Medical Madness

Not that I’m ungrateful

By the time February comes to an end (a total of 60 days into 2024 or about 9 weeks), I will have been to 10 various and distinct medical appointments. I have mixed feelings about all of this. I need the care and I do have access to some of the brightest minds in the field (if you’re a newbie, the field is multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease), and in all 9 places I’ve lived as an adult, I’m quite certain I’m being treated by people in the most outstanding facility, bar none. On the other hand, these excursions are by far, my main activity outside of my home. I stopped driving almost a year ago. I had begun to sense a worsening of some symptoms, and I feared causing an accident. And now, with recent progression, there’s no way I could drive unless I got a van outfitted with a way to drive a special wheelchair into it, and learned to drive with hand controls. At this juncture, I don’t want to sink that kind of money into a vehicle. SHH has found some helpful and pricey gadgets that add up to the price of at least a used van or more. He does plan to retire sometime!

So, we traded in my old beloved Acura along with my husband’s SUV for a bigger one. Now when we travel, we can take more of my gear that mostly, makes life easier, but also more fun. There’s enough room for my Boston Terrier and HER stuff, my wheelchair (a pretty small version), my motorized scooter for long distances, and my Freedom Chair, an all-terrain wheelchair that I can propel myself, on trails, rough terrain, snow or sand, or just on streets. It gives me a decent workout, too. You can see it if you go to Gogrit.us.

Still, I’ve been trying to find things I can do directly from home that help with the depression (besides medication) and isolation. This, my substack, is one thing, and I bought into Duolingo. I’m determined to get decent at speaking Spanish. When spring rolls around, I’m going to try to spend more time outside, meeting more neighbors. It would be fun to have people over for dinner, or a game night.

I enjoyed a lot of good years, even considering my diagnosis and I am grateful that while I did have my share of brutal exacerbations, I mostly recovered and was able to raise my kids with my SHH (again, for newbies, Super Hero Husband) pretty normally. But my precious now adult children are at least a half day away, as are many friends and some are a full day away. It’s tough, and harder than I expected. One thing I do is memorize clean jokes to share with my neurologist who is a father, and happens to know a bunch of kid jokes.

I guess I need to “bear down,” as a college professor once advised me to do. But if any of you know any good jokes (kid-appropriate or not), do share. Pranks, too! I’ll be waiting…