Over the last year, I’ve been experiencing some physical weirdness

Thought it was all in my neck, (there’s a history there) but had to wait until I had SOME kind of insurance before I could get to a specialist. Hubby lost his job and our insurance and I had to wait to get on the Medicare program.

Went to my ever ready, ever cheerful Neck Surgeon.

Neuro-surgeon said, Nooooooo not all of it is because of your neck, but we’ll do a Cervical MRI and see if there was something to fix. THAT appointment was 3 weeks away.

Regular Doc, freaked out at the symptoms I was listing and insisted on an electrical torture test, then wouldn’t give me results until I got the MRI from the Neurosurgeon.

SIDE NOTE: Having just seen the Green Mile on the Tee Vee, I now know why the sponge MUST be wet when they electrocute ya.

Went for my regular Shrink appointment. The Resident (3rd year) Shrink decided I was just fine mentally, for someone about to find out some really Baaaad News and who’s son is now in jail. She even put me on 3 month review, which translated from PSYCHOSPEAK, means she doesn’t think I’m gonna kill myself for at least that long. LOL, no, really, LOL.

But she kept on saying… “Get to your Neurologist, make an appointment today, get in as soon as you can… Have ya made that appointment yet.” Wonder of wonders a shrink with a sense of humor. Nice to have an honest laugh with someone usually looking for psychosis.

Then she had to go fetch her supervisor (standard procedure) and he turns out to be in his 2nd specialty (old guy with a career change I imagine). His first one was Neuro-surgery. He asked tons of questions about symptoms and said… “Go to your Neurologist, a surgeon will just be a man with a hammer looking for a nail, and you’ve got more to worry about than nails” Nice turn of phrase, don’t cha think?

Nobody with a medical degree has SAID it’s Multiple Sclerosis, but the symptoms fit, and my eldest brother got his diagnosis at about the same age I am now.

It didn’t scare me, I was just relieved. Like finding out my $5 parking fee (my last $5 BTW) was gonna get validated and now had money for a coffee and a nice piece of cheesecake.

He accurately described some smaller signs of neurological impairment (I hadn’t thought the faint buzzing in my head had anything but caffeine as the source). And to my great relief (us crazy folk NEED to be told that we are not “imagining” stuff) supported my concerns. His BIG thing was his sense of urgency.

Please insert: Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy….! I’m not crazy dance. Which, if you don’t know the circumstances, looks pretty crazy in itself.

“Get to your neurologist, get there SOONEST.”

In the beginning, I thought maybe it was sort of like how they treat women (especially) with newly discovered conditions such as fibromyalgia(sp), environmental sensitivity, chronic fatigue, or some other vague complaint. But his concern not only matched my own, it exceeded it.

IS IT A TUMOR? Nah, I couldn’t be so lucky as to have something so quick and fatal, sigh.

Noooo, Faithie has to have yet another debilitating, humiliating, “just deal with it” illness without any “cure”. Just more pharmaceuticals. At a cost beyond my means, unless we beggar ourselves… And THAT is NOT gonna happen. I’ll wear old lady pull ups before I do that. I can buy bags and bags of Depends for what ONE month of pharmaceuticals costs.

Meanwhile, it took Mike and me 3 voice mails to get a call back from my Neurologist’s office, just to tell me the appointment staff wouldn’t be back until Monday. But they tell me it’s only a 2 week delay. Maybe since my Mike is their computer geek, I’ll get “special” consideration. As all my folk know, I consider myself quite special. In a good way, not a developmentally delayed kind of way. LOL, Ego, firmly in place, thank you very much.

I tried to get an appointment at Shands and the appointments are 4 to 6 weeks out. Other Neuro’s in Gville either didn’t even answer the phone (staff layoffs?) or didn’t have any openings for new patients for MONTHS

Sheesh, the right-wing always cites the delays in Canada as an argument against Universal Health Care, well, what the hell do you call THIS?

ANXIETY TO LEVEL 6! WARNING, WARNING WILL ROBINSON… It made me pukeie all day. But sitting on my butt in the dirt, I managed to hand weed another 2′x8′ section of the spring garden. I’ve got manure coming, no, really, real cow crap 2000 lbs of it, and have to get the turning done.

And when your soul is freakin’ out NOTHING is better than ripping weeds out of the earth. Fed the greenest ones to the Chickens. They were THRILLED! BTW, chickens really like Spiderwort Greens and we get plenty of them!

Oh, and I laid down several Rye Grass paths through the yard and around my gardens and seating areas. When that emerald green comes up (as brief as it lasts) it will make me smile. It always does. I HIGHLY recommend a bit of Rye Grass in the winter.

Meanwhile, I fell over getting my sheets out of the dryer and bruised the heck out of my right arm when I clipped the dryer door. Good news! it was quite nice to fall into warm bleachy smelling sheets and towels. Then I lost all sensation in the back of my left arm. Something weird you just can’t rub away. It’s funny how stuff you had just thought was random takes on sinister meanings.

It’s very strange. One thing taken by itself is not too alarming. But when ya put them all down in writing (which I will have to do, as I love lists), it’s a pretty thorough freak out.

And still, still, I can wake up laughing from the last bit of dreamlette in the morning. And Doolittle the dog licking and wiggling his warm body against my face. While lazy assed Lady, thumps her tail and rolls over for a belly rub. Ahhhhh… now if they could just learn how to bring me coffee.

Once the diagnosis is firmly in place, I’m moving hell and earth to TRAVEL. Once the garden is in and can safely be left for a few days at a time, I’m going to hit the road, before it hits me.

Charleston, SC, New York City, Albuquerque (damn that’s hard to spell), back to the Rockies, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon (I’ve GOT to get off that no fly list). Wouldn’t mind visiting Chicago (my home town), my brother in Wyoming (Sheesh, WYOMING) my brother in Maryland. My Mom’s grave in Chiefland. You get the idea.

Longer trips overseas once the harvest is in….

Oh, don’t mistake all this as “hope”, what it is, is reality, and I plan to shape that reality to my life, not the other way around.

I have discovered a deep gratitude to all my friends, (especially the old age ones) for not just their concern, but their interest. It’s easy to “care” less easy to listen. To offer not platitudes, or head patting, but involvement. Nice to have them in my boat. When we all get tired of rowing the damn thing, we can go see a movie or something. We can sneak our treats in with my ginormous purse. Gonna have to buy drinks though, those bottles get HEAVY for us “disabled” folk.

PS, I’m getting a handicapped sticker!! Whooo Hooo, all parking, all the time…. I’ll NOT use the scooter thingies until I’d have to drag my body into a building without it.

PPS. Still not letting Obama off the hook. We managed to overthrow the government, but we’ve still got a WAR to stop, and an economy to work on, and our civil rights to return, INVESTIGATIONS and prosecutions to pursue.

PPPS: I’m much better (read coherent. in the AM), so unless you love finding typo’s, poor syntax, and Bush like phrasing, it’s best to communicate before 2:00 pm. LOLOLOLOLOL.

Again, welcome to my boat. It sorta looks like one of the lifeboats in the movie Titanic, but that could be only because it’s so FARKIN’ cold right now. Maybe come spring, when the wind freshens, we can all learn how to sail instead.

Faith, Oy, what a name at a time like this.