Category: Checking In
2015 Was A Jerk.
Things I Lost in 2015:
My ability to snap my fingers
My hands started their decline, this year. And it freaks me out. I’m still eating and breathing fine, so that’s grand. But…my HANDS, goddammit.
The Zombie Tramp House
Pretty damned near my dream home, bought at a steal because I got in at the bottom of the market, it had everything I wanted. Huge kitchen, 2 car garage, an enormous backyard for gardening, and room to spare. Six months after purchasing my house, I had a diagnosis that meant I wouldn’t be able to climb stairs soon. And the floor plan is such that there was no way to convert it to be accessible. And so I had to sell my dream house and move back in to an apartment. I traded a 4 bedroom house with a 2 car garage and huge yard for a 2 bed, 1 bath apartment. For only slightly cheaper than my mortgage payments.
My Main Babe
I lost my bestie and my primary caregiver and I’m still not sure what happened. And perhaps one of the reasons I lost her was because I still don’t understand why. I haven’t talked about that at all because it’s confusing and hurtful and I don’t want to present the wrong story, so I keep my mouth shut. But she’s no longer a main piece of my life and it hurts that she’s gone.
My friend Chad
Fucking cancer. God damn it all.
One of my newts
I found the dessicated corpse of one of my fire belly newts in the livingroom yesterday. Pretty sure Molly pulled him out of his tank and played with him until he dehydrated and died. And now I have one lonely newt in a tank by himself. Waldorf no longer has Statler. And I can’t even be mad at Molly for it.
But hey, at least I still have my health…..OH WAIT.
Meh, feeling pretty bitter about a lot of things today, but I know there’s some good stuff in there too. I made a lot of new friends. I found some new music. I had a lot of support. I had good times and good memories and still have a job and people who love me a lot. I still have friends and cats and music and family and the ability to enjoy delicious food.
But still. Dang, man.
Merry Christmas and all that
Sorry again for radio silence. It’s not like things haven’t been happening in VashtiLand, it’s just nothing really to do with ALS so much. It’s been normal. The new normal, not normal. Notmal. Born of a typo, I am adopting that word forever.
Last week I went to California to visit my mom for Christmas (surprise, mom!) and reconnected with an old friend, and got some awesome presents and made a fruitcake. That’s the TL:DR version.
First off, I want it clearly on the record that my little brother is out of his mind. Those that know him will not meet that statement with surprise. Nor is it the first time I’ve ever said those words, in that order. We drove down to Cali in a rental car, because it is much easier and cheaper to haul five people in a car than on a plane, especially when one of them is an infant and one of them is five. My little brother drives a tow truck on the night shift, he loves to drive – seriously loves it – and loves to drive at night, sepecially; he adores the quiet when there’s no one on the road. That’s not why he’s crazy. No. He is crazy because he did a full shift of towing, got off work at midnight, and then decided that NOW IS THE TIME THAT WE DRIVE TEN HOURS TO CALIFORNIA.
Out of his tiny little brain.
So despite concerns about driving tired and insisting that he was fine and promising on the souls of his children that he would pull over if he got tired, we piled into the car (literally; my poor sister in law was coccooned in the back seat with a toddler in his car seat, a baby in her baby seat, and blankets and pillows) and started the drive. We got fast food for the road, talked a little, and he drove, until we needed to pee or feed the baby or change the baby. With him complaining the whole time about this is why he likes to drive at night, you don’t have to stop for pee breaks when everyone’s just sleeping. It’s weird for me to sleep in the car – for ten years I was with a dude who needed a copilot to keep him awake when he drove long distances, like a NORMAL person, so road trips have always equaled THERE WILL BE NO SLEEPING. On this trip I was expected, encouraged to, and that was weird. It was nice though, I will always prefer traveling by car because it’s just SO MUCH LESS HASSLE. No security checks and long lines and fussing about where is the disabled entrance, just the occasionally dodgy public bathroom. And little brother annoyed that we have to stop, AGAIN, because it didn’t occur to his wife to breastfeed when we stopped for potty breaks.
THE NERVE OF THAT WOMAN AMIRITE.
We got to the hotel around noon, napped, got some In N’ Out for dinner, went out to see some friends, looked at lights, came back to the hotel, and settled down for a proper sleep. Which of course meant things had to go wrong. And by wrong, I mean someone hitting a transformer at 3:30AM and knocking out the power grid which triggers the hotel’s fire alarm. And by wrong, I mean the hotel’s emergency lights also do not work for some reason. None of which I knew, of course, just OH MY GOD EMERGENCY NO LIGHTS GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!! Cue me, woken out of a dead sleep in a strange hotel room with no clothes on, in complete darkness except for a flashing strobe light and an alarm so loud it is literally impossible to think. They put me in an accessible room (yay awesome hotel manager!), close to the exit, but first I had to get some clothes on, which meant stumbling around in complete darkness punctuated by blinding flashes with the most piercing, annoying screaming in my ears the whole time. I wound up outside barefoot in 34 degrees, in jeans and a backwards tank top, sweatshirt and boots in hand, hobbling through gravel to find a place to sit and put my boots and braces on by a blissfully near-full moon. I found the rest of my family, in the car keeping warm, and we sat in the parking lot, watching the pattern of flashing lights in the three story hotel (which were kinda cool looking from a safe, sane distance), my five year old nephew freaking out because he’s scared as hell and hates loud noises, my brother telling me how he went to check for me and didn’t know if I was still in the room and had fallen down or something so he was relieved that I was okay, and he is MUCH cleverer than I am, because he flipped the safety lock on his door so it didn’t shut all the way. Which meant that, unlike me, he could get back in to his room when the power came back because I’d left my wallet and phone and everything in the world in my room except pants, shirt, sweatshirt, boots, and cane. The fire department came and checked everything out, the power came back on while they were inside, we were all let inside when the firemen gave the all-clear, I had the poor night manager (freaking out because everyone was freaking out at HIM like it was his fault personally that this happened, on the phone with the alarm company because why didn’t the emergency lights come on seriously what the hell) let me back in to my room at around 4:15 or so, and got back to sleep at about 4:30.
Which is when the alarm went off again.
Just once, probably because the manager had finally gotten hold of the alarm people and they reset the system. But still. The punch line to all of this is that I’m doing a sleep study program at the moment, and it records audio while I sleep to see if I talk in my sleep, or what kinds of interruptions happen to disturb me (looking at YOU, Parmesan), so I have a recording of myself when the alarm went off. Turns out, when startled out of a dead sleep by a panic inducing noise and light show, I make a startled little “Oh!” sound like a cartoon.
And with that, it was Christmas Eve!
When I woke up after all that, I messaged my Squirrel Buddy Jim. You know, that buddy you have that you can just get together and squirrel around with. Mine is named Jim. I confess I was nervous about the meeting – I hadn’t seen him in person in too many years and I was/am completely self conscious about what the disease has done to me, how that affects people that haven’t seen me in awhile. Hi, last time you saw me I was 50 pounds lighter and didn’t need a cane and could step up on a curb just fine, how you doin? I guess I’m allergic to people feeling sorry for me? More like, it hurts me a lot when my condition hurts someone else. I get sad when I have to tell someone about it, because they get sad. And Jim has been a happy distraction in my life for almost 25 years and the last thing I want is to make him sad because I love him a lot. And he was not disturbed at all, outwardly, and was the perfect mix of casual ‘let me help you with this’ and ‘this is totally normal no big deal’ about it all, and I could cry, I’m so grateful. I should have expected as such from him, but I was still nervous, and I’m so happy I had no reason to be. We hung out like old times, we showed each other awesome things, I met his kids again, since they were wee and just born the last time I saw them, and we ate cookies he’d decorated and ate miracle fruit and tasted sour things and had a marvelous time as always. We talked from our hearts on the 45 minute drive back to my hotel (he lives in the middle of nowhere), and reconnected as always, and everything was normal and good.
And then Christmas was with my family so that was all just weird. Because family. I’m glad the aunts and uncle and cousins drove up to meet with us at my mom’s house, because I don’t know when I’ll get down there again. Traveling in general is getting harder, and soon I won’t be able to travel at all without special accommodations, which will make me less likely to travel at all. I told them all it’s their turn, now, to visit me.
And then we got up and out of the hotel on Saturday and my crazy brother drove us all home. And it was good to be home, and sleep all day Sunday except when blowing up Raiders in Fallout 4 or dodging Parmesan’s icicle feet because oh my GOD he would not leave me alone all day. And it snowed, just a little, and I slept through it, but that’s okay. It was a good Christmas.
I hope yours was grand.
Engineers are mad scientists waiting to happen
The thing about being friends with engineers is that you can no longer off-handedly say things like, “Man, I totally want a little spring loaded boxing glove on my wheelchair so I can push a button and punch people in the crotch when they piss me off.”
Because they would TOTALLY BUILD YOU ONE.
To wit:
Vashti Ross
hahaha it was my plan to be that feisty old biddy who hits people and throws things and gets away with it cause she’s old.
Now I could get away with it because I’m dying but I won’t be able to throw things
sad
Jack Bradach
I’ll build you a cripapult!
Vashti Ross
yoou just made that word up and I can tell from here you are immensely pleased with yourself for it.
good job.
Jack Bradach
I am not surprised you can feel it, USGS is going to be reporting on a smug shit eating grin of unprecedented magnitude.
Vashti Ross
hahahahahaa
Jack Bradach
This will be a thing. Nerf balls that can be computer targeted.
And he could do it, too. I will have to be more careful about saying ridiculous shit to people who are actually capable of making them reality. Even though it would be hilarious.
ALS:FTS Video Blog Thingy Numba Five: Horrible
“The only thing sadder than a cripple… Is a hobbled cripple!”
Some things are bound to happen. Even if you don’t want them to, you know they’re coming. And so it is with a sense of inevitability that I write this post about the time that I fell down and actually hurt myself. I was trying to pick up a pile of laundry off the floor to carry it to my bed – THREE FEET AWAY – and went down like a rock in a small space and sprained my stupid ankle.
After every fall, every misstep that almost results in a fall, there’s a period of reflection and reconstruction of the events that led up to it. How could I have prevented that? There was no period of reflection this time, there was me, writhing in pain in the hallway screaming FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK OW FUCK OW OW OW OW WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKHEADED FUCKING SHIT FUCK
See also: Lalochezia.
Right about when I ran out of swear words and began repeating myself, it occurred that I’d probably done something bad this time. The swearing went on longer than usual and the pain wasn’t going away. Now the swearing and OW OW OW was joined by YOU STUPID BITCH WHY DIDN’T YOU BE MORE CAREFUL TRYING TO LIFT THE FUCKING LAUNDRY WHAT IF WE BROKE SOMETHING FUCKING OW GODDAMMIT FUCK SHIT FUCKING STUPID BITCH IT WAS THREE FUCKING FEET AWAY YOU COULDA JUST PUSHED THE FUCKING CLOTHES ACROSS THE FLOOR WHY DID YOU TRY TO PICK THEM UP HOLY FUCKING GOD OW OW OW OW FUCK
Eventually, the pain let up enough that I could breathe, and I tried propping my foot up against the wall to elevate it as I lay on the floor, whining a monotone mantra of ow ow ow ow ow the whole time, but my leg didn’t even have the strength to keep my foot up. So I did the next best thing! I curled into fetal position and sobbed my eyes out! With a whole lot of feeling sorry for myself and fuck this disease and it’s not fair and ow ow ow and do I need to go to Urgent Care or not. I eventually got myself up, found that I could in fact put pressure on it but if I turned it any way from there it was suffering city. I fetched an ice pack from the freezer, a soda, and made a little nest out of my bed with my ankle elevated on ice and cried.
It sucked a lot, is what I’m saying. It has been a super shitty stressful week, and it was just the icing. And I lost my shit for awhile, took ativan, made contingency plans to work from home the next day if I needed to, and went to sleep. Eventually. Sort of. In pieces.
So today my ankle is twice its usual size and very tender, but still has full range of motion, even if some of those motions are owwie. So I don’t believe it to be broken, so I decided I didn’t need urgent care to tell me what to do, and took anti-inflammatories, iced my ankle and elevated it and stayed off my feet as much as possible. Cause that’s what they’d say and then charge me money after costing me hours of my life and having to put on real clothes.
And despite all of the crying and hurt and bullshit, I am grateful that I had an army at my disposal at all times. Even though I never reached out to them. If I’d decided to go to the ER last night, I’d have had a handful of available rides. If I’d needed anything today, I’d have had several people willing to bring it to me. Once I announced my stupidity to Facebook, I had many offers of help. At no point did I feel helpless and alone. I was very crisis-management mode once the writhing was over, and even in the writhing I was mentally giving myself a time limit before I called someone for help, and I knew it would be there. That’s awesome and can not be understated. GO GO GODZILLA SQUAD.
I’m giving it another night, and tomorrow I’ll see if I can hobble along with the walker or something. Cause I favor my right foot when walking with the cane, so of course I hurt the left one. And walking with the cane on my left hand feels weird as it’s not my dominant hand. So maybe the walker for a bit. We’ll see. But for now, I have a nest, an ice pack, chemicals for the pain, warm cats, Good Eats on TV, and a friend bringing me dinner later. I’m sitting pretty.
Even if my ankle ain’t so pretty.
You can blame Jack for the title. It’s how he reacted when I told him what happened.
First Time For Everything: Dropping
Also this weekend! And something I wanted to mark down, and something I should be keeping track of, and so you get this little nubbin post.
Saturday was the first time I dropped something. I was washing a plate in the sink, and I dropped it, and it chipped against a stoneware bowl. I remarkably did NOT lose my shit! Just, “well fuck, I can’t replace this plate, they don’t make them anymore. I guess this goes with the chipped bowl from the same set, now.” Disappointed. Upset. But shit held together.
It’s not the last thing I will drop. It won’t be the last thing I break when my hands prove unable to handle the weight. Maybe if something shatters spectacularly, something I love, that will be the time I lose it. Instead, I turned the plate over, found the chip of crockery in the sink, and sighed. Time to get lighter plates.
Further conversations with my stupid body, 3AM edition
A combination of Fall weather finally arriving and making things colder, depression, lethargy, vacation recovery, and a grab bag of other things have seen to it that I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. Saturday was for sleeping. I was in bed Friday at 6PM, screwing around on my laptop and doing my nails, asleep probably around 10, awake and panicky at midnight, medicated and back to sleep until around 11AM. I stayed in bed and played with my phone until about 1:30, took a nap until 6. I wore myself out cleaning the cat box area (THE LITTER ROBOT IS STILL SERIOUSLY THE MOST AMAZING THING YOU GUYS) and vacuuming; emptying the litter tray and refreshing the puppy pads, then running the vacuum cleaner in a couple of spaces was the most energy I was able to put forth, and even that had me dripping in sweat and tired, I’ve been feeling very…fally? lately. Like, any minute I’m going to crash to the ground, because I’m tired and my legs aren’t holding up and my knees keep buckling and there have been a few close calls, so I’ve been very cautious and conserving my energy as much as I can. There were a few times when running the vacuum that I was leaning on the machine for support and nearly dropped a couple of times.
Yesterday though, yesterday was a normal day for the first time in foreeeever. I woke up at 10, and was actually rested. This has not happened in recent memory. I still took a nap from like 2 – 5, but it was a leisure thing and not a necessity and Sunday was otherwise a really normal energy level, productive day. It felt AMAZING. Did loads of laundry, put said laundry away, organized some stuff, put things away, was treated to a short visit by dear friends with a Hello Kitty Cafe delivery (HELLO KITTY MACARONS!), more Skyrim, showered, played with my phone some more and chatted online with friends, and was trying to sleep by 10PM.
Which is when my brain and body decided hey, fuck you. Which was exacerbated by my cat Parmesan, who is old and skinny and the room was cold, and so he insists on sleeping on my face because that’s where the warm air comes out. Which is not conducive to breathing. AT ALL. I have a fuzzy blanket that I usually wrap over him, but it had just come out of the dryer and was still a little damp, turns out, so I shoved it aside and tried to just sleep with this cat on my face and my other cat Ianto trying to nuzzle me too and scratching at the covers to come under but he doesn’t really want to come under the blankets, he wants to stand there half covered while I skritch his head and the moment I stop he will go away. So while I have one cat pawing at me, another dancing on my face with his icy little paws, one blanket short in a cold room, the noise of my upstairs neighbors doing laundry, I somehow managed to fall asleep around 11.
At midnight, I woke suddenly out of a dead sleep. Which is a thing I’ve been doing lately, and it sucks a lot. Like, solid peaceful sleep and then an hour later OH HEY YOU ARE SUDDENLY AWAKE AND YOUR HEART RATE IS OUT OF CONTROL AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHY! WHEEEEE! WAS IT A DREAM? WAS THERE A NOISE? WE WILL NEVER KNOW! HAVE FUN CALMING DOWN AND GETTING BACK TO SLEEP!
My heart is pounding and I’m cold. I want another blanket.
good luck getting up loser
Getting out of bed is becoming a Herculean task, and not because I just don’t wanna. Physically pulling myself out of bed is an effort, which is made worse because I sleep with body pillows and cats. I mean, really, my bed is ridiculous. And comfortable as hell. There’s half of it covered with a ginormous stuffed squid and a cat bed with a heating pad under it, and then a body pillow dividing my side from the squid side, and then a reverse moat of pillows shoring up the other side, so I’m in a sort of delightful pillowy trench when I sleep, with a weighted blanket over my legs. So if I want to get up, not only do I have to dislodge a cat who WILL NOT GET OFF OF ME, I have to wiggle away from the weighted blanket, toss the covers off of me while Parmesan keeps trying to get back on me, and remove the barrier pillow like some velvet rope allowing me exclusive access to Out Of Bed, swinging my legs over the side and lifting my body up by gripping the side of the mattress and pulling. It’s ridiculous, and I’m getting a new bed in January that is awesome and adjustable. But yeah, it’s a Whole Thing, getting out of bed.
don’t fall down LOL
Well that’s kind of up to Body, now. It’s been a jerk lately what with the knee buckling and not being able to vacuum one stupid room without leaning on walls. OK. Mission accomplished, blanket retrieved (mmmm fuzzy) and OK GOD PARM GIVE ME A MINUTE TO SETTLE IN. Ok. Sleeps now.
1AM: twitch! twitch! your arm is twitchy! ha ha ha! and your hand! twitch! Twitch! Isn’t this fun! It’s like being poked with a stick from the inside!
2AM: hey. hey. hey.
What?
Your foot itches. Like, REALLY BAD.
Goddammit. Who cares. Sleep.
Itchy! We’re SUPER ITCHY! itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy!
OH MY GOD. FINE. *scratch*
Itchy! itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy!
*scratches forever*
OW OW OW OW OW YOU ARE BLEEDING WHAT THE HELL!! STOP! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
Oh my god, body, shut up. Stop itching. Sleep!
maybe you should get that checked out by a doctor cause your foot’s been itchy a lot
It is WINTER. My skin is DRY. WHATEVER. SHUT UP. SLEEP.
2:45: dry skin doesn’t come with little bitty blisters, just sayin’
I do not want a doctor visit. I have had enough of the doctor visits for all time. Shut up.
itchy itchy
3:30AM: cramps! crampy crampy cramps! All down your arm! NO DON’T STRETCH YOUR HAND BACK LIKE THAT the OT said you’ll get claw hands if you overextend your hands like that, make a fist!
But that doesn’t stop the cramping at all and it just hurts more!
oh my god we’re going to have claw hands forever in no time you can’t even open a packet of chips anymore, you have to make a claw hand and tear it with your knuckles i wonder how long we have left of opening cat food cans our cats are gonna starve oh no
Fuck off, brain, it’s fine, they make automatic can openers you know. OK. Hands stopped cramping. *yaaaaawwwn*OWQOWOWOWOWOW WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHY DO I GET CRAMPS IN MY SHOULDERS WHEN I YAWN WITH MY HEAD TURNED. WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THAT. OW OW OW OW WHY IS THIS HAPPENING.
I dunno. Fucking ALS, man.
your muscles are dying and it hurts because you’re dying
SLEEP. OH MY GOD.
4AM: hey remember when we didn’t have to lean our head against the bathroom stall to pull our pants up that was pretty weird huh how you could just stand up without even thinking about it
Go to sleep, brain.
no but seriously we can’t even stand up in the braces anymore we have to balance on something that is some fucked up shit i wonder when the chair will happen
4:15AM: we are going to have to get some help cleaning the apartment because that is ridiculous and out of control i mean do we even need to live in a space bigger than this because we can’t even manage this space as it is
FUCKING SLEEP. JUST LET ME SLEEP.
Let’s take some Ambien!
One, that’s a stupid idea because it’s way too late. Two, we don’t have any more.
shit. ok. Well we can fall asleep without it. This bed is comfy, and Parm has stopped dancing around.
I can’t wait for the new bed.
we don’t need a king sized new bed because no one is going to sleep with us ever again
MOTHERFUCKER.
haha you should post about all of that and call it tmi train to traumatown or something
My love life or lack thereof is not something I want to talk about on the blog.
why not people want to know what kind of sex lives dying people have i’m sure
THERE IS NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT.
and that’s the title right there
4:45AM: hey the inside of your leg itches now. scratch it. A lot. HEY OW THAT IS TOO MUCH.
5AM: *Molly decides it’s Time For Love. She does this thing where she reaches out and just puts her paw on my mouth. And then ducks out of the way when I try to pet her. It’s cute as hell but I hate this game*
5:30AM: Hey guys would now be a bad time to have a really nasty headache?
YES.
yes
TOO BAD BECAUSE HERE WE GO!
we’ve been having a lot of these i wonder if it’s a tumor
NO IT IS JUST BECAUSE YOU WON’T SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME SLEEP. SLEEP IS A THING WE SHOULD BE DOING.
6AM: *Parmesan decides to tell me he’s hungry, leaves to potty, and then comes back with more Dance of the Icy Toes on Your Face*
6:45: Well I am awake. And I do not want to be. I wonder if my alarm is going to go off soon. Let’s see…Yep. 5 minutes. FUCK.
*Ianto finds a plastic bag and starts playing with it*
I HATE EVERYTHING.
ALS:FTS Video Blog Thingy Numba Four: Clinic Day
So much to say oh my gosh
I’m sorry! I’ve been quiet! But for a good reason! I’ve been on a vacation. It was a complicated vacation and I’ll tell you all about it. I’ve got a couple other half-written entries in the backlog, too, and I need to get to those as well. And there’s the weekly video I haven’t done in 2 months.
Tomorrow is Clinic, which I had COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN ABOUT. oooops. I will tell you about all of these things, how that goes, how I creeped out a lot of kids in a theme park, how I took another step along the ALS life route and how I feel about that, all of it. And how I almost got into a fight. For now, though, I’ve been back from vacation since Thursday and I’ve been sleeping 12 hours a day to recover. Totally not kidding.
But hey, I’m alive still, and life is pretty good until I have to go back to work, and I’ve missed you and you look amazing, have you been working out?
Sometimes silence seems safer.
Hey guys.
I’m doing that thing I do, which is to just not say anything if I’m having a bad time, but the point of this space is to document all of it. All of the awesome, all of the real life boring stuff, all of the hard parts, all of the ugly bits. And while I hate burdening people with my woes, it feels disingenuous to not talk about them. Here, of all places. Where I’ve purposely carved a space.
So here goes.
I had a bad weekend. It kicked off Friday, when about an hour before I was supposed to leave, I was asked to provide information in the aid of making people unhappy, basically a sort of “we have to take some toys away from our kids, which ones?” and I know that it’s just going to make things harder and everyone’s already stressed out. There is literally nothing I can do about this, and while realistically I know it’s not up to me to be the Morale Champ of our group, most of the time I feel like it is. So when things are stressful and I can’t fix it, I get unhappy. I have a very limited power, and I use that power beyond what I probably should to keep things together, but it’s worth it to me if I can help my coworkers feel less shitty about their jobs, because I like them.
I’ve been watching my job take things away and make things worse, and it’s the nature of business, I totally get that, but it is supremely frustrating to see things happen and know that it didn’t used to be like this. And so I fell in to a sort of employment despair, because I can’t see things getting any better at all. And in that dark space, I reverted back to the thought that I STILL don’t know the origin of, “one more year. You just have to put up with this for one more year.” And my brain seized on that and began planning my exit and I completely freaked out, both because massive life change and holy shit could I afford this, but also a sort of egotistical WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE GUYS GOING TO DO WITHOUT ME. If I leave, the smallest, stupidest things will cease to be, things that don’t mean much but make their lives easier. Like a goddamned supply cabinet. We’re supposed to fill out a form on a web tool when we need office supplies, but I deemed that Way Too Fucking Stupid and spent a couple hundred bucks outfitting us with a goddamned supply cabinet so that you can get a fucking PEN when you need one instead of filling out a form and waiting for an intern to bring you one. If I leave, no one is going to maintain that cabinet.
It’s all stupid shit, but it was my first moment of “holy shit my absence is going to cause problems for someone when this disease takes over”. There’s an intellectual exercise in “what would happen if I leave” that I think everyone indulges in, and to a revengey sort of degree when it’s to do with stressful relationships or jobs and we imagine how screwed they’d be if we just walked out; but this was a for-real, scary, “I am going to be gone and my void is going to cause someone genuine discomfort.” And it hit me kind of hard. And my brain, of course, spun in to the nightmare world of trying to plan financial escapes and mentally going over all of the homework I still have to do and…..
My brain still in this space, I went to game night with some coworkers, and that was awesome! Except when filling out a character sheet, and my hands just..wouldn’t work. I have very good penmanship when I take the care to do so. I have been complimented on my ability to write legibly on white boards. I’ve noticed some decline there, but that night I could barely read my own writing. And it sat in my gut and festered, and when I got home that night, I probably should have allowed myself to cry it out, but I tried to medicate it away instead. And that led to a whole weekend of moping and sadness instead of one night of crying jag catharsis.
I laid in bed and my cats sat on me and it was hard to move them off of me, and that made me sad.
I thought about the special pen and ink I got in New Orleans to write my goodbye letters and now I’ve waited too long to do that, and that made me sad.
I looked around my kitchen and the drawers of baking things and knew I’d never bake to the level of professionalism I wanted, and that made me sad.
I read Facebook and found out that my friend with cancer is taking a downturn, and I was sad.
I watched a new series that people were excited about and I just couldn’t get into it, and that made me sad.
Fun plans were canceled for Sunday morning and I just didn’t have the energy to do something else instead, and that made me sad.
A friend with MS reached out to be in a bad space, and I provided what comfort I could, and her pain and anger made me sad.
My cat barfed in the hallway, and I just…couldn’t get up to deal with it that moment, and that inertia made me sad.
It’s lifting now, it’s still there around the edges, but it will fade, it always does. But I need to be honest with myself when I get sad, and I need to give myself permission to mourn, and I should probably find a space to talk about this with someone who gets it but isn’t my therapist, but all of the ALS forums are just so AWFUL, one part “MY LIFE IS THE TERRIBLEST AND YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND AND HERE IS MY LITANY OF WOES” competition and one part “We sadly announce that our member Whassisface died this morning.” Neither is helpful. Cause sometimes it ISN’T terriblest, and I’m going to die, but not today. And sometimes you just need to say “This sucks” and have someone say, “Yeah I know” who really DOES. And then lie and say it’s going to be okay, even though it isn’t.
I’m learning a lot of things. I’m learning to let myself be helped. I am training myself out of assuming that when I accept that help, it is a burden to someone else. I’m learning to let myself be weak. I’m learning to give myself permission to breathe in the in-between times without becoming a lazy depressed lump. And I’m learning to let myself grieve for myself. They’re all hard lessons, things I’ve trained myself out of over a lifetime of only ever being able to count on myself. It’s hard to be vulnerable. And it’s hard to put these things here, it’s so much easier when it’s energetic anger or joy.
But for now, I’m a bit depressed. It’s okay. It’s understandable. And allowed. But it’s hard to be. I want to be my usual bouncy optimistic self, and she’s still around here somewhere, but she’s taking her sweet time coming back around.
So, sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been quiet and I shouldn’t be.
I think of you a lot, though. And I miss you.
Quick Check In
Hey! I’m in Guadalajara, Mexico for the week on business. It’s been an unproductively busy week so far and every minute’s been planned out so I haven’t had time to check in.
In Mexico, I find, disability ramps are only ramps by technicality. They’re barely wide enough for a wheelchair, and usually a really steep incline. The ramp to the hotel lobby is about three feet long and a 45 degree incline. The porters have to get a running start to push the luggage trolleys up. NOT easy for a chick with a cane.
I’m feeling particularly FAT while here, it’s muggy and walking is hard, so I’m constantly a sweaty gross mess. There’s a LOT of overweight people here so it’s not like I am out of place, but the sweating is really stressing me out. I wish I were able to be in Mexico and be cute and walk around. I haven’t been able to see any of the city, really, except as we drive from the hotel to work to the restaurant we’re all eating at back to the hotel. I’m trying to scheme a way to go out tonight and play. If I were healthy, I’d just go for a walk and see where it takes me, but walking is slow, and a huge effort, and I don’t want to be looking at a store while sweating buckets on the merch, you know? HI DON’T MIND ME I’M JUST SWEATING AND SHAKING LIKE A TWEAKER.
It certainly made going through security very interesting. I SWEAR TO GOD I AM JUST A FAT SWEATY PIG I AM NOT NERVOUS OR ANYTHING.
Being here has hastened my want to travel while I can. It’s been difficult, already, and I need to see what I can while I am still somewhat able. But planning that has to wait; I have to get back to work.
I hope you’re all having a terrific time.
ALS:FTS Video Blog Update Thingy Number Three: Gizmos and Gratitude
Seriously look at this thing and tell me it does NOT look like crystal gazey fake woo-woo pseudoscience:
http://www.cefaly.us/
Testing, testing…
I just got approached for a clinical trial! It might involve lumbar punctures and I ain’t even bothered. I MIGHT GET TO BE USEFUL OMG.
Details as I get them and are allowed to share. <3
ALS:FTS Video Blog Thingy Number Two: Research Rambling
On the virtues of being a data point instead of a statistic.
Advance Directives
A PSA:
There will be a video from me, also, probably tomorrow night. I have a followup neuro appointment tomorrow so I’ll have things to report maybe. Definitely have things to talk about.
While you wait, GO CREATE YOUR ADVANCE DIRECTIVE.
ALS:FTS Video Log Update Thingy Numba ONE
Starting a new thing, I hope. Here goes.
Clinic Day
Sorry it’s been a bit of time; life has been…interesting. Last Monday I had a Clinic Day. My brother Gecko kept me company. It went like this!
Appointment 1 : Respiratory Therapy
I’m grateful that this was the first one. This one sucks the most. It involves inhaling as much as I can, and then blow out hard and fast into a plastic instrument, and then…keep exhaling. It’s like… I don’t even know what it’s like. It sucks. Try it. Inhale as much as you possibly can, plug your nose, and then blow out hard and fast and keep exhaling for like, a count to five. Feel light headed, don’t you? Now do that two more times. While someone is yelling at you to keep going. She gave me a little plastic clamp to go over my nose while I exhaled to make sure that no air escaped that way. “You are Master of the Nose Clip,” she pronounced. I’ll try very hard to live up to the title and not abuse my newly granted power. In the end, she pronounced my breathing was healthy and normal (yay!) and gently admonished me for not doing the breath-stacking every single night. She didn’t seem to care that I wasn’t using the CPAP after I’d moved, but I ought to.
My brother has video of me doing the breathing exercise. I have to be nice to him from now on or he’ll publish it.
Appointment 2 : Speech Therapy
This appointment was to make sure my swallowing and speech was still as normal as I felt it was. She watched me eat a shortbread cookie, and drink a swallow of soda. It’s weird to have someone watch you intently while you eat, and weirder to have them put their hand on your throat to feel you swallow. It’s like..you start to wonder how you normally do it. But I passed her tests and was pronounced normal. Hooray for me.
So the two things that will kill me have not started to happen yet. This is good.
Appointment 3 : Neurology
Dr. Goslin was out, so I saw her colleague instead. She was very nice and knowledgeable. We ran through the normal strength tests, which she pronounced good, but yes, there is weakness in my hands, but the PT person would know better about that. I’d started a conversation with Dr. Goslin to maybe FINALLY work out what’s been causing my daily headaches for the last oh, 25, 30 years and part of my time with Dr. Sax was spent continuing that talk. Dr. Goslin and I had concluded the next step was going to be to try amitryptaline, which is not only can prevent migraines (yay!), but might help with the daily headaches, and also was a mild antidepressant, and ALSO might help me sleep. (sidenote: holy crap has it ever, but that’s another post) We were taking me off of Wellbutrin last time, and we didn’t want to start a new one until I was off of that. So we put that scrip in. I was disappointed I didn’t get to see Dr. Goslin, but she’d been on call all weekend and I totally get the need for a freakin’ day off. She’s got a lot going on. I was also directed to get another blood check to make sure Rilutek isn’t eating my liver (it isn’t).
Appointment 4 : Social Work
Rachelle the Magnificent was my social worker for this appointment, and she had in tow the new director of Assistive Technologies. We had a talk about caretakers and resources, and a lot of other things that gave me much to think about. I fortunately have a lot of time for things, and can coordinate a lot of it myself, but I really do need to have things officially in place sooner than later. We talked about a follow up appointment so she can see my new apartment and see its accessibility. Gecko had some questions of his own answered. Yay!
Appointment 5 : Physical and Occupational Therapy
The two women I worked with in this session were familiar faces, one of them being the PT I was seeing while we were trying to figure out what Godzilla Disease really was. We measured my strength some more, which was predictable results: feet are nearly useless (I can only juuuuuuuuust wiggle my big toe now) and they tend to turn in at the ankles because my tendons are tightening up due to lack of stretching. There’s no muscle there to pull them to stretch. I have a manual stretching exercise that is supposed to help somewhat. Calf strength is going, thighs are still strong. 5s all around on the upper torso, except my left hand. She had me stretch my fingers out and resist while she tried to pinch them together, and they weren’t able to resist much. I still have full range of motion, but there is a measurable loss of strength there – 4 of 5. I am in an every day fight to not let this freak me out. She watched me walk down the hall with my braces on, and with the walker I was borrowing from the ALS loan closet. She agreed I am MUCH more stable with the walker which, on the one hand? No duh. But on the other hand, it’s nice to have it confirmed that I not only FEEL more stable, I AM more stable and less likely to fall.
The occupational therapist measured my grip strength (again, doing something hard while a woman yells at you HARDER! MORE! HARDER! is a surreal experience). She asked about my struggles with daily tasks I’d noticed popping up, and I was making a considered effort to be open and honest and accepting the help she offered. I admitted the toilet in my apartment is CRAZY low (seriously other people have told me so, too) so she offered a toilet frame with bars I can use to haul myself up. I said okay. She offered a shower chair. I said okay. The Zombie Tramp house had a seated shower, so I hadn’t needed such a thing before, but I accepted this for my new place. I don’t need it yet, I can still shower standing, but I lean against the wall when I do. A chair might be easier. She also gave me a couple of pieces of something called Dycem (registered trademark) which is a flexible grippy plastic sheeting that I can cut up and put where ever I need extra grip, like a piece across the back of my phone so I can hold it easier, use a piece to grip jars to twist them open, wrap a glass in it so I don’t drop it, etc. She said once I start using it, I’ll find a million uses for it. She’s probably right.
Appointment 6 : Nurse
The nurse on staff is a lovely woman, I like her a lot. She was basically just there to tell me that if I needed them, they were always around. She gave me the wrap-up paperwork, and said that after the next and last appointment, I was free to go.
Appointment 7 : Registered Dietician
You know how when the dentist asks how often you floss, and you lie, and you both know you’re lying? Yeah I was avoiding that with the dietician, so when she asked how much water I drink a day, I admitted that no, I don’t drink water. At all. I hate the way it tastes (water does TOO have a flavor). I also admitted that I eat like crap and don’t eat breakfast usually, unless you count an energy drink as breakfast, heh heh.
She does not.
There’s not a lot of dietary advice that comes with ALS, because you’re pretty much encouraged to eat whatever you feel like and don’t try to lose weight. She made me promise to swap out ONE soda a day with a glass of water instead. And for heavens’ sake, EAT SOMETHING FOR BREAKFAST. She gave me a cookbook of easy to chew, easy to swallow foods, which she said I do not need to take now, but it has really interesting information about what physically goes on when you swallow, and some other tips in general. So I went ahead and accepted it now, even though I absolutely do not need it yet because my swallowing is fine. It has a recipe for stroganoff in it though, and it made me really want a good beef stroganoff. mmmmm.
And then, after stopping in the lab for the blood test, I was free to go!
Wrap up
No surprises. I’m happy to have it medically documented that my breathing and swallowing are still fine. I’m discouraged about the hand strength loss of course. By ‘discouraged’ I mean ‘freaking out’ but I’m learning to cope. I have a lot of people around to help me out and so far my typing is still awesome. So as long as I can game, we’re good. I’ve since started the amitryptaline, and it is KICKING MY ASS. I have been sleeping SO HARD the last two days, and it’s near impossible to wake up. I hope that evens out. We’ll see. My blood test came back fine, my liver is not imploding. Yay. I have a followup with Dr. Goslin in August, and my next Clinic Day is in November.
So that’s the update!
I guess it does get easier.
Best, easiest breaking of the news so far; ran in to a guy in the cafe who used to be our network guru. He noted the cane I was leaning on.
“What happened, you hurt yourself?”
“Naw, man, Lou Gehrig’s.”
“Oh. …That sucks, I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. I’m alright. How’s the new job?”
“It’s going great! I’m really glad to not be in charge of things anymore.”
And then we dished about network infrastructures and technology and selling houses for ten minutes. And that was all. He asked as we parted if there was anything he could do, I told him I was okay, thanks, but I’d keep him posted. Sometimes the best reaction is just, “Well…shit. Sorry.” and then move on.
Complicated
“It occurred to me that at one point it was like I had two diseases – one was Alzheimer’s, and the other was knowing I had Alzheimer’s.” -Terry Pratchett
“Complicated.”
It’s become my go-to phrase when people ask how I’m doing. “Life is complicated.” Check off that box on Facebook, I am officially in a relationship with ALS and It’s Complicated.
Nothing is simple. Everything is terrible, and everything is wonderful. I am cursed and blessed. And everything is complicated. I have, as the late and very great Sir Terry Pratchett said, two diseases. Two minds. The ALS mind and the Knowing I Have ALS Mind. I call them Future and Fatality. They argue constantly over everything I do, every plan I make is scrutinized by both sides, every human interaction is watched with both minds. Future is all about the practicality of the day to day, maintaining a sense of normal through all of this chaos. Fatality is about the hard reality that my time is very much abbreviated and some allowances must be made. Future is the one saying I have to work until I can’t, so as to prolong the quality of my life and finances for as long as possible. Fatality is the one saying FUCK THIS, we are DYING, who the fuck wants to work until all quality of life is gone?! Let’s spend our money making the last days AWESOME. Future says, yeah, but we still have to go to fucking work tomorrow, you moron. Disney World souvenirs don’t buy themselves.
They’re both right.
…It’s complicated.
There is definitely some sense of maintenance of the status quo that’s necessary. Continuing to work not only provides a stronger income than I’ll get on disability, but it’s feeding me a sense of normality, and there’s a great comfort in the routine. I can handle this. Yes. I’m dying. But there’s still work to be done. The floors still need swept, the cats need feeding, and while I’d like to do nothing but sleep, that’s not going to help anything. I can continue because I must, life is moving and so I, too, have to continue to move. Acknowledge that I am not dead yet.
There are definitely concessions that need to be made. Considerations to signing a 30 year mortgage that I know goddamned well I’m not going to see the end of. Allowances to make life fun while I still have the ability to participate. Plans to make so that memories are made and things don’t get left undone. Write your fucking will. Go ahead and spend some money on stupid things because I know in my heart that it doesn’t even matter. Make myself as happy as I can, while I can. Acknowledge that I am not dead yet, but WILL be.
Their key arguing lately has been about living situations. It’s amazing what will trigger me and what won’t, and unfortunately I never know until it happens. I can brace myself for things I think will be problematic, but sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes it’s the stupidest shit that trips me up. And it changes from day to day. Some days I think living with Danielle will be just fine, and some days I think I will do anything within my power to live alone until I absolutely can’t. It’s not about living with her, it’s about living with ANYONE. Some days I accept financial advice with grace, and some days it’s FUCK YOU I KNOW HOW TO SPEND MY FUCKING MONEY LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING ADULT. I HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR, YOU KNOW. I AM NOT STUPID. Anger comes up unexpectedly, avoidance gets triggered, there are hurt feelings and tears and anger and misunderstandings, and later you sort through it all and you don’t know what happened, even after.
My main babe and I had a huge thing last week. I wouldn’t call it a fight. It was a..surprise boundary test that went very poorly. Plans kind of got put on hold, and I wound up making a rash concession that I had to withdraw and I feel fucking awful about it. Lines were drawn. Many many tears were shed and for a few days there, ativan was popped like candy to try to stave off the panic attacks that just kept coming. It cemented our need for couples counseling. It brought up a lot of good questions. It hurt a lot of feelings. I really, really can’t accept help gracefully and need to work on that. I need to draw lines and feel comfortable, as the center circle, maintaining them. Even if I’m wrong, I’m in charge of my own care. And even if I’m right, other peoples’ opinions are valid. Even if I choose to ignore them in favor of what I want. And a lot of times, I don’t know what the fuck I want.
It was complicated.
We’re still okay, of course, we love each other to pieces and that’s never going to change. It was a surprisingly brutal and hurtful exploration of caregiver/cared-for relationships and I did not like it one bit. And it’s going to continue to happen, and we’re both going to get stronger for it, and it’s going to fucking SUCK while it happens. I hate making her life hard. But I can’t help but do so. Fucking ALS.
I wound up looking for, and finding, an apartment of my own in the interim. My house closes on the 6th of July, but the housing market is extraordinarily chaotic right now, so finding another place to buy is impossible. Especially when I don’t even know what the fuck I’m LOOKING for, and things I am okay with on paper suddenly turn in to panic-inducing dealbreakers. So I am going to live in an apartment, and continue to be alone while I can, and get through life with my best babe and my awesome planets in orbit as best as we can manage. Looking for an apartment is always shitty, and right now rents are INSANE – I wound up accepting an apartment that is 2 bedroom and less than half the size of my house with 6 square feet of patio and a tiny kitchen for $50 less than my goddamned mortgage. And I’m having a really hard time with it. I sit here, typing this, looking out at my amazing back yard that will be someone else’s in a month’s time. I walk the floors I installed myself, I sleep in the room I had not even finished carving out for myself, I sign a lease with all of these rules and regulations that being a homeowner just didn’t have. And it’s hard. I’m glad I found a place and have a place to land, but losing this dream of mine is hard. I’m grateful the work is lessened, happy to have less space to maintain in my lesser state, but goddammit this was MY HOUSE. Future is happy that I’m being so practical about it and is planning the move, and Fatality is punching holes in things when she’s not crying her eyes out.
It’s complicated.
Yesterday we moved all of the extraneous stuff that had been taken down for staging, all of my books and DVDs and winter clothes and decorations and baking gear. We put it in storage. It was a really hot day and we all sweated a lot. The heat kept my mind from wondering if I’ll ever unpack some of these boxes. My ability is waning every day, and the longer I wait to find my proper space, the less power I will have to make it my own. I sacrifice my future nesting to further my independence today. And the weekend was a constant reminder of my lessening ability. My handwriting, as I filled out the lease paperwork, was atrocious. My hands are suffering and I am trying desperately not to just freak the fuck out all day, every day. My stupid feet grew wrong and I’ve got nasty bunions on both my feet, and because of the muscle loss, the bone is barely covered with a little bit of skin and it rubs and pinches and is excruciating no matter what shoes I wear – but the only real fix is surgery, and do I seriously want to give up even MORE mobility to get it corrected? Every movement costs more energy than ever before, and even though I wasn’t allowed to move boxes, I am physically DONE from this weekend. DONE DONE DONE. I am tired and sad and grateful – so fucking grateful – to my friends and brother for coming to my rescue on a miserable day. I put them all through a rough day, and they loved me enough to stay. And though I was grieving, I was grateful.
Future is kind of pissed off that I spent so much money for the lease and renting storage space, because that’s money we could be putting away, and it’s really impractical when I know I’m just going to have to give in eventually anyway. Fatality is flipping her the bird and patting my head and telling me it’s going to be alright even though we both know she’s lying. Usually I side with Future, but right now she can fuck off. I have to leave this house that I love, and it’s cruel that it’s so much work to make that happen. Fatality knows we have people who will help and just chill the fuck out and maybe play some video games tonight instead of worrying about it.
I guess this post kind of wandered all over the place. Sorry. My brain is full, I am mourning my loss of independence even as I struggle stupidly to hang on to a shred of it at great expense, I am obsessing over every detail even as I am actively avoiding thinking about any of it. And hopefully figure out the fine line between standing up for what I want and deciding my own fate, and being a goddamned idiot who needs to admit that she’s not as strong as she wants to be. To learn to accept help gratefully while still asserting control over what help I accept. Stubbornness versus weakness, and strength perceived as stubbornness versus self delusion perceived as assertion. And I usually can’t even tell which is which.
All my life, and now so more than ever, I am very, very complicated.