Category Archives: depression
A Long, Hot Summer
Three more skin cancer sites this summer: malignant melanoma on my shin and chest, and squamous on my left thumb. So, three more surgeries, and after care left up to me. Apparently visiting nurses are not available for just skin cancer wounds care. The weather for the month of July here in New England has …
So, now what?
It’s been a month since I’d lost Rick to the unexpected heart attack on Christmas morning. I ask myself every day, how did that happen? We had changed doctors when our primary care physician retired unannounced, and then changed again when the doctor to whom he had bequeathed us as patients ordered a plethora of …
Keeping up More than Appearances: Shadows of our Former Selves
Rick and I celebrate Christmas more quietly than we did as a young couple with children. In our hearts, we keep Christmas all year long. We never take the trees down in the shop, using them as backdrops for Rick’s wooden ornaments and now my sewing notions. The manger in our living room stays up …
Balancing Happy Relief and Admitted Losses
I read comments on a closed page of Facebook ~ only members of the page can read it, so comments remain unseen by non-members. Reading them, one after another and all posted within a time span of two hours, from patients newly diagnosed and from those who have dealt with MS for years … well, …
The Stages of Grief in a new Graphic Illustration
This is a graphic than I ran across at Facebook. I found it very validating to read through it and reflect on my passage through the depression that came with the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis eight years ago. It may take some people less time to move through these stages, and it may take some …
Reading the MS Headlines, from the Inside Out…
Just some rambling thoughts on a day that has seen some productivity and yet continuing lethargy… Sometimes … often … I feel like I’m reading about someone else’s disease … not mine … I feel like the odd man out … cognitive issues instead of physical issues … a teacher with no short term memory, …
Realizing and Reacting, Reconciling and Reaching
The Spiritual Side of MS is a brief blog that I invite you to read before reading this entry; it caught my attention today on Facebook. In the opening paragraphs, the author refers to people who say that MS, or Parkinson’s, or other chronic debilitating disease has brought an appreciation of life to them, a better sense …
Dealing with what is vs…
I had a dream last night (or, rather, this morning) in which I was having a conversation with my therapist. I was explaining to her that my ability to hold things in the proper time frame was diminished. I can no longer estimate how long ago something happened, or when I had a conversation with …
Another New Normal
The “New Normal” is a buzz word on social media sites for people with chronic illness such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, Parkinson’s disease and more. The adjective ‘new’ is a critical component of this expression, as there is little stability or consistency in any of these changed statuses. My first experience with a new normal …
Quiet, very quiet.
Today the sun came out, after days and days of dreariness and one full day of rain. I can’t complain: people in other parts of the country are really experiencing wild weather in comparison to my mild discomfort here in New England. I’m right at the border between northern and southern New England ~ right …
