odds & ends

Some weekend odds & ends …

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As a follow up to journal entry on "friends are extraordinary medicine", this excerpt from an email from Patti’s Mom captures how perplexing MS & Memory problems can be.  “ …We enjoyed our visit with Patti (Thursday) ...she did remember that she visited with her two old school chums BUT she did not tell us that Betty and Rob were up that afternoon (only hours earlier), her memory or lack of memory still baffles me, but I know it is the result of damages caused by MS”

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A thoughtful observation was also posted to an earlier journal entry entitled " unable to connect".  I discussed with Patti how she does seem to sometimes leap over all the in between and just get past or “get over it”. Neurology offers all these ‘too-many syllable words’ to describe why Myelin damage causes emotional short circuiting.  But does she “feel” or get frustrated trying to express how does shefeel?

 

She replied, “What difference does it make? I’m still going to have MS. When you have MS you have to get over it.”  She elaborated how useless it was to think about anything she couldn’t change. With a chuckle she summed up her answer by pointing out that if all else failed then that’s what her Prozac was for.

 

My mouth simply hung open at this lucid reply. Before and after this exchange Patti could not accurately tell you the day of the week, age of her daughter, any of her medications except Prozac <grin>, or where we were going or what we were doing.

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Sometimes over the years it has seemed to me that we on the outside, tend to look more for answers, reasons, and explanations of MS symptoms. Then in crystallizing moments Patti snaps me back toward a more balanced focus that on the ‘inside’ its about survival skills.

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We did grab Patti for some time out on an unseasonably 50+ degree Sunday. Nothing quite like a good, scary movie matinee, “Hide and Seek” (starring Robert De Niro) followed by ice cream at the Dairy Queen and then home for some dinner and Super Bowl. You can almost set your clock to Patti’s bedtime <grin>. Sure enough by start of the second quarter she was ready for bed it was 7:30! (and it was an unusually active afternoon for her with NO nap.)