Thursday, April 17, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
She was fascinated with the hibiscus; I was fascinated with her
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
I wonder if he is still homeless...
Friday, February 01, 2008
finally
I told someone a while back that I would post a sketch. Here is a sketch of a man whose face was in a book which was about to be dropped in a garbage can until I saw his face and snatched it out so I could sketch him. His name is George Kennan, it said, but I still don't know who he is. But he sure did need to be sketched. I need to touch him up more but oh, what a gloriously square head he has.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
the satisfying whole
No one goes through life unscathed. Everyone experiences loss and pains throughout the entirety of life. It is never outgrown though often we become callous to it. We search to fix the broken in our lives, we agonize over loss and try to recreate something that life never gave absolute permanence to. We search for that feeling of wholeness again. What is it, the satisfying whole?
(I have no idea who wrote the quoted paragraph but I really like it. It is like a writing lesson the way it uses the word "completeness" at the beginning and the word "whole" in the last sentence. It does make me long for something, obviously, but the writing is very satisfying because the paragraph itself is so complete. I just had to post it.)
Monday, January 21, 2008
mail call!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
diagnosis
Multiple Sclerosis: no fun
Partial Seizures: pretty nifty
Optic Neuritis: I've lost some color vision & have blurry vision as well, which makes me uncertain about every image I post and makes photography pretty difficult.
A nurse came to my house the day before yesterday to teach me how to give myself injections so I could begin treatment with a medication called Rebif for MS. This won't cure it or undo any damage the disease has already done but it will hopefully slow the progression of it and the time between relapses. I will be giving them to myself, three times a week for the rest of my life (or till I can't give them to myself, I guess? I don't know). She said I'd feel pretty miserable for about the first three months of injections. So far I just feel tired.
So that's the diagnosis. This stuff below is from the net and the Rebif pamphlets with pictures of shiny, happy people living comfortably with their disease. Some folks with MS might get a chuckle out of that “comfortably” part. Heh. (Turns out, the "shiny, happy people" pamphlets had the most helpful information.) Darn it, now I've got that song in my head. Well, they were shiny, it was a glossy looking picture. ;-)
Multiple Sclerosis is a neurodegenerative autoimmune disease. Normally, the immune system helps fight viruses and things like bacteria. In an autoimmune disease, something causes the immune system to attack the body itself. With MS, where the body attacks itself is its own nervous system.
The nervous system is made up of nerve cells that send signals to each other. Each cell is covered with a protective coating called myelin. It acts like insulation on an electrical wire, lets these signals pass between nerve cells at high speeds. This is how nerve impulses from our body reach the brain and how the brain sends signals to muscles. Kind of like a relay system. With MS, for some reason, the immune system attacks the myelin sheaths and strips it off. This is called "demyelination." This leads to a breakdown in that signal function which leads to disability.
Multiple Sclerosis is unpredictable and incurable. It's mild in some people and severe in others. It affects no two people alike. You don't know when a relapse will occur, how long it will last, what it will consist of or the amount of damage that will take place during that time, in other words, the outcome of any given relapse.
Try to get that song out of your head, ha!
Oh yeah, the injections and the nurse's warning...so if I don't post it would probably be I'm just feeling something wretched I'm supposed to be feeling so don't worry...be happy :-D
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Don't move nice birdy...
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
beautiful bird
Another test post. (lol)
I found this black bird at the airport when it was time for my daughter to go back. We must have seen a million, no, I'm being silly, it was about a trillion or at least a hundred gazillion of them while she was here. I only got pictures of about 20 or maybe 50. I might be wrong about that too, there were a lot of them in flocks. Heh. Did I ever mention that I love black birds?
Okay. Enough words for a test post.
I'm off to visit all the blogs I've missed so badly.
Then I will get around to posting what (I hope) will be a very short, non-depressing post about my diagnosis. Bleh. Even that sentence was mildly depressing. Ah, look at the pretty birdy! I swear, that bird almost seemed to be posing for me. He was definitely not camera shy. When the light hits these birds a certain way their feathers look irredescant blue/black-gorgeous.
Hugs and smooches!
test
I think I've figure out how to use blogger again. It's not the way I used it before, which is confusing so I will avoid thinking about that. If this actually posts I will post something more substantial in a day or so.
But for now, here are some pink flowers for all of you that I have missed so much and who have actually remembered and cared about me during my absence.
Hugs and smooches.
O