MS walk – the team Phil's steps

I posted something about this on Facebook but not on my blog. Our city had an MS walk a few weeks ago and my wife's sister's and nieces made up a team. They called it Phil's Steps. They raised the third-highest total of dollars for our walk. I feel so honored and surrounded by love of these people. There are so many that would do almost anything for me. I wish there was more for people to do but I try to be low maintenance. Ha Ha! And maybe someday I will be brave enough to share the story of how I got to bed the night of my wife's birthday party.

Miscellaneous update – Wednesday

I haven't posted anything this week so I feel like I should post something. Today is a very rainy day with a storm moving in later. I felt sorry for the mailman as he was walking around and it was raining pretty hard. It has been pretty busy week. Tom and Atlas are here so Tom gets me up in the morning. He lets me sleep later than I normally do so that shortens my day a little bit. It's nice having them here and Atlas is my sleeping buddy. When I go to bed he comes in and sleeps with me for at least an hour. In the mornings after Janette goes to work he gets up on the bed and sleeps with me some more. Used to make Macy jealous but now she just doesn't seem to care. Cats are like that you know.
Monday I had a appointment with the urologist, my yearly sit down with him to go over the results of my ultrasound of my bladder and kidneys. No problems. Last year he found a bladder stone but this year I got a clean bill of health.
Yesterday my neurologist had a cancellation so we got to see him about the new drug that is approved for my type of MS. Is the 1st medication approved by the FDA for me. I'm not sure what to expect but it is supposed to help slow the disease progression which in my case is been extremely fast. To be honest I needed this 5 years ago but at least they're working on it. From the talk my wife had with the representative at the recent MS walk I may be the 1st non-ambulatory person to try it. There's a lot of red tape involved as far as approval for paying for it. If insurance won't cover it there are programs with the marketing company as well as the manufacturer to have it paid for. Of course all of this takes a lot of time and paperwork. I got the impression from the doctor that no one has actually received their infusion yet. Hopefully we'll hear something sooner rather than later. The marketing company and manufacturer both have a program to help even with the deductible if it is too high so that is good.
now that I have my 90 pound sleeping buddy I look forward to bedtime even more. My wife also makes him say night night to Papa. She makes him come up and he puts his paws on my chest and lays his head on my chest also. He is so sweet when he does this. Sometimes he'll give me a kiss on my chin. In the mornings When I get up Atlas likes to have my covers thrown over him and we referred to him as Taco dog. Some days he stays in there even after we leave the room and we have to call him. He sure seems to like getting covered up.
Well I don't have much else to report today. Hope everything is good with you and thank you for reading my blog.

Childhood cancer – a story close to my heart.

https://www.gofundme.com/goteamevie
We went to a great nephews 2nd birthday party a few weeks ago. One of his mother's friends has a little girl named Evie. I knew this little girl had cancer a while ago. The whole time we were there she was so active and energetic I was really impressed. I don't think there was another kid there that was busier than her. I would have to say she found a place in my heart. Her mom was there also and I was impressed with her parenting. She always kept one eye on her but just let her play. That would've been hard to keep up with her but her mom always had one eye on her. She let her play though and was not overprotective.
On our way home I mentioned to my wife how cute and active Evie was. She told me her cancer and come back and it broke my heart little bit. Childhood diseases make me pretty angry and they seem so unfair. I was not disabled until I was in my 50s. I don't think God works this way but I would be glad to take her disease if she could be healed of it.
I find she is still in my heart even after all these weeks and I pray for almost every day. It would be every day but I tend to forget things. Please pray for Evie, that she would be healed of her disease. Also that they would be born up in this time. I have heard they are doing very well in their attitude and I'm so glad they're optimistic. I've included the link to her Gofundme page.

Stephen Hawking's prediction

Yesterday I read that Stephen Hawking said we need to find another planet to live on in 100 years or less. He thinks this planet will not sustain our population by then. I'm pretty sure there is no technology available now or in the next hundred years that would allow a huge migration to a different planet light years away. So if he is right there is not much hope for the human race. This made me think of the words of a hymn.
"Turn your eyes upon Jesus
look full in his wonderful face
and the things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace."
If Mr. Hawking is correct Jesus is the only answer. Even if they could terraform Mars it would take centuries to make it sustainable for human life.

MS Post – Brain Fog

One of the symptoms that is getting more prevalent with my MS is what's called MS brain fog. This affected me Tuesday and Wednesday. Monday my wife stayed home from work so I didn't get out of bed till noon. That night I had weird dreams, more so than normal. I've always had vivid dreams but the dreams I had left me feeling foggy in the brain Tuesday and Wednesday. Today I'm not affected like I was and feel much more in tune with what's going on.
Sometimes I tell my wife and sons about my dreams that stick with me. I usually just tried to describe the main points. Listening to other people's dreams is usually pretty boring.
The one I had Monday night is affecting me. Tuesday was one where I went to my neurologist and he told me he would not prescribe new medication approved for my type of MS. In my dream I told him there was no reason to deal with it anymore and I decided to drown myself. This was the strangest part of the dream. As I ended up in the water I found that I could not drown myself because I can breathe underwater like a fish. I woke up pretty angry that I could not get out of MS no matter what I did. Pretty strange dream and is stuck with me all day.
I think my dreams are affected by the medication I take for their neuralgia in my feet. I take pretty much the same group of pills at bedtime as I do before my wife goes to work except I don't take Benadryl in the mornings. So I've come to the conclusion it is the drug Gabapentin that affects my dreams.
The next morning had a vivid dream about a party at my former employer from 30 years ago. There were 5 owners that work alongside of everybody. In their party they had a blackberry wine that was only for the owners and they wouldn't share it with anybody house. I got angry and left and in my dream I could walk normally. As I was walking I found a cat that had no rear legs or back and it all. It was sort of like A cat. I carried this cat and was trying to find someone who would take it home with them. It was dragging itself around by front paws but it was a very happy animal. In my dream I kept getting angrier and angrier because no one would take the cat.. This feeling stuck with me the whole day in my brain felt foggy because of it.
I would have to say MS really sucks but it is never boring. Always something new to tackle.

Silly Kitty

It's sort of funny how many ideas I have for my blog when I'm in bed either before I go to sleep or if I'm awake before my wife gets me up. By the time I'm out here at my PC I have forgotten what they were. Believe me, they were great ideas. I think my ideas would've made America great again but I've forgotten what they were.
Today I'll talk about Macy. Since I'm no longer able to brush her or scratch her ears and chin she does not have much time to spend with me. She had become more my wife's cat unless Tom is around and then she pesters him to death. I have noticed though, that she gives me a little sugar once or twice a week. One day last week she got in my lap and slept for a couple hours. Sunday night she slept between my knees pretty much all night. Sometimes she sleeps on my arm for a while and sometimes she comes up by my head. When she lays by my head she usually licks my hair or my sideburns. When she lays there she purrs and purrs. To be honest it was her purr that won me over years ago. My wife says to give me a little attention now and then so that I know she still loves me. The cat I mean.
This one of things I have thought of to post on. Hopefully some of the other ones will come back to me and I can post them. I've never had a steel trap mind but my forgetting is getting lots worse. I know some of that comes with age but MS is multiplying that.

A murder I have thought about for decades.

This has been on my mind a lot lately. Recently my son downloaded the Fleetwood Mac album Tusk for me. I had this as a record many years ago and I remember listening to it one rainy night not long after my wife and I moved into our 1st house. Then on the news we had heard about a young girl being murdered and a mall parking lot. They have never solved the murder, her name was Michelle Martinko. She was a freshman when I was a senior and so she went to junior high while I was in high school. I'd never seen her until that night on the news. She was very pretty and had hair that rivaled Farrah Fawcett's. It was that event that made me realize that evil existed in our world. Up until then I always thought things progressed rather normally. The rainy night and listening to Fleetwood Mac always reminds me of that event.
One of the strange things is that I always suspected one of my classmates had done it. I had no proof or evidence other than these 3 things which would not have meant anything to the case: 1)The artist sketch the police published in the paper had hair that looked just like my classmate's. The face in the artist conception could've been anybody. 2)When we were in school this classmate was known for his inability to talk to women but there was one cheerleader he sort of stalked. Later on I heard stories that he was guilty of at least one date rape. There was also a story of him attempting a date rape and the girl getting away. 3)The final fact that convinced me was that he lived and grew up one or 2 houses away from this girl. If he was obsessed with her, I could see him committing the crime. Of course none of this was "evidence" and I always assumed the police were competent enough to consider him as a person of interest. That was in the late 70's and the crime was never solved.
Since the crime the parents have been in the paper a number of times expressing a desire to still have the crime solved. Since that time the mother has passed away and I'm not sure about the father. This Fleetwood Mac album and especially the song Sarah remind me of that time even after all these years. It's been decades since I've seen this classmate and I heard he moved to the East Coast after college. Everything I know I heard secondhand or just thought possible. I wish the perpetrator would acknowledge the crime. Even a deathbed confession would be good.
If this were a TV show some vigilante would kidnap the suspect and somehow find a truth serum and administer it. Of course TV shows are not real and imagined things are much easier than they are in real life.