Normalizing

There wasn't much of a nap for me today.

Holiday insanity, though grinding to a slow halt, is still present and interrupting what passes for my schedule of late.

My meds are all off, I'm out of several of my vitamins (I'll order them after the New Year and the household coffers are replenished), I've been skipping my shots out of sheer forgetfulness or defiance with the excuse that I don't have time for them (dude, they take less than a minute, come on!) that morning, etc.

I've been telling myself that, starting Monday, I'll get back to taking everything like I should.

Yeah, right. It's probably going to be more like Monday the 7th, but we'll see. I'll think about that later. Right now it's late and I need to sleep, but I wanted to get a couple things down first.

Today (and part of yesterday, really, if I think about it) I had a little bit of a headache. It eased off, but now that it's almost bedtime and I'm worn out, it's trying to come back. I've eaten horribly when I bother to eat (anorexia is back as of a couple days ago), and I don't even want to know how much weight I've put on. My jeans are still fitting decently, but we'll see. I'm not going to bother stepping on the scale until Monday.

The pool has been all off. I think I've gone once in the last two weeks, and ruined that with pancakes afterward.

There was a lot of clumsiness and wobbling today, but I still managed to get some chores done. Which is why I didn't get much nap.

Anyway, there. Documentation complete. Now I'm going to take an ibuprofen, pray this doesn't turn into a migraine (I don't think it will, because it feels more like a stress/fatigue headache), and go to bed.

I'm calling today a 5.

Daily Report

I promise this blog will get more interesting as I get more used to blogging regularly. For now, though, have a daily report. This is getting old fast. Not the blogging part, but the checklist/taking care of myself part. There's a reason I'm neglectful. Between my vitamins and prescription medications, I take 15 pills plus an injection every single day. It's a full time job, just functioning daily. Even something as simple as taking a shower is an effort I don't want to spend the energy on half the time. It sounds gross, I know, but the effort it takes me to shower, even with the shower chair there to make things easier sometimes just isn't worth it. I try to take my shower just before I lie down because it seriously exhausts me, but sometimes that's just not possible. Sometimes I'm just too fucking tired to manage a shower and barely manage to drag my ass into bed to collapse.

But that's neither here nor there. I managed a shower today, which is what brought it to mind. More about that in the "Today I" section. Here we go.

Today is Monday.

Ampyra X

AMVits X

PM Vits X

Bed Vits X

Shot X 

(Check it out! All stars! Well, x's anyway! I call that a win!)

Exercise No pool today like I usually do on Mondays. I'm really still recovering from yesterday's migraine and I didn't think it was a good idea to push my limits this morning trying to make it half a mile in the water. I vacuumed the living room. (Yes, it counts as exercise for me.)

Water (oz) half a liter, plus two cups of tea, one black, one green

Diet I actually made myself two smoothie drinks today. I use what's called a Nutribullet and made two shakes today. I also had a ham and pickle sandwich (on bakery white bread, which isn't good for me, but it's what we had), some almonds, a few Lay's potato chips (what can I say? I like them and only eat a handful every now and then), and four fruit leather strips. I'm proud of myself. I actually managed to get some nutrition in today. This is kind of important for me, seeing as how I don't eat as well or as much as I should. The shakes really help and I need to keep up making them.

Activity - I went out today. My animals all had veterinary appointments, so that was an outing. It took about an hour and a half. I managed a shower before we left. I also vacuumed the living room and did the dishes. My bathroom really needs cleaning, but I haven't had the energy. Maybe tomorrow.

Nap I laid down after taking the animals to their appointment and eating my lunch, about 1:15PM. I got up about 5PM to feed everyone again.

Day Rating - Today was a good day. I'm going to call it a 1. 

Overall Wellbeing - I woke up with a little headache but that went away. It tried to come back, but I killed it with ibuprofen. I can feel my extremities. No numbness or tingling. A few balance issues today. Ran into a couple entryways going from my office to the kitchen, but that's nothing new. I knocked a few things over and made a couple messes as a result, but again, nothing new. Okay today.

See what I mean about MS being a real bitch? Yesterday I was in bed all day with a migraine. It was an 8 day. Today? 1. I'm all over the place sometimes.

Today I decided that the "Today I" section is pretty much pointless. I think this will be the last bit of it. I talk about my day in other places, so this is kind of just extra. I'll leave it out from now on.

Time for bed now.

Daily Report

As this blog is more about how I'm feeling and how I cope with that, I figured I'd do a little template/format thing so I can get everything I need to in a post before I go on about my day and reaction to it. Part of the purpose of this is to keep a daily record for both myself and my doctor, so I should probably make sure everything I'm supposed to track is included. (Also, should this blog attract regular readers or something, it will also serve as an accountability tool, allowing people to tsk-tsk at me when I'm bad and miss something, deliberately or accidentally.)

So here we go with the template:

Today is Saturday.

Ampyra X
AMVits  X

PM Vits X

Bed Vits - To Be Taken (before bed)

Shot X
Exercise - Saturday. Off.

Water (oz) - So far, about 20, and two cups of tea, one black, one herbal.

Diet - Today I had lunch out. I usually go out on Saturdays and have lunch with some friends. It's a little place with a very health-conscious menu, and they bake their own bread. Today their special was a hummus plate, with freshly-made hummus, artisan bread, kalamata olives, carmelized onions, cucumber, tomato, olive oil and feta cheese. I ordered the small version (you may recall from a previous post that I have very little appetite) and wasn't able to finish it. I also ordered the black tea and a small apple struesel about the size of the palm of my hand.

The above was technically my breakfast even though it was about 2PM. I'm trying to be better about eating something in the actual morning when I get up, but most mornings a cup of tea is about all I can manage.

I've also had a plain roll just now (about 10PM), as my stomach is upset and I don't want to eat anything else to cause gastrointestinal distress. I really don't think my hippy lunch agreed with me. I'm not a vegetarian/vegan, but I have no problem not eating meat. They don't serve any at this place, and I'm okay with that. Their cookies/pastries totally make up for not having bacon or chicken. Mostly.

Activity - Not much. I'm really behind on my housework and other obligations. It was a hard week this week (before this blogging thing), so I'm still playing catchup. As I said, I went out to my weekly gathering today. I have a therapist that comes every two weeks to massage my neck, shoulders, hands and arms (this helps with mobility, circulation and dexterity and is more physical therapy than "massage" like you might think), and they were here today. I did dishes last night, and the few used today. Pretty much it!

Nap - Fragmented. As I had plans for the middle of the day when I'm normally napping, I had to juggle things a bit. I lay down from about 11:30AM to about 1:30PM, then again from about 6:30PM to 9:00PM. I hate late naps, because they mess me up bigtime, but I really needed the rest to function the rest of the evening, so it was unavoidable. Good thing, too, because I woke up nauseated with my stomach hurting. Things are easing off now with medication, so I'm okay. I'll go to bed for the night in a few hours (my usual bedtime is very late, and I get up early). I usually run on a 6/4 hour cycle (down six, up four, sometimes more or less depending on my energy level/the day), so keeping odd hours is normal for me.

Day Rating - I'm going to call today a 3. Not especially difficult, but it's had its moments.

Overall Wellbeing - Mostly okay. Headache today, nausea, GI upset (lunch, I'm sure - too much peace and love in my hummus. I mean garlic.). Hands okay, limbs okay. Slight vertigo once or twice but that's normal for me.

Today I went out. See above. Felt pretty much okay today. No emotional issues (which are a big deal sometimes - anxiety and irrationality chief among them) to report. No overwhelming fatigue. I look forward to my Saturday outings, and plan my day accordingly. I had a good time out today, despite the later stomach upset. No other illness or injury or exciting event to report. I solved a creative problem today that's been nagging at me for months, and it was a simple fix. All I had to do was ask someone who had experience with the same issue and that was that. So that made me happy. Now I need to get to other things, so I'll sign off now.

Ta-da! I blogged! And it didn't take four hours!