Where have I Been for Heaven's Sake?

by Jane D.
(Indiana)

Hello, it's been a long long time since I've been here. As you might have guessed, it's the MS that's taken me away. Yep, that big black looming presence seems like it's come to stay.

I'm 62 now, but back when I turned 60, that old foe made it's presence known in a real and devastating way. Maybe it was the trip to Italy when the temperature was 95 every day. Or even more likely it was the assault my body had when I had my rotator cuff operation in September of 2009. That was a memorable month when I also had gout for the first time and couldn't even stand.

But right at the time my body decided to have a "little stroke." I went in rehab to assess the damage done. Very real in the moment to my family, I recovered almost over night. That first afternoon, before the hospital, I was as weird as I've ever been. I couldn't show a student how to divide fractions because everything was doubled to me anyway. But double vision wasn't so bad. I'd had that thirty years before.

It was the fact I didn't know what year it was, or who the President was. I tried to be funny, and when the real President's name didn't come to me, I said it was Rutherford B. Hayes. My husband wasn't laughing. He was especially sure I "wasn't right" when I couldn't identify my green and gold Crocs and the team they represented. My name and address were easy stuff, and I could converse cheerfully about most everything else. But we called the paramedics anyway because my nurse daughter in another city persuaded me how easily it would make everyone else more comfortable.

Stay tuned as there is way too much else to tell. It's nice to be back here writing. I took a major vacation.