conspiratorial individuals. 
Example: Meghan Markle and I. We're thick as thieves. Her and Kate Middleton, not as much.
1) Piece of cake

Definition: To be very easily accomplished or said ironically, about something that is extremely difficult to achieve. 
Example: "Climbing Everest? Piece of cake."

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XIV

5)

4) What's it like being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis? The easiest, and arguably, best way, to describe this "snowflake disease" is simply that it's suuuper weird.
3) 

2) Having MS is like being drunk all the time but without touching an iota of alcohol. It comes along with all the embarrassing consequences of drunkenness, like stumbling, falling, and passing gas in public places.
1) 

Southpaw

Approximately 10% of the world's population are southpaws. We don't talk about in front of strangers but my own father leans to the left. We'll never know the true percent of lefties because many were forced to change handedness during childhood by teachers, parents, or the Aryan Society for Right Handed World Domination (you didn't hear it from me).

While historically, we typically enjoy shunning and/or ridiculing our minorities, according to Chris McManus, this tiny percentage has managed to change how lefties are socially viewed due to their production of an extraordinary number of high achievers.

The magnitude of famous lefties is truly outstanding considering there's no explanation for why people are left handed.

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XVIII

5) Good Morning, Vietnam is a 1987 American comedy-drama war film staring Robin Williams as a radio DJ on Armed Forces Radio Service with a huge popularity among the troops, while infuriating his superiors.

4) Here's some well-deserved encouragement, you magnificent mother fucker. 

3) Parallel lines have so much in common. It's a shame they'll never meet.

2)

1)

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XVII

5) Light exists as both a particle and a wave. This dichotomy explains how we can live in a universe with simultaneously freewill and predestination.
4) I think I had this teacher.

3) At a whopping 29 letters, Floccinaucinihilipilifica

has earned the unofficial title of the longest non-technical word in the English language. However, its meaning is quite simple: the act or habit of estimating something as worthless. (Like say this word itself?)
2) I remember this pie! It was apple.

1) What are the top traits of truly remarkable people? If you demonstrate these following characteristics, like adaptability, curiosity, and open mindedness, in addition to being a night owl, you might just be a true intellectual giant.

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XIII

5)

4)

Don't forgot sweating, sleeping, and making everyone around you uncomfortable, all at once, like magic!

3) 

2)

1) I miss my boring life. I'd give anything to get it back.  

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XII

5)

4) With multiple sclerosis, often, I find myself reminiscing about simpler times and wonder if one day, these will be my simple times I'm reminiscing about like a strange loop of a larger uncomplicated era that I don't even realize or appreciate for it's simplicity.

3)

2)

1) 

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XVI

5) How a light machine made peace with lions in a Kenyan village.

4) We actually don't know when Lief Erikson Day is. It could be today, where are my Viking horns?
3) If I'm late don't wait. Go on without me. I may tarry awhile.

2) I saw a goat at the movie theater last night. I said "What's a goat doing at the movies?!?!" The goat said, "Well, I liked the book."
1) Greatest. Sidewalk Sign. Ever. 

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part XI

5)

4) 

3)

2) I mean, I am drunk (since noon), but I ALSO have MS.

1) 

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XV

5) According to legend, kissing the The Blarney Stone endows the kisser with the gift of the gab or a great eloquence and skill at flattery. Just don't try to get to second base.
4) Remarkable New Orleans mint mark between the D and the O on the bottom middle of the coin.

3) The Wow! signal was a strong narrow band radio signal received on August 15, 1977, by Ohio State University's Big Ear radio telescope. The signal appeared to come from the constellation Sagittarius and bore the expected hallmarks of extraterrestrial origin. See also 

• The Holy Shit! signal

2) My block - where everything is everything for sheezy.

1) This Michael Jr. Ted Talk asks "What's your punch line"? Consider how a change, via your "punch line," in an established life can result in a host of positive, if not unexpected, outcomes such as revelation, fulfillment, and joy (e.g. I was going to be a corporate lawyer but now I'm a Human Rights advocate or I never wanted children and now I have 6.)

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XIV

5) Organic Chemistry is one of the most commonly failed college classes.
4) This isn't my coin collection. I don't know how that even got here, I mean, I'm just holding them for a friend.

3) Ocean is a weird word.
2) Need help d-drop dropping it like its hot? How hot is this thing, this song's been around for years...

1) We built this city on rock and roll. That seems so structurally unsound.

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XIII

5) First seen during the 1975 movie "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," Easter Eggs are intentional inside jokes, a nod or "wink", hidden messages or images, or secret features of an intellectual property piece.
4) They're not booing they're saying "Spicuuuuuzza". Except for the ghosts, they really are booing.

3) I did the mash.

2) What's black and doesn't work? Decaffeinated coffee, you racist bastard.
1) Being back in the high life again is more than just what what happens when I take my meds incorrectly.

Everything I Know Is Ridiculous - Part XII

5) False color is more than just what my hair dresser does every 8 weeks.

 
4) The uncanny valley is the hypothesized relationship between the degree of an object's resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object.
3) This jolly jam politely declines to honor your request.

2) Music hits me so hard.

1) The hook. Be cool, the hook.

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part X

5) The side effects of your average multiple sclerosis medication reads like a variable who's who of human misery Including everything from excessive sweating, to disorientation, to voice changes which my 900 number refuses to pay me extra for despite the increase in customer satisfaction.   
4) MS Life Hacks.
3) How does it feel to have MS and be killing it?

2) These stunning mug shots launched modeling contracts and careers for these fortunate felons.
1) The MS infusion medication TYSABRI is my primary therapy. Over the past year, I've noticed a handful of changes. Some were expected like weight loss, fatigue, and being able to beat box while others were surprising though not unpleasant like eye color change in my naturally midnight black eyes.  

Multiple Sclerosis and Me: 5 Things I've learned about MS - Part IX

5)

 

4) 

3) LEMTRADA is the biggest gun MS has and is sometimes called the 5 year cure. Despite it's crippling side effects, I was forced to consider this alternative after several flares despite being on the therapy TYSABRI. However my most recent MRI provided three words and knee buckling gratitude: No. New. Lesions.  
2) "Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."  ~Aristotle
1) Actress Selma Blair revealed her MS diagnosis this past weekend on Instagram. Although she'd only recently received an official diagnosis, she suspected she'd been experiencing symptoms as far back as 15 years. My heart is with her battle.