Inspired Again!

My blog this week goes back to dieting, yet again! I have struggled with my weight all my life.  I used to roll my eyes at women who said that when they got married, they were a size 4!  I think I was born bigger than that!

Well, actually I wasn’t, but I just seemed to be bigger than anyone else I knew my age.  When we were kids, we each had a list of chores to do and mine was the only one that included exercise.  My clothes were known as ‘chubbies’ sizes.  We had to line up and get weighed in grade 6.  I was the only one at 100 lbs.

I kind of got control of my weight when I went to college because I could only afford to eat twice a day.  Breakfast was the powdered ‘Instant Breakfast’—not the package—I used to open up all the packages into a container and take two tablespoons full in hot water.  Dinner was a chicken drumstick.  On Sundays, my big treat was Kraft Dinner.  I couldn’t afford milk or butter, so I just used some of the water I boiled the noodles in.  It was fine. But, of course when I started to work and could afford all the food I was missing, I ate!

Later, a co-worker got me into Weight Watchers and I got down to 123 lbs.  Too thin, for me, actually, I truly am not built that way and, of course, couldn’t maintain it.  I lost weight for my wedding, lost weight before I got pregnant with my first child, you get the picture.  I can lose weight, but can’t seem to keep it off.

Late in 2009, Cavan and I went on the ‘cookie diet,’ so named because the doctor that prescribed it, sold (among other things), these packages of cookies that were one meal.  Essentially, every meal was to be about 300 calories, so I lived on cookies, granola bars and frozen meals each under 300 calories.  It worked.  By March, Cavan and I were each down 60 lbs.

That, of course, did not stick either.  Now, I haven’t put all of the weight back on, but almost!

This year, I had great hopes for the weight belly diet.  I did feel better, but the weight wasn’t coming off like I had hoped, so I went off the diet.

My oldest daughter has inspired me, though.  God love her, she is built like me.  I don’t know what her weight got up to, but she has lost 76 pounds and she looks amazing!  She can exercise more than I can because I have to work with my MS limitations, but we are trading Paleo recipes and trying inventive ways to make things that fit in the Paleo diet.

I’ll try to stick to this one.  There is certainly a lot to eat!  I don’t think I have eaten so much fruit and veggies in a day, as I do now and I don’t miss the grains and still get to have my beef, pork, chicken, salmon.....

Let’s see how it goes with Cavan and me going away this weekend!  Pretty much everywhere has something I can eat, I’m sure.

So, God bless and here’s praying that we all meet our challenges head on this week!

Niagara-on-the-Lake

Happy, sunny, Sunday morning!  At least it’s sunny here.  Here we are heading into the last week of May and I am still having trouble believing it is 2015!

I took Thursday and Friday off this week and I took my friend Viv down to Niagara-on-the-Lake.  I love that little town.  Viv and I did our downtown wander and bought the usual stuff:  Christmas stuff from the Christmas store (we can never miss that part!), fudge (certainly didn’t need that and neither did Cavan, but I did it anyway!) and jams (well, I got rhubarb jam for Cavan and cinnamon honey for me) and then on the way home on Friday, I stopped for wine.  You can’t come home without at least a bottle or two when you visit wine country!

Our visit wasn’t for shopping, but it was a great pastime, while we waited for our room to be ready.  We stayed at the Prince of Wales Hotel and I would recommend it to anyone who can afford it.  The hotel was lovely.  The only complaint I had was that the shower had very little water pressure, but it was workable.  The bed was the most comfortable hotel bed I think I have ever slept in!

The food at the Prince of Wales was also very good.  We attended afternoon tea in the Drawing Room, ordering the traditional afternoon tea—sandwiches, the best scone I have ever had, little desserts and, of course tea.  Viv and I couldn’t even finish the food, there was so much, but we were provided a clamshell container to take it with us.  We put it into the fridge in our room and almost forgot it the next morning!

That evening, was our main purpose for the trip.  We attended the play ‘Sweet Charity’ at the Festival Theatre.  I had ordered us front row centre tickets and we could have run our fingers through the band leader’s hair!  The play was great—the actors were awesome, although I had forgotten what a sad story it was.

The theatre was only a block from the hotel, which was great and the weather was awesome, so we walked from the time I parked the car at the hotel Thursday at noon until we headed home after a lovely breakfast in their restaurant, Friday.

A lovely couple of days and then back to reality!  Here it is now Sunday and I’m back to work tomorrow.

Well, whether you are working or going to school, or retired, enjoy your week and God bless all of you!

Me and My MS

It’s actually rather difficult to rant on such a lovely, sunny Sunday, but I was trying to figure out a topic and this is what came to me.

I’m a glass is half full kind of gal and so I have to start with the good stuff first.  The company I work for and the medical insurance company I deal with have been great, since my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis in 1994. 

I had five pretty bad relapses in 1998 that allowed me to change the course of my disease. Before I went to see my neurologist that year, I did my research, with the assumption that we had to do something about the course of my disease.  At that time, there were three drugs on the market, all injections, which could potentially help me.  Betaseron, which was first on the market, Copaxone and Rebif.  Avonex was not on the market yet. 

So, I called my insurance company to see which they would cover. They told me that they would cover Betaseron and Copaxone, saying that Rebif was homeopathic (I know, crazy, right?).  So, armed with that information, I went to my neuro, who said, “pick one.”  Imagine that.  I think that if it didn’t work, it wasn’t his fault, but there you have it.

I did a little more research and discovered the Copaxone had fewer side effects, so late in October of 1998, I began the daily needles.  Fast forward to now—almost 17 years later, when I tried to get a refill and I’m told that the insurance company wouldn’t cover it.  It turns out that as of last August they have a new policy.  All expensive drugs (and this one is $1450 a month!) have to have the doctor fill in this paperwork, which, of course, took them a week to fax to me.

Now, it seems to me that a new policy like that should have been communicated to their customers right away, rather than when you are nearly out of it.

So, I called my doctor, whose receptionist says that he only fills in forms on Tuesday or Thursday at noon.  The problem is that although my own doctor has been prescribing it for years now, I don’t know if he will sign it, or defer to the neuro.  They would not allow me to fax it to them to see IF he would sign it first, so the first appointment is 3 weeks from now.  I have four needles left.

I might have gone directly to my neuro, but the last time I tried to get an appointment between regular appointments, I was told, “He’s too busy to see you and can’t do anything for you anyway.”  So, I wait.  And I wait to see the effect on my MS, after nearly 17 years on it.  Truthfully, the first four years I was on it, I didn’t have a relapse at all, but since then, I have had a very slow decline.  Has it kept me from having any relapses, who knows? 

Three years ago, my neuro documented that I was getting a bit worse each year.  I can’t remember if his documentation actually said ‘secondary progressive’ or not, but if I am, I no longer qualify for Copaxone anyway.  Hm, it might be that the retirement that I was hoping for next year might start with short term and then long term disability.

Am I up for a new adventure?  I guess I have no choice.  Let’s see where this takes me!  My glass is always half full, remember?  So, I wade into the unknown with a smile on my face.

God bless everyone, with their own adventures!

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the mothers out there!  May God bless all of you and may you enjoy this day set aside to honor all of you!

I lost my mother almost ten years ago.  She was the mother who chose me because I was given up for adoption at birth. 

My mother was not perfect and neither am I at this job of being a mother.  In my mother’s case, the challenge was raising eight kids, with the help of my father.  In my case, it was raising two kids, without the help of their father.

We all have challenges in life and the legacy we leave behind is the legacy of rising to those challenges and doing the best job, not in spite of those challenges, but actually because of them.  Bring it on!  My mother and I both had health challenges as well.  Mom had heart issues and I have multiple sclerosis.  Did we let that stop us?  No!  We managed to carry on and do what needed to be done.

That isn’t to say that we didn’t hit bumps in the road and have detours thrown at us, but we dealt with those bumps and detours as best we could and we, and our kids, are all the better for it.

I would like to think that my kids see that strength in me, to get through every challenge with my head held high, ready for the next bump or detour in the road.  I would also like my kids to know that no matter what challenge they hit, I am here for them.  I may not always know the answer, but I know how to find answers and I know how to help them figure things out.

So, honor your mothers today.  They weren’t all perfect, but I’m sure they did the best they could with their challenges and remember; whether you believe in nature or nurture, part you came from your mother!

God bless all the mothers today!

Mother-in-laws

I didn’t take the time to blog last weekend because my mother-in-law was visiting, but it gave me the idea to blog about mother-in-laws.

I have had three mother-in-laws in my lifetime, I suppose,  I dated a guy for four years, was married for five and have now been living with Cavan for 12 years. 

My first mother-in-law was British and mostly not bad, although in the end she seemed to really dislike me.  Phil and I had been dating for a while when I moved about an hour away to finish college.  When I finished the year in Ottawa, I moved to a nicer apartment and settled into a job as a database analyst.  Near the end of my first year of working, Phil moved in with me, while he looked for an apartment for both of us.  The idea was that we could find a place a bit bigger, but since we both had really good jobs, we could put money away to buy a sailboat.  I wasn’t much into sailing, but Phil was

That story ended when he went home to pick up a moving truck and move his stuff into the new place and then pick up me and my stuff in the afternoon to move me and my stuff.  Well, he was hours late and not being in the times of cell phones just yet, I had no idea what was going on,  To make a long story short, he mother had talked him out of having me move in with him.  I was stuck scrambling to find storage for my stuff, while I found a new place to live.  That was the end of that relationship.

My next mother-in-law was kind of a gruff Irish woman, but I thought I could deal with that.  I was wrong.  I think I blogged about how my relationship went with her son, my husband Gary—after he convinced me it was time to have kids, he cheated on my both times I was pregnant and then left me for that woman, when our youngest was four months old.  So, to the mother-in-law issues.  I didn’t care how I was treated as long as she was good to my daughters.  At some point, the girls felt they couldn’t continue a relationship with their father because of all the negativity and I felt that as uncomfortable as it was, they should still visit his parents.  The last conversation with my mother-in-law, after my usual pleasantries, went like this:  me:  “I thought you would like me to bring the girls to visit,” her: “They know where to find me!” That was the end of that.

That brings me to my latest mother-in-law from the Isle of Man, who is lovely, but she has Alzheimer’s. When Cavan’s father died, we had to move her into a home.  She isn’t that bad yet, but she cannot live alone.  She is almost to the point where she can no longer visit us, as it just seems to be too much for her.  Because she speaks to herself, while she was getting ready here one morning last weekend, I got to hear: “I wish I could find something that is mine!” and “I hate this place!”  I am not taking it personally, of course, and I know that there isn’t much I can do to make it better for her.  She likes to be as independent as possible, so I don’t like to intervene much.  It breaks my heart to see her so frustrated.

I pray for her to manage as much as possible.  We just need to help her when we can, for as long as she is with us.  So that is my third mother-in-law, a lovely, but challenged lady.

So, blessings to everyone!  It is a beautiful day here in the lovely town of Cobourg and I pray that wherever you are, you are having a wonderful day as well!  God bless!