Living life with a chronic illness is definitely not easy. But I do my best to push through all the barriers this illness puts in front of me! In my heart and mind, I believe maintaining a positive outlook on all situations in life will carry us through to much better times! I hope you find the information that I provide both helpful and inspirational!
I am not going to say happy Thursday because I prefer thinking about today as Friday eve! The weeks seem to feel much longer than normal and I cannot figure out why! The only thing that has changed is the weather is much cooler, which I do like because I do not do well when it is super HOT! The weather has been much easier to tolerate, which makes sleep better! I do feel rather lucky because one of our cats feels she MUST sleep with me all night long. The other night the poor little girl cuddle up and did not move once, which caused me to wake up with my arm dead asleep😊! After a long day dealing with people that want to complain, my cats are one of the only things that make everything better.
Yesterday, I had my second one-on-one meeting with my supervisor, which I used to dread or panic about but I do not anymore. Not only do I have one of the best supervisors I have ever had, but I also have an amazing team to work with😊. These are things that make going to work easier as we are working more than we are at home enjoying life. Of course, I do work from home, but I am meaning home doing nothing but relaxing with my sweet and loving cats!
Thankfully, we are near the end of the week, which makes the weekend MUCH closer. At this point, we can almost taste the weekend😊! Even though the weekend is so close, we do still have a little left of this week, so I think we could all use a little pick-me-up! I have been fond of this quote since I first found it because I think it is incredibly true. I have always believed that no one comes into our lives by accident and all the events that we have experienced happened for a reason, even the ones we did not enjoy or regretted. The people that have come into our lives and everything we have been through have made us as strong as we are today!
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope you enjoyed what I shared and you found the quote meaningful. I do hope you are having a good week and staying calm and stress-free as much as you can. I am looking forward to reading your comments and promise to respond as quickly as possible. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Out of the blue and for no reason at all, I started thinking about a life-altering event I went through. This is not something I dwell on because I have very little control over it and it would be a waste of time to overthink it. It has been more than 20 years since I heard my doctor tell me that I had Multiple Sclerosis. I was still so young, very ignorant of what this meant for my life, and fears of how many challenges I would be forced to endure. Of course, I did hear the words the doctor spoke to me on the day he broke the news to me, but it took me a while to accept what he said to me. I tried my best to fight him and tell him he was wrong, but that was fighting a battle I had no chance of winning. After several months, I chose to accept it, but also to never surrender because I do believe in the power of the mind and that positive thoughts produce positive outcomes.
All those years ago, I was terrified that I would not be able to live a normal life. Nowadays, I wonder what is normal because for me it is constant pain and frustration with a disease without a cure. I feared that I would lose the ability to walk and take care of myself, which would have been extremely hard for me because I am a very independent person and never want to rely on anyone for anything. It has been approximately 20 ½ years, 7,488 days, 179,703 hours, and 10,782,180 minutes (give or take) and I am still here. I am walking and taking care of myself and my husband, and my three cats. There have been many obstacles through the years, but I have always remained determined to not allow this illness to defeat me.
Over all the years, I have learned more than I ever wanted to about Multiple Sclerosis and as crazy as this sounds, it has taught me a lot. I have learned how to discover a strength that I never imagined having. I have learned how being determined can help me to survive the most challenging situations. I now understand how powerful resilience is and the many ways it can help us to persevere, even when we feel like hope is lost. I have learned just how a positive mind can make a HUGE difference in our daily life.
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I do not dwell on things I have little control over. I do understand that even though I have little control over Multiple Sclerosis, I can control how much I allow it to bring me down and to feel helpless. I do have control over my mind, and I can tell myself that I am stronger than this unpredictable illness. Most importantly, I can remind myself that I did nothing to cause this illness to continue to plague my life. I will continue to keep the promise I made to my late grandfather shortly after I was diagnosed to continue to fight the battle until I win the war against Multiple Sclerosis.
Unfortunately, we all have something we must live with, and we all have a choice in how we approach things. I am thankful the doctor caught the Multiple Sclerosis early because if he did not, I can only imagine how much worst things would be for me today. I will always have a special place in my heart for my first Neurologist and his Nurse Practitioner because they were an amazing team that never lost hope in me. I am thankful that I have learned to not feel any shame because of what I live with.
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope you enjoyed what I have shared today and that in some way, it resonates with you and helps you to understand your strength. I hope you are enjoying your weekend and remaining as safe as possible. I am looking forward to reading your comments and I will respond as quickly as possible. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Welcome back, Monday. I had a dream Monday would forget to return and we had Sunday 2.0, unfortunately, that dream did not come true. The only choice we have is to tackle Monday with as much strength and motivation as possible. I hope you had a nice, safe, and relaxing weekend so that you are ready for another long week. It is never easy to begin another week, but we always manage to do it because we have an internal strength we often forget about.
As we start this week, we need a reminder of how to stay motivated. I know this is not easy, especially first thing in the morning, but I hope that I can help motivate you today! I think this quote can not only provide motivation but strength, courage, and the hope many of us have lost over the years. With everything that has occurred in the last few years, losing hope has happened to many of us. My goals have always remained to instill hope and strength in others as many of us are forced to deal with things that we do not deserve.
How was your weekend? During the past several days, maybe weeks, I have been experiencing pain in my heel and foot, which I think is something called plantar fasciitis. I have felt this before, but it was when I was on my feet all day long. Waking up with this, which is making it hard to stand is new to me. This has not just been in the mornings, but it does last all day. It is miserable for it to be painful to walk, sit, stand, or even lay down, but I guess it could be worst. Has anyone reading this dealt with this issue before and if you have, did anything help you?
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope you enjoyed this post and the quote I shared today. I hope your week begins great and only gets better with each passing day until the weekend is back again. I am looking forward to reading your comments and I will respond to them as quickly as I can. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Happy Friday y’all! I hope you had a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. Even though it is only two days, I am thrilled the weekend will be here in a few hours. It felt like an extremely long week and I feel like I could use more than just two days, but I will not complain and accept it. The good news is there is a long week coming soon. Do you have anything planned for your weekend? Even though I am sure I will not sleep in much, at least I will not be working and can sleep in if can without the adorable fur children waking me😊.
As our week comes to an end, I am sure there is a lot we can look back on, but that is not necessary because it is the weekend. With each week we learn many lessons and endured many different challenges. Honestly, we should not view challenges as negative because they all provide us with additional strength we did not have before. We should always be proud of ourselves for never surrendering to hardships and painful struggles because we came out of them with more courage. Think about it, would you be as strong as you are today if you did not go through difficult times? Maybe, but maybe not.
Thank you for visiting my site today. Remember to enjoy your weekend doing exactly what makes you happy. You do not have to have your weekend all planned out, that is what the weekdays are for and weekends should be spent relaxing. I hope you enjoyed the quote I shared with you today and I look forward to reading your comments. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Let’s not think of today as simply Wednesday, let us think of it as we are halfway to the weekend! I am not sure how, but we managed to survive the first half of the week, which at least for me was not easy because it was crazy busy! All I can say is I hope the last part of the week is a little easier and the pain and stress will ease up at least a little!! Why is it some weeks feel so much longer? I understand it comes with the territory, but it would help if people could be just a little less demanding and a lot more understanding.
During our lives, we are going to experience good times and bad times, but the bad times should never define or destroy who we are. It is so easy to get discouraged when negative things occur in our lives, but why let the negative times win when we have choices we can make? No matter what we go through in life, there is always a way out or a choice to make that may have a positive outcome. I hope the quote I have shared with you will inspire you and help you to understand bad things may happen, but we can decide if we let them destroy us or make us stronger. I am going to always choose the latter because I do not want to allow anything to destroy my life.
It is kind of funny that I have never met any of the people I work with in person, but have been able to get to know so many of them and make friends with them. Many people have said to me that they think it would be challenging working remotely and not meeting people face to face, but I have become used to it and enjoy it. Working with customers in person is complicated, but working with them through email is a lot more challenging because people seem to think it is easier to be rude and disrespectful. I do not understand this and doubt I ever will. I almost doubt some of these customers would behave the same if we were face to face, but I guess they might behave the same. No matter how much people decide to be nasty and rude, I have learned to just shake my head and pour on the kindness and good customer service I always provide!
Thank you for visiting my site today! I hope you are having a good week and never forgetting how amazing you are. I would love to know what you thought about this post and the quote I have shared with you. I will respond to all comments as quickly as I can. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
For the past several days I forced myself through my workday and the things that I had to do. Unfortunately, I was unable to do any posts, work on my essay for the writing competition, or read because I have been battling a headache that seemed to be never-ending. Anytime I thought it was improving, I was proven to be incorrect when the massive pounding in my head returned with a vengeance.
Many of you reading this post today and may have visited my site before are already aware that I have Multiple Sclerosis. Anyone new to my site, thank you for taking the time to visit and I hope you will return. I enjoy writing about various topics and hope you will enjoy what I write about as well.
I have lived with Multiple Sclerosis for over 20 years, so basically more than half of my life. Over all these years, I have had numerous challenges, setbacks, disappointments, frustrations which fueled stress, and enough tears to fill the ocean. The one thing I have not experienced is giving up and letting MS control my life.
One of the main reasons why I refuse to give up is I made a promise to my late grandfather shortly after my diagnosis that I would always continue to try to move forward, and I would never surrender to MS. Although he has been gone for almost 9 years, I will continue to keep the promise I made to him. It might help that I am also extremely stubborn and obviously a born fighter, just not the violent type of fighter😊!
During the 20-plus years of living with MS, I have dealt with vision impairments, numbness, various forms of pain, stress from the harshness of symptoms, fears from potential disease progression, changing and deciding the right medications, relapse, neuropathy, doctor’s appointments, dizziness, and much more. Most of my pain does not prevent me from living my life and I just push through it and try my best to ignore it. After all the years of experiencing head pain, I am still unable to tolerate it. Unfortunately, it does not matter how many headaches I have already had in my life or how often I battle with them in any given week, the headache always wins our war.
There once was a time when I had a headache, I could take Advil and lay down with an ice pack for an hour or so and the headache would be gone. I wish I could explain how much I miss those days! Unfortunately, over the past few years, nothing provides me with any relief. Although I had many reservations, I ended up trying everything my doctors recommended, but they were all a complete waste of time and money because they did not help. I have tried combinations of over-the-counter medications, such as Advil, Excedrin, and Sudafed, which have helped more than anything else.
Over the past several days, not only was I dealing with the headache straight from hell but the invasive tight band feeling also known as the “MS Hug” visited me. The only good thing about COVID was social distancing, but I guess the MS Hug did not get the memo. I am just speculating, but I think I am experiencing the tight band feeling because of stress, the insane heat, or a nasty combination of the two.
This outrageous and uncontrollable heat is my enemy because it always causes me to feel awful. Over the weekend, I had to run out to two different stores and when I finally made it back home, I told my husband I am not leaving the house again during the day until at least November. I am pretty sure if the temperatures get any hotter, it will be the death of me. I do understand that this massive heat is being felt all around the world, and I do not think anyone can say global warming is not real anymore.
How are y’all handling the incredibly dangerous heat? One thing that I believe helps is to stay hydrated. I have four different stainless steel insulated water bottles. I fill the bottles about a quarter of the way with water and put them in the freezer. This makes it so I always have ice-cold water handy! I strongly recommend them, especially during the summer months. These stainless-steel insulated water bottles are very affordable on Amazon and there are any colors you can think of😊!
Another thing I recommend during these HOT summer months is if you must leave the house, start your car, and let the A/C run for a few minutes. It is never a good idea to try driving when you are hot because you could get overheated, which can cause you to feel dizzy and faint. The heat can do some terrible things to our bodies and minds, so it is best to do everything we can to stay as cool as possible.
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope what I have shared was helpful for you. If you have any other suggestions regarding staying cool with these drastic temperatures, please share. Also, if you have experienced the evil MS hug, is there anything you do that helps? I am looking forward to reading your comments and I will respond as soon as I can. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Most of us had Monday off from work, which made Tuesday feel like Monday on steroids! I do hope y’all enjoyed the long weekend and yesterday was not too crazy busy! For some reason, for me at least the short weeks always feel much longer. Yesterday was a crazy busy day at work, which I do like because it makes the day go by faster. Something good that happened yesterday for me was, that I received my 5th shout-out for doing a great job at work. I am sure we can all admit this, but praise does not happen often because people complain more than appreciate.
I think during the week we need to stay inspired. If we could learn to be inspired by our life and those around us, we could spread this to others to make the world a better place. I found the quote I am sharing with y’all amazing and inspirational because life does seem like a river. A river continues to flow and it never goes in reverse. Forgetting the past is important and focusing more on the future is crucial. We must learn from the past, but never stay stagnant in the past so we can move forward to a future filled with many opportunities. There is a lady I work with that has an amazing outlook on life and she always tries to spread this to all of us, which I appreciate.
During the week we must stay focused on our goals. We are the only ones that can achieve what we aspire to do, no one can do it for us. Do you think about your goals at the beginning of the week and plan things out or do you just fly by the seat of your pants? I always have a plan for things and a backup plan, but then also a backup plan for my backup plan. Things can always go wrong, so I think it is better to stay prepared!
Thank you for visiting my site today! I hope you enjoyed what I have shared and you found the quote meaningful. I hope your week is going well and you are staying stress-free. I look forward to reading your comments and I will respond as quickly as I can. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Despite having lived with Multiple Sclerosis for 20-plus years and understanding it more than I wished, there are still times I get discouraged and frustrated. Of course, I understand that most of the symptoms that make me feel this way will subsite in time, they can be difficult to tolerate. Something worse than normal, and I have been forced to endure for the past several days is the neuropathy in my legs. I should be used to dealing with this because it is not new, but it does not get easier. Lately, it has been painful to walk and even sit down the sensation of tingly, pain, and the “spider dance party” on my legs have been almost unbearable. Considering I have been dealing with this for years, I can almost guarantee the reason for the increased issues is due to heat and stress.
Another issue that is not new but has been returning frequently is dizziness. It used to happen more later at night, but for the past few days it comes on suddenly at random times throughout the day. The only way I learned how to deal with this is to sit down immediately (to avoid falling), never lay my head backward, and or force on a still object. I already know I will get extremely dizzy if I lay my head backward, so I try to never do this. Heck, I also know when I go to the neurologist, they always have me do this, even though I explain what happens. It seems many doctors do not listen to their patients; you know the one that knows more about their body than any medical school can teach?
Many things can make Multiple Sclerosis symptoms flare up and we need to learn how to avoid these issues as much as possible. Summer in the south makes avoiding the heat pretty much impossible. Anytime I must leave my house and get in the car, I make sure to never drive until the air conditioning has been on long enough for it to not be too hot. How do you avoid heat when there are more hot months than cool months?
Stress is also a HUGE factor. Stress can make old symptoms return and create new evil symptoms. I am still learning how to avoid stress, but for me it is impossible. Everyone already knows that stress is a silent killer, but what it can do to Multiple Sclerosis is miserable. I know many of the reasons I have had awful relapses previously were because I was stressed about work, life, medication, money, and many other issues we all face.
Something else I have always had a hard time with is fatigue. It is hard for me to sleep most of the time and even more so during the insanely HOT summer months. I do try getting enough sleep, but it hardly ever happens, which more than likely has something to do with the inability to turn my mind off. Unfortunately, my mind is always racing, and I have not figured out how to stop this. It does not matter what day it is or what time I go to bed, I am awake at the same time every single day. If I am not awake at a certain time, the cats will play their part and force me to wake up. The truth is, I tend to wake up early anyway because of the pain I experience.
Finally, pain is a major burden in my life. I deal with pain in multiple parts of my body 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and with no breaks. The crazy thing is, that I would not feel normal if I did not have pain. Of course, I would love to have one day or even one hour when I was not in pain, but it is not in the cards for me. I try to embrace the pain and just ignore it the best I can. My logic is, why focus my attention on something that is not going to change and use up the energy I do not have I have for something cannot control when many other things need my energy and focus? Great way to think, right?
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope you are having a wonderful and safe long weekend, so far. I would love to read your comments and any advice you have regarding what I have shared today. I promise to respond to all comments as quickly as I can. Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Hello Tuesday! Although I am not sure how we managed to survive Monday. How did your week start? The first part of yesterday was not bad at all, I actually received praise from a customer. I think we can all agree, that getting a compliment at work is rare because so many people tend to complain instead. That was the highlight of yesterday and then it went downhill rather fast. Honestly, I think I was overwhelmed and it should never have gone that way. Too much was being put on my plate and I found out this was NOT supposed to happen. I know everything happens for a reason, but I never question things at work and I should have much sooner!
We did make it through the first day of the week and we have four to go before the long weekend, so I think we need to help one another. It can be easy to think of everything that can and has gone wrong in life, but we need to focus on all the great things in our life that have gone great! Yes, I know it can be hard because there are so many awful things we must experience in this life, but good things come to those who wait and are patient, and resilient. We are all strong, determined, intelligent, and deserving of amazing things in our life, so we must never surrender!
I hope your week is going well so far and you found meaning in the quote I have shared with you. The rest of the week will be brighter than Monday, as it always is. Monday’s are one of the most dreaded days of the week, but that is in the past now. It is funny how much most people hate Monday, but we know they will always return and maybe we should learn to embrace them more. Yeah right! That probably will never happen because I do not think I will ever have the willpower to embrace a Monday, but I guess we just try our best.
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope you enjoyed what I have shared and I look forward to reading your comments. I promise to respond to all of your comments as quickly as I can. No matter how challenging the week might seem, remember nothing is permanent and the days will go by! Please never forget that I am always sending y’all LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Life is not always perfect, and it is impossible to be happy all the time, but we do have the power to make changes when necessary. Complaining about things in life we are unhappy with is NEVER going to change things for the better. Sometimes we need to implement the changes we NEED in our life. The problems we encounter are NOT going to fix themselves and will only get worst. We spend most of our time at work, so if we are miserable in our job, it might be time to start looking for something different where we are not miserable for eight hours a day, five days a week.
Work is not always fun, but it can be fulfilling and semi-enjoyable. I have always enjoyed working with people and find “some” of them interesting. However, more and more I am finding the way people behave and treat others disturbing and offensive. I treat people the way I would want to be treated and try my best to understand their outlook on things and what they might be going through. The way things have been in recent times, I have a new view on this. Unfortunately, so many people are selfish and do not care how their tone, verbiage, and treatment affect others.
Changing jobs is extremely frustrating and challenging. It takes persistence and perseverance. Numerous job search sites are available. The most popular and user-friendly are https://www.linkedin.com, https://www.indeed.com/, https://www.monster.com/, and https://www.glassdoor.com/. I am sure there are many more out there, but I am not familiar with any others. A quick and simple google search can bring up others if you are looking for another job.
We are only offered one life and there is no way to rewind, pause, repeat, or fast-forward. If there is anything you are not completely happy or content with, it is time for a change. This can be in a job, relationship, where you live, what you do for enjoyment or anything else involved in your life. Of course, change is never easy, but it can be accomplished with strength and determination.
Relationships whether they are romantic, friendship, colleagues, or family can be complicated. All relationships require strong and open communication. Without being able to be open and honest, a relationship will fail quickly. It is also important to never hide anything from your life partner. When people hide things from the person, they are building a life with, there will only be unnecessary complications. We should not feel like we need to hide anything because we are already being open and honest, so there should not be anything to hide, right?
I am not complaining about my job, but I am unhappy with the way things have been. The training missed many things we needed to know and now everyone is so overwhelmingly busy, that no one has time to help those that are newer. I have always been a perfectionist with my work and hate making mistakes. Therefore, I take a massive number of notes because I want something to reference when I am unsure. There have been several people that I work with currently that are amazing and helpful, but then there are others that talk or email in a demeaning and discouraging way. I think some people forgot what it was like to be new and learn an entirely new industry.
I think part of the reason I have felt so irritable lately is that it is WAY too hot! The heat causes many of my MS symptoms to be aggravated and intensified. It is only May, and the temperature has already been in the high 90s. I do not even want to know how hot it is going to get when it is summer. Living in the south and still waiting to get central air has been troublesome and infuriating. I do enjoy summer, but only when I am at the beach because the ocean breeze counteracts the insane heat. I mean who in their right mind wants to be out when the temperatures are so high? No sane person!
Thank you for visiting my site today. I hope you enjoyed this post, and the information was beneficial. It is finally Friday, and we now have the weekend to look forward to. We can let of the negative feelings the week caused us. There is no point carrying those negative feelings into our weekend when we know anything we were dealing with this week will probably still be waiting for us on Monday. I look forward to reading your comments and will respond as quickly as I can. Please never forget that I am always sending LOTS of love, comfort, support, and MANY positive vibes!
Fightmsdaily 