Missy’s New Friend, and Other Things

Missy’s new friend?

My husband is currently doing a Lock Down cross-season cleaning session, and finding many interesting bits and pieces in search of a particular (unfound) thing. One of the treasures he found, was a soft toy I’d forgotten we even had. I don’t know how or why it is in our house, but given we used to breed Schnauzers, which is what the soft toy actually is, it isn’t that surprising we have it.

Missy was already in her favourite resting and reclining place in the house, her sofa, and Graham calmly placed the toy there, to see what she’d do, I guess. Or he may have just been putting it out of the way, while he kept on with his looking, and cleaning, and discovering.

Judging by the look on Missy’s face, I’m certain she is not keep on sharing her sofa with this particular ‘creature’. In fact, Missy got up about ten minutes ago, and the toy fell off the sofa, and Missy has stretched out more to reclaim her space. I love watching our dog, and interpreting what she does. I may well get it wrong sometimes, there’s nothing to be ashamed about there.

Trying to understand our pets is a good thing to do, and remaining open minded as we do this is important, because at times we may get it wrong, and our pets will try to teach us the truth. I know Missy as well as I’ve ever known any of the dogs that have been in my life. Missy and I have a connection, in that we both have a chronic auto-immune illness that requires treatment so we can live our best possible lives.

I have Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Missy has Canine Dry Eye. For my illness, I take a Gilenya capsule every morning. For Missy’s illness, she has Optixcare drops put in her eyes in the morning and evening every day. She will need this for the rest of her life. It’s usually my job to tend to Missy’s eyes. The illness causes ‘gunk’ to accumulate in Missy’s eyes, and she can’t see properly, so the ‘gunk’ has to be removed (carefully), and then one drop of Optixcare is put into her eye, and gently rubbed in.

This is a pretty well ‘in your face’ treatment, and Missy and I have developed a good understanding of it being a good thing to have done. Missy trusts me to be careful when I do this, and i trust Missy not to bite me if I accidentally hurt her slightly as I do it. It’s a good relationship, we have, Missy and I, one built on sharing, and doing our best to do what we do. Missy doesn’t mind if I sit on her sofa, at all.

To get back to the beginning of this post, the thing Graham was looking for was our Scrabble game. We’ve had this game for a very long time. It was in my family when I was young, and my mother gave it to me around thirty years ago, baby longer than that. We’ve played this game lots of times, and Graham and I decided last night, that we’d play Scrabble today.

A good idea, for sure, except, after and extensive search, the game remains unfound … Graham is the finder in our house, and if something goes missing he is almost always the person who will find it. He is a methodical thinker, rather than one who has flashes of brilliance … It works. Usually. But the Scrabble game remains unfound.

Is the day ruined? No, not at all. Graham is doing something different, something that will be of value to him, once it’s all done. And me? Well, hey, I’ve had something new to write a blog post about! It’s all good, if you can call anything about this crazy Lock Down Covid-19 time, good.

 

Household Habits, Outside and Inside

Well today was a day of potential danger, but of enjoyment too, if inwardly laughing at someone who is ridiculously (in your opinion) scared. Many things in and around our homes can be both dangerous and fun too.

Swimming pools are a good example of this, and at the other end of the temperature scale you have fire. Fires are lovely things to see, with those gloriously flickering orange/yellow/red flames. I’m not so keen on the swimming pool we have in the backyard, but my husband is. I acknowledge of course that a swimming pool is excellent for rapidly cooling in the stinking hot summers we have in South Australia where I live.

Fires though, I love watching a fire burning under control. We had some dried wood lying around our place, that had been there in the sun,k drying out for some time, and today was the day to ‘deal with it’. So Graham dragged all of the bigger branches together, and set fire to them. Whoosh up they went. I love the fires like that, beautiful!

Graham started the fire, and a little later I got involved, adding smaller branches, trying to place them so they encouraged the fire. Today was lovely outside, and there was a gentle breeze, so the smoke was wafting all around, which was a little challenging at times. Sometimes I feel like I’m a smoke magnet, today every time I tried to get out of the smoke the breeze blew it after me, it seemed at times. Haha!

I’m not sure how long exactly I stayed outside with the fire, adding dead twigs and dried out weeds. Graham went back inside and I stayed out there with the fire, revelling in its glory. I know I have the power to put out that kind of fire, with just a few minutes with the garden hose, so it’s not that unsafe as long as I’m careful. So I stayed with it, as it slowly burnt itself almost out, with ash and almost burnt up branches left to smoulder for a while.

Then I come back inside, and judging by the way I was feeling, I realised I’d allowed myself to get too hot, and I’d been standing up for too long. I’m certainly feeling the effects of it all now, sitting down again inside where there is only a normal inside temperature instead of a fiercely burning fire. Multiple Sclerosis is like that. You can be feeling almost ‘normal’ doing things anyone else might be able to do, then you overheat, or get fatigued, and watch out! the MS has hit you again.

Cooling down and resting for a while are both helping me, and fortunately I feel fine now. It’s a good thing I’m feeling fine too, because not that long ago, after I’d been sitting on the sofa for a while, Graham said ‘Watch out, Spider!’

He didn’t shriek, but I looked and immediately got up – he said I’d better get rid of the spider or he’d kill it. I knew he meant it too, because he really, really, really doesn’t like spiders. I looked where he pointed, and there was a huntsman (I guess), not the biggest I’ve ever seen, but not the smallest either. The spider was on the sofa I was sitting on, on the back part, where Graham’s head would have been, if he’d sat down like he was going to before he saw the unwanted visitor.

(This is a spider I’d rescued on another day, before Graham saw it and killed it)

I told him to get me the dustpan and brush and I’d take it outside. He went to the kitchen and I got up to take the dustpan and take the spider outside. I’ve done this lots of times. I don’t mind those big spiders, but Graham hates them, so I know the best thing for me to do if I ever see one inside is to take it out and release it to the ‘wild’ outside somewhere, away from the doors, hoping it will stay outside where Graham won’t kill it …

Those poor spiders, but poor Graham too, of course. He has been able to get over a huge phobia that he had when we first moved out to the country. He feared spiders as much as I feared snakes, before I was able to get over my fear. My fear was a more realistic one of course – the snakes we see at our place could kill, if I was bitten by one, but a huntsman spider is harmless to a human. Ah well, Graham is big and brave and lovely in many ways, and he’s allowed to have his quirks, I may have a quirk or two myself!

Living in the country brings in so many fearful, feisty and fun things. Fire, dangerous creatures, scary ones, and beautiful things too – fire again, and the lovely birds that fly around us here, I wouldn’t move back the to the suburbs if you paid me to! I think country living is far superior – what do others think? I’d love to know, leave a message here!

My Weight Loss Secret

I am currently at my ideal weight for my height, and have been there for quite some time. This in spite of eating sweet things not low calorie things when I dine out, and eating chocolate at home quite often. I haven’t been doing much exercise lately, but my weight is still good – 50kg and and I’m five foot nothing.

What is my secret, I hear you ask? Not so quickly … I have several medical reasons why I want to keep my weight down, and which are important to consider re exercise. I have a bung-ish knee, I have the chronic illness multiple sclerosis. The knee isn’t too painful, but keeping my weight where it’s best suited is good for it, and if I exercise to vigorously, it hurts my knee. The multiple sclerosis means keeping active is both good for me, and potentially impacted, in terms of balance and fatigue.

I’ve discovered an easy exercise program that suits me well enough, but at the moment I seem to have fallen into a ‘don’t feel like it’ period. I think if the desserts and sweet things start showing up with my weight, I’ll have the incentive to get back exercising.

Anyway, back to the point – How did I lose my weight (10kg over a couple of years), and keep it off? It’s not a wonder drug, or a fancy machine. The secret to my weight loss win is simple mathematics. When you use up more calories than you consume, you will lose weight. It may take a while to kick in, and it may not bring weight loss quickly, but if you continue to watch what you eat, and eat enough of the good stuff but not too much, you too can get to your ideal weight.

I would recommend a visit to a dietician to talk about your plans, but just learning to be more mindful with your eating, you’ll realise where you may have been going wrong. I used to eat all of the food on my plate, and would sometimes not eat enough fruit and vegetables. I’ve got better at it all now, and I’m finding that a few months of fasting several times a week helped me to learn what actual hunger feels like.

I learned to ignore my head, and listen to my body, regarding hunger. The average person can easily go on a reduced amount of food every now and then. I know I did, and I’m showing the good results from it!

Best Thing About Having MS

There are a few really good things about having MS, you know. Getting a disabled parking permit, and a disability support pension are the obvious ones, of course, but there are quite a few other great things about having multiple sclerosis.

One of them, is having an excuse for practically everything:

Forgetting things? Yeah sorry, mild cognitive dysfunction.

Dropping things. Sorry, muscle weakness.

Falling over. Yeah damn muscle weakness again…

I could just go on blaming multiple sclerosis for everything that doesn’t go how I want it to, or anyone else wants it to. Tiredness, being dumb or clumsy, obviously that must be because of the multiple sclerosis. But I don’t want to be labelled as being too dysfunctional. I’m capable of doing things, quite a few things, and I’m actually proud of myself for some of my talents. In view of this, I try not to over-play that line.

Writing is certainly one of those talents I have. I can pen a mean poem if I want to! I’m good at writing about pretty well anything I set my mind to writing. I have a few published books to my name, and I still receive royalties for one of those books, many years after the book was first published.

And the book this blog is based on, “Mick, Jane and Me – Living Well With MS” – I’m quite proud of this book. I enjoyed writing it, hunting up all of the bits and pieces that went into publishing it. Being able to write, publish and market the book are talents not every person has. I did it though, and it’s quite a fine looking book. I had some great people to follow, and to get assistance from. I also had financial assistance to help get it  all done.

There was the Richard Llewellyn Arts and Disability Trust grant that gave me money to pay for my mentor to help me get my writing verse abilities spruced up and working well (or at least better than they had been). And of course the printer of the book, Centre Print, who are the printers for the MS Society SA & NT, who printed 100 copies of my book for me for free. That was a great help!

So because I have a disability, I was able to get a memoir about an important part of my life printed. This memoir has some quite profound stuff in it. Useful things about medications, some about exercise and its importance. And I found quite a bit of philosophical thinking that went into the book toward the end.

I really enjoyed these philosophical thoughts. It came from some quite deep pondering, and I wonder whether these thoughts would ever have come about to be written down if it hadn’t been that I was writing a memoir about my new life. So really, I think this may be the best thing about having MS.

Because my life has changed, had to change, I’ve given myself permission to think quite deeply about what I am capable of doing, what is important to me, what are the best things for me and for those I love and who love me. So this has meant the creation of a new writing group (Adelaide Plains Chapter & Verse) that meets weekly in Gawler at the Prince Albert Hotel (every Thursday afternoon). And I’m also involved in a group for people with disability that meets monthly at the SA Writers Centre.

Another thing I want to explore further is Public Speaking. I have things to say about disability, my own and the subject in general. I’ve had a bit of experience in public speaking, and I certainly want to take this further in the future. I look at life in quirky ways at times, and I’d like to perhaps get into a bit of comedy work. These things will get more work next year. I already have one booking for public speaking, with another possible one in the process of being planned. I’ve put the word out  about this, and hope to at least get some learning gigs in 2014, with a view to doing more in the future.

So, The Best Thing about having MS is the permission I feel I now have to put myself out there into the world, knowing I have a story that interests others. I’m pretty sure there was another thing I was going to write about, but you know what? I’ve forgotten what it was!

Ah, I know, the Very Very Best Thing about having MS is that I can now get away with laughing about peeing my pants!