Wolfen's Blog

Hey look it's raining!

It's been raining here off and on for about two months now.  I mean we've had days of no rain and we've even had the odd partial day of sunshine, but overall it's been grey for the past two months.  Weird.  The pond beside the house is filling up even more.  I didn't think it could get any higher.  If this keeps up I'm sure there will be flooding for some homes.

I'm pretty tired today.  I was up late being a jerk (ask me about my horrible bad moods).  I kept my husband awake with my tirade and I don't even really remember what it was about.  That's the worst part.  I mean I wish I knew why this happened but I wish even more that I could stop it.  So because of being up late getting upset over nothing, I am now tired.  I didn't want to sleep in though because then I'd be unable to sleep again tonight.  I want to go to bed early tonight and so I'm going to stay awake today no matter how sleepy I get.  I'm going to try to fall asleep before that weird mood change thing happens again.  It's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  If I stay up too late or get too agitated by something at bedtime, not only can I not sleep, I can't seem to prevent myself from getting into an argument with my husband over nothing.  I get nit-picky and start thinking up stuff to make me angry.  It's very weird.  Anyway, once every couple of months or so I do this.  It's terrible and I feel like a complete jerk afterwards.  I mean there's always a small kernel of truth to what I say, but nothing that warrants me freaking out.  I think what happens is that the feeling is real but then it gets blown out of proportion by my sleep-deprived brain.  THC distorts perceptions.  I guess what I'm saying is that it's not always easy being on THC and I'm sure it's even harder living with someone who is on it.  It still isn't an excuse for bad behaviour on my part. 

So yeah, I'm exhausted.  Oh and my husband and I realized that the Christmas party collides with my husband's welding course and so we can't go to the Christmas party.  That's a bummer.  I'll save my nice outfit for wearing to the ballet.  I am sure it will look just as lovely at the NAC as it will at a 5 star restaurant.  Next year we're going to the Christmas party.  In fact, we'll make sure we don't sign up for anything in that time period so we're guaranteed a clear calendar.  I really hate missing it.  We miss it every year.

I'm a bit "low" today. I feel "flat".  Low and flat.  I'm like a prairie!  I'm not depressed though, just low energy and flat because I feel like I can't really get myself excited about a lot.  But that's fair because there's not a lot to get excited over right now.  Just a quiet day. 

I'm also a little dizzy from the meds.  I took some Sativex this morning to help me with the aches and pains of the MS as brought on by the cold.  Sativex has the side effect of occasionally causing dizziness.  In my case, combined with lack of sleep, I'm feeling pretty tippy.  Like I could fall over!

So I stay in my chair at my desk and let the parrot preen her feathers on me.  I really hope I can stay awake all day so I don't end up sleeping during the day and awake all night.  I feel weird enough without flipping my days around.

Checked out some tattoo magazines online.  I'm looking forward to subscribing.  Maybe my husband will subscribe me as a stocking stuffer or something.  I like the look of Tattoo magazine and Skin Deep.  Skin Deep is a UK publication.  I think it would be nice to have a British periodical to look at...very interesting to see the European styles of tattooing.

That's what has me stoked these days.  I've been reading my books, but slowly.  I have been sick and I've found that I've had less energy for reading.  I tend to end up watching TV instead.  Bad for brain.  Brain turn to mush...brain need smart food.  But when I'm sick it's easier to just vegetate.  The last time I was sick I managed to read a lot of books.  Not so this time.  However, I am still plugging away at Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death.  It's still very interesting and every time I pick it up I learn something new. 

I am so sleeeeeeepy!  Must stay awake! 

Hey my husband bought fajitas last night from the Lone Star Café.  They really make great fajitas.  The only problem is that they salt their food a bit too much.  I think it's probably on purpose to make their bar patrons even more thirsty, but it's salty enough that I find it objectionable.  However, I will still absolutely enjoy each one I have for lunch today!  I really enjoyed them last night too...mmm...spicy.  The only part I don't like is the fried onion smell (smells like body odour).  The Lone Star smell used to be so bad that people would lock their coats in their trunks of their cars while they ate inside, even in the middle of winter.  Nobody wanted their winter coat or leather jacket to smell of B.O.  They changed things a bit so the smell wouldn't be as bad, but it still stinks.  You still can't eat that food without needing a shower after!  God I sound like my old roommate!  (She was a clean freak!)  So my husband was sweet enough to bring home Lone Star fajitas last night and we totally enjoyed them.

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz....I don't know how I'm going to stay awake all day! 

Holy crap I'm tired.

Wow it's a really sleepy day for me.  I believe I know why the cold is hanging in limbo with me right about to break out in the worst fever ever.  It's waiting.  It's waiting for the Christmas Party.  The company Christmas party is coming up this weekend and this cold is waiting for precisely that moment to kick in.  I know it.  THAT is why it doesn't feel any worse but it doesn't get any better.  It's waiting.  All I can say is that it would give me great pleasure to go to the Christmas party contagious with a horrible cold...think of all my former bosses and managers I could infect with my virulent pathogen! :)  As long as I'm not too sick to go, because that would suck.

The Christmas party is being held at a really fantastic 5 star restaurant here in the west end.  It's location is nice and close to the office, which is only a 10 minute drive from home.  I've got an outfit and we've bought our tickets.  I just know I'm going to end up with a terrible running nose by then!

The tattoo course is really getting me stoked.  I am so ready to learn this course.  I'm going to buy some great books on tattooing and I'm going to subscribe to some tattoo mags...some from the US and some from the UK.  I would like to be current with trends in both locations.  Tribal is "out" now.  So that's a change.  People still want tribal, but because it's so common now, it's lost its lustre for those who used to know them as "bad ass" tattoos.  Now every single kid that comes in wants a tribal tattoo.  So it's no longer "cool".  Too common.  How much of a drag is that if you were one of the original tribal tattoo owners.  I mean you practically invented the genre and now everyone is wearing it and people think you just followed the trend.  How lame.

I want to learn all styles of tattoo, but I specifically want to specialize in "old school" tattoos and black and grey work.  I mean I love colour so I'm DEFINITELY going to be into using as much colour as possible, but I want to learn that comic book style of black work that is sort of like a Tod McFarlane drawing.  You know, like Spawn!  That style of really classic "scary" tattoo.  I want to be the king of those!  You know why?  Because all of my life every painting or drawing that I've ever enjoyed doing was always one that evolved from a nice painting of something pretty into a painting that's dark and morose and creepy.  That is part of why I stopped painting the last time.  Every painting came out extremely dark and creepy.  But that's what I enjoy!  So if I am good at being creepy and I enjoy drawing grim reapers and tombstones, why don't I specialize in them!  I mean geez, there are so many people who like skull tattoos and I'm great at drawing skulls!  Seriously I'm awesome at skulls!  My personal favourite is the vampire skull...with fangs for teeth.  All I'm saying is that since that is what I lean towards most of the time when I'm drawing, painting or doodling, it shouldn't be too hard for me to get into tattooing these types of images.  Instead of fighting my dark urges, I want to embrace them and become the queen of old school tattoos.  But I'm not getting a gold tooth!

I will definitely make sure I can do more than just the old school tattoos though...and that's the beauty of the course that I'm going to.  They teach you all styles of tattoing.  So you don't end up only being trained in the same style as the person you're apprenticing with (as you would in the case of a two year apprenticeship).  I don't like the idea of an apprenticeship because you learn all the bad habits of your teacher...and you're only as good as your teacher.  I like the idea of being trained professionally in all aspects of tattooing and then being able to do any style, while also developing my own style.

I really like the idea of this line of work.  I still have no idea what I'll use it for...I mean I'm obviously going to be tattooing people, but what I mean is that I don't know how heavily I'm going to want to get into it.  I suppose it depends on how much I love doing it!  If I really enjoy it I suppose I will want to find ways to do it...even if I have to take out an ad!  If I don't love doing it I suppose I won't do as many...but I'll still do my husband's and probably design my own.  I am hoping I love it.

Brrr...it's really chilly in here today!

The house is chilly today, which usually means that it's getting colder outside.  My cold is also not gone so it could be that the cold is making me hypersensitive to the cooler temperatures.  The fact that I can tell it's colder outside because it's cooler in the house makes me realize that we probably need better windows!  The cool air should not be getting in so easily.

Speaking of endless expenses, the tattoo people called me to give me the low-down on the school.  I am tentatively booked in for the July classes...but if we need to we'll move it back a bit.  I am so stoked about it.  I was pricing out stencil printers and tattoo ink and I was quite surprised at the price of stencil printers...nowhere near as expensive as I thought they'd be. 

The most expensive piece of equipment necessary to do tattooing is the autoclave.  They're pretty expensive.  My brother has an autoclave at his vet clinic that I'm sure he'd let me use once or twice, but I wouldn't want to bug him too much to use it.  We'd have to see if I could work out a fee or something...to pay for using the autoclave.  Eventually I'd have to have one in my home for sterilizing stuff.  That would be fine; we could keep it in the bird's room.  It would not need to be portable.

As far as the rest of the equipment goes, most of it is given to you when you do the tattoo course, but I'd still have to buy inks eventually and I'd still have to get some good books of tattoo art for people to look at.  Eventually I'd have a scanner, printer and laptop that would allow me to run the business.  I'd even be able to print off stencils easily.  If I could have it all packed up in cases I could go to someone's house to give them a tattoo...or their office! 

I would advertise as the "on-site" tattooist.  I'd like it if all of my equipment would fit reasonably into a few cases.  I'd get my husband to go with me to a tattooing, and he could be my "geek on site".  Set me up, and tear me down after doing a tattoo.  That would be helpful for me.  He could also drive.  He could also be a bit of an assistant at times, handing me towels or whatever.

Oh bring back my Bonnie to me!

My husband's Bonneville finally died.  It's got a slow coolant leak into the engine which is a recipe for a seized engine.  Anyway, there are a whole bunch of other repairs that also required...basically it's a 1996 Bonneville SE and it's on it's last legs.  The idea will be to use my Bonneville (a 1997 in much better shape) until we buy a second car. 

The second car is not as necessary with me not currently working (or driving for that matter).  The reason we'd want one though is that I live in the country...with no taxis or bus service.  If I need to get somewhere in an emergency, there needs to be a car here.  If my husband has my car, then what would I drive if I suddenly needed to leave the house for some reason.  Like if the dog had an emergency and I had to get to the animal hospital. 

Basically from a "personal security" point of view my husband and I both feel it's important that there be a second car here "just in case."

Having said that, the car will get almost no useage and so it doesn't need to be a really practical car, because it will mostly sit in the garage waiting for the day when I need to drive it!  And even though I'm on THC (lots of it) I can abstain from the THC if I NEED to drive somewhere. 

In other words, I "can" drive if I need to as long as I prepare a little for it, or in the case of an emergency I'd wing it.  It's not that the meds make my driving "bad"; it's just that being on THC is a little like being inebriated.  You have a slower reaction time and may not make as quick judgements.  It's also something they can test for in your blood.  If I was involved in a car accident that was not my fault but I was discovered to have THC in my blood, it would immediately be "my fault" (at least partially) and that isn't a risk I'm willing to take.

So basically we need some reliable vehicles but they don't both have to be practical or necessarily used all year.  In other words, we can have a "winter car" and a "summer car".  So my 1997 Bonneville which has almost no mileage on it and is in great shape will become the "winter car" and the "dog moving vehicle" for going to the cottage and then we can get a smaller sportier car for the summer. 

My hope is that we get a Mustang.  All of my life I've dreamed of owning a Mustang.  I used to wish for a 1969 coupe in candy-apple red.  Well they don't make the colour "candy apple red" anymore, but more importantly, they don't make the 1969 Mustang anymore!  Buying a "classic" which is unreliable and filled with bondo is not my idea of a "nice car".  I would want a 1969 restored to mint, which would be worth about $40K.  I figure it's cheaper to buy a new one!

Since we're technically replacing my husband's car, I have given my two cents worth, but I can ultimately only let him decide what he wants to buy since he will often be driving it (except in the winter when he'd drive the Bonnie).  If he does buy a Mustang he insists it will be MY car.  Only because it would kill me if he bought a Mustang and then lorded over it like some jerk!  So he wants me to call it "my car" and he'd take over the Bonnie as "his" car.  What a sweetheart I married. 

Of course it's all about what he wants, like I said it IS his car that we're getting replaced.  The sad part is that the other Bonneville is only a year younger; is the fate of the second Bonnie sealed?  I hope not...I like that car.  MY bonnie has tinted windows, 40th anniversary paint job and is fully loaded.  It's also mechanically sound, but up until now my husband has driven it very little.  I think he's hard on vehicles!  I suspect that once he starts driving that other Bonnie every day that we'll run into the same troubles with it.  We love those cars, but after 10 years they're starting to show their age.  I hope we can keep the other Bonnie for a couple of years before replacing it with an ethanol-based vehicle.

Quiet Monday at home

Well it's a pretty grey day again.  Seems we're back to that type of weather again.  I am looking forward to seeing the snow fly this year.  It seems like one of those treasures that we won't really appreciate until global warming removes all traces of it in this part of the world.  I'm going to really miss winter.  I'm already missing it and it hasn't even arrived yet!  What I mean is that I LOVE winter.  I don't ski and I don't snowmobile (anymore).  I just love the look of winter and the fact that NOBODY is outside in the winter!  I live in a wooded area that is private and beautiful...but when it's winter you feel like you're the only one outside because everyone else is inside huddled away from the cold weather.  I love the snow and cold weather.  Once you bundle up for it, there is really nothing more enjoyable than wrassling the dog in the snow and just getting covered in fresh fluffy snow.  If that disappears in my lifetime (as it appears it will), I will be so disappointed.  In fact I believe that my husband and I would move to follow winter.  I don't think we'd be able to stand a year without it!

The cold is not driving me too crazy today.  I hope that's a sign that it's leaving.  I would really like to be virus free for the holidays. 

I've been reading my "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death" book again.  I'm on the chapter about hypnosis.  Each chapter builds on the wisdom of the last.  The idea of sleep is now being combined with the idea of hypnosis and trances.  It's showing all the different ways that our subconscious minds interact with the spirit realm...suggesting perhaps a communal consciousness.  Like a giant repository of all living "spirits" or essences.  It's really quite incredible the things I'm reading that are documented "facts" about the human brain.  It's hard to believe all of the things it can do!

This chapter fits in with my previous study of the subjects of Neurolinguistic Programming and Hypnosis.  My previous knowledge of this subject makes it even more interesting because I'm building on a foundation of knowledge that's been read over the past months and is now absorbed into my mind.  This makes this chapter much less esoteric for me.  That's good!  It makes it easier to read! 

Found what I was looking for...

Well my diligence has borne fruit; I found a tattoo school!  There is one in Detroit Michigan that I believe I will go to.  My husband and I knew that I wouldn't be able to do an apprenticeship because it would take me too long.  I can't work full-time and so I wouldn't learn tattooing very quickly if I had to go into a shop every day to learn it.  However, I do think I can push myself for two weeks while I get trained.  That's the length of the training course.  When you're done you will have all the professional training of a veteran and they'll make sure you tattoo at least 6 people (yes actual people) before you leave.  They also include follow-up training any time you'd like.  So if you find you're having trouble with portaits, you can go back and be helped for up to another full 12 weeks until you get it.  Good deal.  It's not cheap though, $5000 for two weeks training!  I guess they want to keep their classes small.

So the idea would be for me to learn tattooing and maybe piercing and then just do it for pocket change.  As I improve over time and get more of a name for myself, I would eventually open a "shop" of some kind (if I could manage it) and hire some other tattoo artists on.  That's the long-term "pipe dream" but if in the short term I could just learn how to tattoo professionally and then work on my husband (with his permission of course!) that should give me a good idea of whether I love it and want to do LOTS more of it. 

I think I would really enjoy tattooing.  I have no idea why...I guess because it appeals to the part of me that used to spend my teenage years doodling "comic book art" all over my notebooks.  I feel like it would allow me to be artistic and yet still allow me to be sadistic! :)  Okay, I'm not really "sadistic"...more like I enjoy knowing that my art would be painful! :)  I think that mostly it just would really introduce me to a whole bunch of really interesting people.  I could even write a book about all the tattooes I do over the years...take photos and notes and make a book that has the "stories" that go behind the tattooes.

Check out my pipe dreaming.  I am seriously euphoric/delusional aren't I?  I mean just because my neurologist says I "may" be benign doesn't mean I can suddenly run off and start working again.  It really doesn't change my physical symptoms or my fatigue levels now does it?  What it does do is give me a hint that I may be able to be productive in a way that makes me happy and allows me to express my artistic nature.  I have never had that opportunity before. 

My whole life I've been "funnelled" into business courses, law courses and I've stifled all of my artistic urges to the point where now it's very hard for me to even express myself in paint or drawing or any form.  I've had my passion "smoothed out" of me.  I've been groomed and educated into thinking I need to be a computer person or some other profession...when all I ever REALLY wanted to do was doodle.  I didn't like painting or heavy artwork because the pressure was too high to make it "art".  I just wanted to express myself, I didn't want to make "art".  I wanted to make comic books and cartoons.  That was not an acceptable outlet for my artistic leanings and so I was gradually "made" into the person I am now...I learned to paint and to do pen and ink, but I never got to indulge that "pop art" thing.  I think that's where a lot of this tattoo interest comes from.  My desire to be a tattoo artist comes from my wanting the tactile experience of making art that indulges my interest in doodling but it's also a bit about doing art that's "taboo".  The taboo of the tattoo! :)

I guess I'm a bit of a nutbar in my own right!  I mean there is no real need for me to do this, I am making decent money.  I don't "need" the extra cash in any way.  It's really not about the cash, it's about the ability to be an artist.  I don't want to HAVE to do tattoes.  I want to LOVE doing them and look forward to getting the chance to make a walking piece of art.  I wish I could do them for free, but that just doesn't work!  I suppose if any of my friends decide to get a tattoo I could give them one for free, but on the whole you can't really give them away.  But I won't do it unless I can say "I wouldn't care if I was doing it for free because I love it that much."  I think I will.

My husband is out right now getting some groceries.  He's also picking up all the Christmas gifts for the pets on our list.  Our families have lots of pets and so we have to buy for the following animals:

• 6 dogs
• 3 cats
• 2 lovebirds
• 1 cockatoo

We generally pick one toy for each dog or cat and then we get seed bells for the lovebirds and for the cockatoo we usually get her something like a crazy toy with things dangling off it and all kinds of stuff for her to do.  It's all shockingly expensive!  Those pet stores just bleed you dry!

Well I'm going to go off and nurse my cold and see if I can calm myself down (all of this tattoo artist obsession is getting me all excited and worked up.)  I seriously need to just keep my cool and remember that I still need to figure out how in hell I'm going to manage a two week course with this disease.  It may be a while before we can afford the course, but it's going to be even more difficult to find a time when I'm well enough to do it.  We'll call them soon and find out what they suggest.

Supernatural, the TV show

You know what show I really enjoy, much to my own surprise?  Supernatural.  I like it.  I don't like the "macho" crap, but I really enjoy the music, the cinematography and the interesting premises they present regarding the afterlife.  I love shows that examine different theories about death and the "dark side" of life.  I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer when it was on.  Anyway I just wanted to say that because there are very few TV shows worth watching anymore...and none of them (except this one) is on Fox!

Headache and a cold...bleh

Today I woke up and FINALLY the cold kicked in.  The snot is now flowing down the back of my froaty and my glands are all swollen and yucky.  All of this time I've been saying I have a cold, I haven't had the stuffy nose.  I was feeling all the aching joints, the tight sinuses and headaches.  I had the typical cold symptoms and I felt hot around my eyes, but I hadn't shown any signs that other people could see. 

My mom and husband can now see that I'm suffering a traditional cold.  Why that makes a difference I don't know, but now I'm getting some actual belief.  I mean they both believed me, but they sort of acted like I must be fine because I hadn't hit the worst of it yet.  So now I am in the "worst of it" and my voice is all funny and I'm sick.  The good news is that this means that the cold is just about ready to shove off.  The last hurrah of a cold is the runny nose and cough...it thickens up and becomes all gross and that's when people think you're at your worst.  It's actually the time before that when you're at your worst!  I am theoretically entering the "worst" part of the cold and that means it's almost gone!  YAY!  Of course I still have to go through the worst of it, but at least I know the end is near!

I've been thinking more about the possibility of being a "benign MS patient".  It really is just another tag, but it is a tag that presents no chance of improvement if I continue to stay the way I am right now.  I hope that I really do stop progressing, but it's all a bunch of "if's and maybe's" right now.  What I do know right now is that right now I am not well enough to work.  As much as I might like to work, I am currently too tired and discombobulated from medications.  My paranoia and mood swings alone would be enough to get me fired from most places of work.  So I guess what I hope is that I hope that my health and the way that I feel follows along in conjunction with the way my neurologist is telling me that I feel.  I do think he's basing the whole thing on the fact that my progression is very slow, but I don't really think it's "stopped" progressing.  I think that's an important distinction.  Getting worse very slowly is still getting worse, and right now I am already not well enough to work.  So I do need to keep that in mind.  Stopping the progression is one thing, but I need to actually HEAL my brain.  That's a little more tricky.

I wonder if there are foods that help develop brain matter (white and grey)...I'm sure that there are.  Omega 3 fatty acids are one of those foods.  I believe that pantothenate or folic acid may be other ingredients that are good for the brain.  I'm going to have to research "brain food".  I need to eat as much brain food as I can to help myself heal.

THC has also shown some limited ability to regenerate CNS tissue.  That was in one particlar study I read where a woman tried to kill herself by overdosing on Nabilone (THC synthetic).  They said she took an entire bottle (full prescription) of the stuff.  She did not die, in fact when they examined her after she came out of a temporary coma, her MS (She was an MS patient) had shown improvement in the actual disease.  Since the amounts were so high and it was such an unusual situation, they consider it an anomoly worth noting.  What they noted was that the woman's brain tissue appeared greatly improved over the next few weeks.  So I'm not taking huge doses like she took, but I am taking it in large amounts and I take it every day.  My suspicion is that over time it will have the same regenerative effect, slowly rebuilding the CNS tissue that has been damaged.

So if I can stop or significantly slow progression of the actual MS disease so that no new disease activity occurs and I can then slowly repair the CNS tissue that has been damaged.  Theoretically I should be able to slowly cure myself of the disease over say the next ten years.  Of course this is all a pipe dream, but I believe it and so it can happen.

Dr. Appointment...

Well I went to the neurologist's office yesterday for an appointment.  He said that I don't conform to any disease pattern.  I show clearly all the diagnostic criteria for Primary Progressive MS, except for one thing...I am no longer progressing. 

That's right, he said that if I continue like this for the next few years I will be diagnosed with BENIGN MS.  I find it almost hard to believe.  I have WAY more fatigue than most of the MS patients I see, but that is also another hint that maybe it's something "different".  My neurologist said that I definitely fit the clinical diagnosis of Primary Progressive MS and that EVERY test came back overwhelmingly proving I have Primary Progressive MS.  He thinks the disease has changed course on its own. 

I have a different theory.  I believe I am stopping it from progressing with my treatment plan.  I take 3000 IU of Vitamin D every day (three times the "safe" recommended dose).  I take a calcium channel blocker that prevents my body from having any excess calcium reuptake into my system.  I take a ton of THC every day.  I am stopping the disease from progressing!

What does this mean?  Well it may mean that the insurance company starts to ask how they can get me back to work again.  That could be interesting.  It also may mean that they will have to retrain me.  After 4 or 5 years out of the high tech sector, I'm completely obsolete.  I would need to be retrained.  That would be interesting.  We'll see if the medications I'm on preclude me from going to school.  I don't think I can "think" the same way now that I'm taking so much THC.  I can't go off it either because it keeps me from being in agony.  If that's the case, I wonder if they'd be willing to subsidize me as a tattoo artist.  What I mean is that I could work as a tattoo artist a few hours per week and they could pay me a partial benefit in compensation.  It seems unimaginable now because I'm so tired all the time, but it would be so cool if I could be trained to be a tattoo artist as part of a sort of "reduced work stress" thing.  I'm just going to keep believing it will happen somehow.  So far THAT line of thinking has succeeded in almost every aspect of my life.  If I can believe it, it will happen...most of the time! :)

So am I cured?  Nope, the damage has been done...my nerves are damaged and I have to be on all kinds of drugs to deal with that pain.  However, it does mean that I may be in a holding pattern.  The entire idea with "managing" MS is to slow it down.  It's been shown that the longer you can stave off the disease progression, the better your prognosis and the less likely you are to ever need a wheelchair.  I have (apparently) succeeded in slowing the disease's progression ALMOST to a halt.  How I've done that, they are unsure.  My neurologist believes the disease has changed course on its own.  I think I did it.  I continue to believe that I can HEAL myself of MS using my understanding of the disease and my understanding of the ability of the human brain to fix the human body...even a damaged human brain!

My neurologist had some visiting Croation or Serbian doctors visiting him to do a cultural exchange of sorts.  These doctors observed my appointment for some reason.  My neurologist explained my history in perfectly clear terms that was really great for me because I had forgotten a lot of the details of my story.  He said I was one of his ONLY patients that responds and responds really well to cannabis.  He said that most MS patients don't find it that helpful.  They find they get dizzy and nauseous and eventually go off it in favour of something else.  He said that I'm an anomoly because not only do I respond well to the cannabis and THC products, but they seem to be the only thing I need...I take it for migraines and headaches and for most neurological pain.  My neurologist found this all very interesting and so did the Croatian doctors. 

Who knew I'd be a medical anomoly!  I guess deep down I always suspected as much! ;)

So much for reading...

Today I was hoping I'd have more of my book read so I could put my impressions down, but instead I've been sick with a migraine and could no more read my book than I could watch TV or use the computer.

Migraines are a fairly common occurrence with me, hitting me about once a month or two.  The bulk of the migraines I get are now "manageable"...in that I have learned how to manage them.  Every so often, a migraine sneaks up on me and catches me off guard.  Those are the migraines that really hurt because it's not immediately obvious that it's a migraine and not just a normal headache.  Last night I had one of those migraines and let's just say it took morphine, codeine and gravol (motion sickness medication) to get me back under control again.  It was horrible, and now I'm concerned that it could come back.  So far I'm fine but that often happens with me, I'm fine for the morning and then in the afternoon it starts to get painful again.  Weird pattern.

Anyway, with this cold and the migraine issue I've been a lot too stoned to read!  I've been taking cold medication along with my normal stuff and it's got me all discombobulated!  So I haven't been able to read my book unfortunately.  I am hoping that this afternoon I'll be able to read some more.  We'll see how things go.

The good news is that my husband took a photo of both of my tattooes this weekend.  I just have to get him to download them from the camera to the pc and I can then email them to people.  The heart is going to peel again (sometimes they peel twice) before it's done, but it should be good by next weekend which will mark the 3 week anniversary of my getting tattooed.  It looked great enough that it could be photographed even though it may not be finished peeling.  Both tattooes are looking very nice.

Currently I'm sitting here staring at the screen, feeling quite vacant.  I'm going to get going so I can maybe make myself a little snack or something.  I'm pretty quiet today.

Sleep=Genius

Well the cold is still building, but now it's really gaining momentum.  My immune system is losing now.  I slept so deeply and heavily last night!

Speaking of sleep, the book I'm reading (Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death) is now on a chapter about sleep and "where" we go when we sleep/dream.  The author compares sleep to a time when our subconscious is fully awake and busy while our bodies are parked and resting.  Since the mind is not encumbered by all the filters of the conscious mind, the subconscious mind is at its most powerful when we are sleeping.  That is why sometimes it takes sleeping on a problem to see it from a fresh perspective.  Literally the process of dreaming allows our mind to wander unfettered by morality, logic and laws of physics and thus allows us complete freedom to view the world from a different angle.  The author compares that "flow" of thought to the same flow that true geniuses have.  The author supposes that true geniuses are often people whose subconscious mind is awake during the day while they are using their conscious minds.  These people have the ability to see things a lot more clearly than those whose subconscious is off during their waking hours...well not "off" but dormant.  The author supposes that "everyone" is a genius when they're sleeping, and that we really should listen to our subconscious a little more closely for answers to our inner problems.  Very interesting.  I can't wait to see where the author goes next!

My husband and I have decided to get me some tattoo books.  I read online that many of the "major" tattoo artists are self-taught.  I cannot do an apprenticeship with anyone because of my illness (MS)...it keeps me from being able to work for long hours, but if I can learn by reading, and then practicing on "fake skin" which is now readily available, I should be able to get good enough for some smaller pieces.  Why would I do this when I cannot possibly manage a career as anything?  Because I firmly believe that some day I will be without MS.  When that day comes, I want to already be a tattoo artist.  That way I can just jump in with both feet!  Even if I don't get cured of MS, there is always the possibility that it could go away on its own or stop in its tracks.  Because of that, and the possibility that I could become a "freelance" tattoo artist, I like the idea of learning and practicing while I'm sick at home.  If it never amounts to anything, well I can at least say that I learned a new talent!  There's no such thing as "irrelevant skill".  All skills are useful.  My husband says that if I was to become reasonably good at tattooing, we could open a shop and hire some other tattoo artists as well.  My job would be more like "overseer" and occasional tattoo artist, but basically I would work only a few hours a day (if that) and it would just be our little shop.  Of course we wouldn't do that until we can manage ourselves financially, so that we're not dependant on the shop's income for many years.  The idea would be to have the shop hopefully break even.  That would be the goal because our "real" money would come from investments.

This cold

This cold is pretty lame.  I'm feeling exhausted and I'm having horrible leg pains...real ones too, not the neural kind.  The muscle is tightening up and making a fist.  The problem is that the muscle is in my thigh, not my hand!  Anyway, I'm feeling pretty gross from the cold and so I'm probably not going to be much fun today!

My tattooes are healed up now.  Tomorrow officially marks the two week mark.  I'm supposed to be able to stop most of the fussing by that point, but my heart tattoo is still soaking up a fair bit of polysporin, so I'll keep dousing it with the stuff to keep it from getting itchy or dry.  I won't take a bath until the heart heals up completely.  But I believe that this weekend my husband should be able to take a photo of it...it should be healed enough for that!  Both tattooes look fantastic but you know what, I still think the bat is my favourite!  I like its location...the heart is located on a part of my body that still needs to lose a few pounds and so the location is not as attractive as my shoulder blade.  I guess I just like the overall look of the shoulder tattoo better.  The heart will look great soon though, just a few more pounds!

Yesterday my mom and I went shopping for some Christmas gifts and an outfit for the Christmas party.  I got a gorgeous pair of chocolate brown, satin pants and a lace and velvet blazer in brown that is covered in seed beads and bugle beads.  The two look fantastic together.  My objection to the Christmas party is usually something along the lines of "I have nothing to wear that's warm enough and still looks formal"...remember that I get horrible chills in the evening if I'm cold.  So this outfit with its sleeves and pants will keep me warm.  I can even bring a pashmina over my arm so I can wrap myself up if I need to.  I won't look "freaky" like I usually do (arriving in some huge bundled parka or some other ridiculousness)...and I won't have to sit in my coat all night at the table.  The Christmas party is being held at "Brookstreet" which is a gorgeous 5 star restaurant in Kanata.  It's fantastic and the food will be spectacular.  I am really looking forward to it now that I have a proper outfit!

My froaty is sore today...bleh...yucky taste too!  I have noticed that since I started to get this cold or even a few days before my train ride (the source I believe) it hasn't been sunny for a whole day!  In fact it's been rainy and overcast for the better part of a full month now.  It must be what it's like in London most days.  I couldn't stand this as a permanent situation...it would make me nuts!  I need to see that sun.  I love the sun and the warmth of the sun.  I wish I could sit out in the sun all day long, but the skin cancer situation makes that a dumb idea...still, I just love sunshine.  I'm wondering if the sunshine thing is having an effect on my cold.  I mean I wonder if I'd get better quicker if it was a little more cheerful outside.  I'm looking forward to the snow now!  So much more cheerful and pretty!  Besides if it snows it's not a big deal for walking the dog, but if it rains it sucks.  Right now my husband is walking the dog alone (because I'm sick) and so I hope for his sake that it stops raining and starts snowing.

I read some more of my "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death" book.  It's very cool.  It looks like the format of the book will be to introduce an idea or concept, show several cases that illustrate the concept and then build on the concepts as you go.  I'm looking forward to seeing what his culmination is with all of this.  I'm in the fourth chapter right now and the ideas and cases that have been shown are incredible.  Some come from the case files of Freud and Jung and some come from less known researchers, but they are all fascinating.  So far I've been amazed by all the things I didn't know were actually "documented scientific fact"...and this book was written originally in 1903!  People were very smart back then and it really struck me how old this book was when it referred to doing complicated mathematical calculations with a pencil and ledger and not a calculator!  It was talking about so called "idiot savante" personalities and how they can do calculations that would boggle the average person..."who would take hours doing these calculations with a ledger and pencil".  How funny!  The book is also of course a little skewed towards men and how smart men are...but if I can forgive it for that outdated stance if only because at the time women were not practicing medicine too much and so finding female psychologists to quote wasn't easy!  It is not hostile to women in any way and it's omission of female voices is not intentional...and let's face it, it was written in 1903...I mean I knew it would be a little odd at times and it hasn't failed in that area!

For the most part though it really does hold up under today's light and the information held in this book is probably overlooked by a lot of scholars because of the mistaken idea that "new information" is more important and that the old must be outdated.  Not so.  In fact I bet some of the information in that book is overlooked by some of today's psychiatry students.  The idea that a subconscious mind can be accidentally turned on and stay on all the time was not a concept I'd ever heard before, but it's a concept that makes a lot of sense.  I wonder how many hypnotists are familiar with that idea.

Well I'm out of steam now.  Time to go lie down or read or something.  My throat is gacking up now and I need to go get a drink of juice.  Oh good lord, it's raining again!

FYI

www.juliecard.com

That is my tattoo artist's web site.  Just so you can see who she is and what she does.  :)

Wednesday

I have a cold.  Because of this cold I have been taking more Sativex (pot spray) because I've had more bone aches.  Because I've taken more Sativex, I have been way more stoned and because of that I haven't felt as chatty.  Being stoned tends to take the passion out of your writing because you feel "groovy" and don't particularly want to think about anything!  It's great for going into a trance, you practically walk around in a trance the entire time, but it's not as helpful when you're trying to be creative.  I mean yes, you can be VERY creative when you're a little stoned but when you're really stoned forget about it!  Today I'm pretty stoned!

What's that like?  Surprisingly, it's not that much fun!  I mean I don't get anything done and I'm not much fun to talk to.  Mostly I feel sleepy and stupid.  I'm not so stoned that I want to sit around watching Sesame Street and giggling my butt off (though I'm not far from being THAT stoned!) but I just mostly feel like I'm kind of in limbo.  I feel like everything I do is tempered with the knowledge that I am probably too stoned to retain any real information or learn anything complicated.  So if I read my book I'm likely to either not understand or not absorb the information and that is a total drag because I would really like to read my book!  Maybe this afternoon I'll try again.

My tattooes are almost entirely healed.  The bat is healed but the dead skin hasn't all come off I don't think...but it's healed and aside from putting polysporin on after my shower, the bat is finished being "cared for", which is about how long it took to heal the first time I had it done.  The heart tattoo is taking longer to heal, but it's still healing very nicely.  It's a little more sensitive because the skin is all new and soft now.  It's still healing and absorbing up polysporin every few hours.  The edges of the heart are still rough like they're healing a little and so it's not quite ready to be photographed. 

I saw Miami Ink last night and they were saying that the lower back can be one of the most painful locations for a tattoo...I would agree with that!  I was shocked how painful that spot was compared with my shoulder blade.  I never flinched (my tattoo artist was quite genuinely surprised that I was in that much pain because I never moved or tensed up!) but man I was in some kind of agony!  The funny thing was that on Miami Ink there was this girl who got a Japanese symbol for "inner peace" on her lower back and she bawled and cried through the entire process.  It was pretty funny...I mean it was a tiny little symbol and she literally wailed through it.  Her girlfriend was a bit embarrassed!  It's painful but it's not THAT painful!  I mean I was able to stay still for the entire time without too much discomfort.  I broke out in a sweat a couple of times but that was it.  I wonder though if this girl had some kind of neurological disorder that she's unaware of that might have made her feel the pain in a much more intense way.  I always think that way when I see someone behaving unusually for a situation.  Anyway, whatever the cause, it was nice to hear them say that "The lower back can be extremely painful for some people, it is one of the more sensitive areas to tattoo."  HA!  I felt totally validated!  My tattoo artist told me it was a 5 out of 10.  I was like "REALLY?"  Because my bat felt like a 5 out of 10...that one on the lower back, to ME felt like more like a 7.5 out of 10.  Of course I've never had my ribcage tattooed (a 10 out of 10) so I don't know how that compares.  Maybe next time! :)

My husband said he'd like to see me get some roses around the heart as my next tattoo.  The idea would be to flank the heart with some roses in a vine to create a visually more interesting finished back area.  I think that would look awesome if there were also some little pins (just like the ones in the heart) that sort of look like they're pinning up the rose vine.  So every so often you'd have a straight pin sticking out of the vine with a brightly coloured head.  I think it would tie the whole thing together nicely.  I like the idea of roses as an accent near the heart because they sort of go with my personality (a little traditional) but everyone gets roses and so there is a part of me that would like to make the vine out of safety pins instead of roses...you know, a safety pin chain, held on with straight pins.  The roses are more feminine but the safety pins would be really neat!  I wonder if we could instead of roses do a hawthorne vine and flower...that would be extra cool!  I'll look around to see if I can find a good picture of one. 

Well I'm going to go wander through the house now looking stoned!  I wonder what time Sesame Street comes on.  :) 

Spared some grief...

Well my father went with my husband to the game.  The Senators lost miserably to Montreal.  There were more Montreal fans than Ottawa fans in the stadium, and the Ottawa goalie let them in right between the legs like a novice.  Montreal was skating circles around Ottawa...we suck! 

Anyway, it seems I inadvertantly dodged a bullet.  The company box was filled with managers and company men (not surprisingly) and so a portion of the evening was spent in the pursuit of career paths and other ass-kissing like events.  I would have found it nauseating.  I am so not "that wife".  You know...the "Laura Bush".  I'm not her.  I'm not that stepford wife.  That's what makes me fun and exciting, but I often can't resist the urge to say things like "Wow, you're quite the sycophant aren't you?" when encountering ass-kissers.  What's worse is that I hate to see my husband having to do any schmoozing of any kind.  It grosses me out and turns me off.  I don't like any of that stuff.  It's so fake.  So when we go to a company event I usually just stay quiet or try not to do anything too loud or too embarrassing.  I don't want to give them any gossip for the water coolers.  So I'm glad I didn't have to deal with all of that on top of a cold. 

That's not to say that I can't hold my own with company folk, I can be quite charming when I need to be.  The problem is that I'm on a lot of THC (pot) and so I tend to say whatever pops into my head...which can be bad if you're at a hockey game and start swearing like a sailor or laughing histerically.  I don't really want to be in an environment of social peer pressure if I don't need to be, especially when I think I'm there to see a hockey game but it actually turns out that I'm there to be the "good wife".  Then there's the awkward "so what do you do?" question.  The answer?  "I don't work, I retired when I found out I had Multiple Sclerosis."  There is just no way to say that without causing people to feel bad.  I have tried saying it without the MS part, just that I've retired and that seems to make people feel worse...jealous.  So by saying I have MS I make them feel bad FOR me, but they seem happier with that explanation than when I just say I decided to stop working.  As much as that is true, I had no choice in the matter, so to say I "decided" is really stretching it.  However, I have used that explanation to people who I did not want to get into it with.  I mean let's face it, I don't need to tell everyone I have MS.  When it comes up I say "I have MS" very matter of factly, not to make them feel bad, but they always react like "Oh NO...such a shame!"  It's the pity that gets you.  Anyway, I've learned to just say that I am no longer working and let people figure it out for themselves.  However, when it's company people who don't know me, it gets awkward.  I don't want to lie to them because my husband works with these people, so I end up having to say "I don't work anymore because I have MS."  Then I get the usual reactions which range from "My aunt (or friend, sister, mother, brother, cousin) has that!" to "I'm sure you can beat this thing!"  People never really know what to say.  I end up feeling worse for them than they do for me!  I end up feeling bad that I've made them feel so bad and so awkward.  I try to change the subject and that usually works for a while.  Eventually they will almost always bring it back to MS and say something like "So I was wondering...what are the symptoms of MS?"  People are always curious about the disease.  They wonder how I "got it" and if they can get it.  Mostly they wonder if I'm in any discomfort right then and when I assure them that I'm fine except for fatigue and some of the side effects of the drugs I take, then they get downright curious and start firing off a bunch of questions.

That's great right?  I mean that's great for MS patients everywhere to educate people.  But you know some days, when someone says "What do you do?" I wish I could just say something fun like "I'm a tattoo artist."  Not every time you get asked that question do you feel like entering into a deep conversation about your most personal disability.  In fact, most of the time you wish you could just say "I work at a trout farm." or "I'm an interior desginer."

What's really interesting about my perspective is that because of my illness and the sensitivity I have to the question "What do you do?" I tend to avoid asking that question when I talk to people, feeling it's too personal a question if they don't "do anything".  I don't want to make them feel bad if they're unemployed.  If they're the CEO of some corporation, I don't want them to be suddenly superior to me because I'm not the CEO of a company.  I want to keep things nice and equal and not bring work into it.  So for men to talk to me can be a bit frustrating.  I never ask them what they do.  Many men feel that what they do=who they are.  If I don't ask what they do, I'm often risking them thinking that I don't care...which I don't!  I really don't care what you do to make your living...what do you do when you ARE living?  One should just be a means to the other, or you've failed, as far as I'm concerned.  I want to know what you LIKE to do.  That's what I often ask people "So, what do you like to do?"  People love that question, except boring suit types...they hate that question!  The only thing that most of them like to do is keep up with whatever is trendy.  That's a very reactive way to live.  Better to set trends than follow them.  Better to be proactive and decide what you enjoy and go out and do it.  Waiting for the next trend means you're a follower.  Bleh.

So I finished my hynotherapy book a while ago but the new book I'm reading now is actually a nice follow up to the hypnosis book because it deals with hypnosis and oobe's (out of body experiences) and it's called "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death".  It was actually written in 1903, but still stands up to today's tests.  It's the defacto standard book for paranormal researchers as a "basis" for a lot of scientific facts about ghosts and telekenesis.  It's fascinating because it starts out as a psychology book and then slowly introduces paranormal phenomenon into the mix to prove that the personality can and does survive death.  I'm just into the third chapter.  This chapter is on the concept of genius and how it can be defined. 

The last chapter was about cases of disociative behaviour that seemed to be psychological but in the end turned out to actually be possessions.  Very cool.  Using hypnosis, they were able to "exorcise" the possession by allowing a different possession of a much less violent spirit to occur.  The benevolent spirit possession worked just as well as the "bad spirit" possession and eventually the new personality was absorbed into the collective.  The interesting part about that, which made it a possession and not a reintegration experiment was the fact that the "dead" spirit was able to see her family, remember details of her childhood that nobody else would have known and was able to remember "heaven" as well.  The spirit was so "convincing" that the dead girl's family allowed her to come live with them for months while she assimilated this person into her personality.  The "dead" girl continued to visit her family after assimilation and whenever she was with them she would revert back to "full" dead girl mode, but when she went back to her daily activities she could merge the girl with her own personality and remember both lives.  Weird.  It was deemed to be a possession though because of the unique knowledge that the girl had of the dead girl's life.  She WAS the dead girl, it was even confirmed by the dead girl's family...there was now way it wasn't.  She needed the dead girl's personality to prop up her own for some reason and unfortunately she died at a young age which prevented them from being able to follow her for too many more years after the merger of the dead girl with the living girl. 

It is the first example this book gives of something that could be construed as paranormal though.  Up until now the whole purpose of the book has been to firmly anchor it in scientific facts.  It's not a "fluffy" book about ghosts and spirits, it's a real account of both ghost stories and psychological accounts that are all documented by independent researchers.  The idea is to prove that the human "soul" or personality can and easily does survive death.  It's very interesting.  The dead girl "reincarnated" could remember her own birth, childhood from infancy and every detail of the dead girl's life which the researchers felt indicated that the subconscious mind, not the conscious mind of the dead girl was what was actually embodied in this new girl.  The conscious mind cannot remember our infancy, but our SUBconsicous can remember and does.  If we can remember our birth then we are in touch with our subconscious mind using our conscious mind...a very unique talent which means that the person probably cannot...

Okay two grey squirrels are getting it on in a tree in front of the office window.  It's the craziest thig I've ever seen!

Anyway, where was I?  Oh yeah, a person who can remember everything from their subconscious means that they are not as free to 'reframe' life using the filters of the subconscious mind.  In other words they remember everything in perfect detail without the "ability" if you will, to distort it and file it in a more pleasing way.  We do this on a daily basis...remembering life with the filters of our subconscious so we don't quite feel the sting of every little thing we have ever experienced...like some kind of emotional fly paper. 

Having your subconscious fully awake often means it's impossible to sleep.  People with this kind of problem often can't sleep for more than a few hours per day and can benefit from hypnosis to allow themselves the freedom to refile their memories in ways that they can no longer hurt them.  It's literally a case of someone's subconscious mind being turned on so that the conscious mind can easily see everything that happened in the past without the ability to forget things that need forgetting.  Someone like that would remember a trauma perfectly, while the perpetrator of the trauma might actually remember the whole thing in some other way because they have the filter of their subconscious mind to "fix" the memory.  Like a fancy sewing machine that takes out the bad parts...restitching everything back up so it looks nice.  Having your subconscious mind turned on would also allow you to "see" things as they really are.  Scary.

So anyway this book is looking extremely interesting and I'm only on chapter three!  It's a 400 page book that reads like a text book, but it's exceedingly fascinating and I can't wait to read how it ends!

Hockey Night in Canada!

Well my husband and my father are at the game (Sens vs. Habs) at the Palladium.  I still can't call it "Scotiabank Place"...ugh.  I liked "Corel Centre" and "Palladium".  Since they keep changing it I'll just call it the Palladium for now.  Anyway, they're there now, and I'm here enjoying my cold! 

Seriously I'm going to have to go and take my meds and get into bed, but I just wanted to follow up with my post by saying that my husband assured me that I was not disappointing him and that he'd enjoy going to the game with my dad just as much as going with me.  He's pretty cool...my husband I mean.  My dad isn't as cool, but hey what can you do, you can't pick your family!

This happens so often...

I often cannot do things that I want to do.  I often don't feel well enough or don't have the energy.  I do a lot of things but I don't do alot of other things. 

Today I had planned to go with my husband to a hockey game in the box from work.  Our employer (we both work for the same company) gives the tickets to people that outperform or do something above and beyond the call of duty.  So seeing as I'm disabled and don't work anymore, he is the only one of us who can get these special tickets.  However seeing as he is also kicking ass lately, our chances of getting these special event tickets has gone up drastically! 

So tonight we have tickets to see the Ottawa Senators play against the Montreal Canadiens.  We both want to see this game.  I unfortunately have a cold.  I've had a cold for about a week now or more, but the problem is that snot is not running down my face and my body isn't twitching in agony...because that would be obvious to anyone that I am not well enough to go.  Instead, I'm achey and tired beyond belief.  I have a sore throat and a scratchy voice, but my nose is still not running so to most people I look "fine".  I am pretty beat.  I suppose I can probably drag my ass to the game, but I know I won't enjoy it at all.  I don't want to disappoint my husband though, and he wants me to go with him. 

This is just one of the fun parts about MS...the constantly disappointing people.  I WANT to go to a lot of things, and I try to go to most of them, but when I get a cold it's just too much.  My chills are epic when I have a cold and the Scotiabank Centre is always freezing (it's an ice rink afterall) so I can't really imagine a way that this could be a comfortable evening for me.  We have a parking pass, but not a VALET parking pass.  Valet parking is where your car is taken the distance required by someone else.  If you park with a pass in "regular" parking (because your handicapped permit expired last month and you haven't renewed it) it literally takes 20 minutes to walk in.  It's that huge of a parking lot.  You're literally a couple of kilometres or more away from your car.  I can't manage that long walk with a cold.  I'll die of chills between the car and the door.  I suppose my husband could drop me at the door, but still, it's not going to be fun for me to be there when I'm not feeling well.  

And then there's the shower.  When I have a cold I don't like to get wet because it makes me feel cold and clammy.  I know in my head that I can counteract that feeling with hot water, but the point is that in my head somehow when I have a cold I don't like to get wet...it's just one of those things.  It's like the same way that I don't eat when I have a cold because I can't taste the food...when I have a cold, water on my skin sounds like the worst thing in the world!  So how do I take a shower if I'm feeling like that?  Well usually I wouldn't.  But if I'm going to a hockey game I'm going to need to shower.  So that's another issue.  The whole thing is telling me that I probably shouldn't go, but I feel bad letting my husband down. :(

This weekend we tried to move a big 32" CRT TV set out of the living room.  We were going to put it in our bedroom on a chest of drawers.  Well we got the TV out of the living room, but it was so heavy and bulky (damned picture tubes) that I was really REALLY happy that I hadn't bought the 36" TV that was aslo for sale at the time.  Anyway, we tried to move that bohemoth into the bedroom and we simply could not lift it that high up.  Large picture tube based TV sets are really archaic and insanely heavy, and so we instead opted to buy a couple flat screen TV sets to replace the one in the living room and the one in the bedroom.  No more picture tubes to lug around.  These new sets are so much lighter and smaller.  They also use half the electricity that the old ones did.  They take up so much less space and the picture is much clearer.  The old TV in the bedroom had a blown picture tube and so you could only watch cartoons on it or it was too dark!  Now we can watch movies or TV or whatever.  Those huge TV sets with the giant picture tubes are so heavy and bulky to move that it's insane to me that they've stayed so popular for so long.

So now we have a 32" TV set that we're no longer using but we don't want to give it to anyone we know because we don't want to have to help move it!  I keep thinking "Oh we can give it to so and so..." but then I realize that so and so will want us to help lug it out and into the car and probably want help on the other end too!  That thing weighs over 100 pounds and it hasn't got a single handle on it!  It would be SO easy to drop.  So I guess what we're saying is that we want someone to come and take it and once it's out the door, we don't want to deal with it anymore!  *sigh*  You gotta hate obsolete equipment.  It takes up so much space in landfills.  Maybe we can give the TV to the Salvation Army...they'd come pick it up.  We might even get a tax receipt for it.  More importantly, if we give it to the Sally Ann, we KNOW they're going to sell it for money, but that's okay...if we give it to a family member and they sell it I'll just be annoyed at them.  I mean we want to give it to someone who will actually use it.  I wonder if the old age home would take it here in town.  I bet they'd be thrilled.  My husband will have to phone them and ask them I guess.  They'd send someone over to help move it I'm sure.  At any rate, we never want to move that damn TV again! 

Sea Scallops

Today we thawed out some sea scallops...mmm...I love scallops.  These are huge too, about 3" in diameter.  I'm looking forward to steaming them and then serving them with some kind of sauce, maybe a smokey bacon sauce...mmm!  Anyway, we're also thawing a big 2 pound block of Montreal style smoked meat to eat over the next few days.  We have rye bread, swiss cheese slices and dijon mustard so we can make "reubens without the sourkraut" ...I'm not a huge fan of sourkraut unless it's homemade and the stuff in cans is way too vinegary.  I did have a reuben sandwich at a 5 star hotel once and the sourkraut was as mild as mild can be and it was the best sandwich I've ever had I think!  But knowing I cannot duplicate the sourkraut I have to be content to simply go without!  Besides they're delicous with a kosher pickle instead! 

So I guess I'm unusually hungry today.  I think it's the morphine.  Whenever I have to take morphine for pain I get hungry from it.  I suppose that today I'll eat a proper amount of food because of it too.  That might be nice!  I'm sure my husband will be so thrilled.  He gets tired of me not eating.  I do too.  So I'll probably make roasted little potatoes to go with the scallops!  Ooops...sorry, I don't mean to make anyone hungry!  I just love a good meal with little roasted potatoes...they taste so good!  I guess it's the Irish in me (1/4) that makes me crave potatoes, and the English in me (3/4) that makes me overcook them!  I like them well roasted so the skins thicken up and become leathery!  :)  Mmmm...chewy!

Friday after tattooing!

It's been almost one week...the tattooes are getting a little itchy!  I keep them moisturized, but it still feels like the skin needs to be scrubbed off.  However, I'm not going to scrub it off, but I do try to rub it off when I'm in the shower...just using soap and water.  This is a good benchmark because tomorrow the tattooes will be a week old.  They should be almost healed by then...which they look like they will be.  I know that it takes two weeks before the lotions can stop and it's probably better to wait at least three weeks to have a good soak in the tub, maybe longer.  I don't want to do anything that would cause it to fade.  However, let's face it, by this time there really isn't anything TOO drastic I could do that would cause any real damage.  The ink is set now and though there is still some substantial healing to go, it's beyond the point where I could really accidentally harm it.  As long as I don't soak in water or go swimming in chlorine and clearly I won't be doing either of those things.

You know what I think is interesting?  The fact that when you sign the release form for the tattoo place that they warn you that "Tattooes are often a cause for prejudice and judgement and location is very important if you are concerned about being treated differently."  I thought that was a smart little line to add to the release form.  Nobody can claim it's not true either.  As cool as I thought my tattoo artist's artwork was, she told me that twice she has been mishandled in emergency because they "assumed" she was a junkie.  Just because she is slim and has tattooes.  Crazy.  She explained herself to them that she's not a junkie, but all they did was pump her full of morphine and send her home.  She had incredible sciatic pain and had a disk digging into her spinal cord but they just figured she was jonesing for some drugs.  When she finally went to see a doctor about it they did an x-ray and found out she needed spinal surgery.  They simply wouldn't look at her because of her tattooes.  Very sobering for anyone who has considered getting some crazy tattoo all over their body.  Imagine not getting proper treatment because they just figured you were a junkie.   And why don't junkies get proper treatment?  I mean yeah, they are often going from one hospital to another looking for drugs, but that's easy to track.  Speaking of tracks, that would be another obvious sign.  This woman was completely clean, just had a lot of tattooes and that was enough for them to not even bother x-raying her back.  She said they all treated her like she MUST have HIV or AIDS.  She felt very demoralized by the whole thing. 

In her own circle, she's a really well-respected artist, who can make beautiful designs in skin.  She is professional and talented and confident.  She goes to the hospital and they treat her like she's a homeless person.  Nice.  Can you imagine what would happen if a highly respected politician was treated that way in the hospital?  Can you imagine if a normal person with a normal job was treated that way?  Isn't she a normal person with a normal job?  She works, pays taxes, is a very talented artist, but instead of being treated like a normal person she is treated like a junkie.  Because of some beautiful art she has in her skin.  Insane.

There's a huge blue jay outside the office window this morning.  He was over feeding from the parrot's leftovers.  Every day I take my parrot's old food (from the day before) and dump it outside the kitchen window for the birds and squirrels to come eat.  The chipmunks have already gone into hybernation I think; we don't see them anymore but the squirrels will be around all winter.  The blue jays too.  So it's funny to watch the jays come and scream and make a fuss and then fly off with a pumpkin seed or a piece of bird "kibble" and they just look so happy with themselves!

Here's a stoned inspiration.  If I had to pick an affiliation with a country, I'd say that bluejays are like Americans.  They're large, attractive and fiesty, but also like to shoot their mouths off sometimes!  Canadians are more like robins...similar in size and shape to the blue jays but not as loud and tend to be a bit less pushy.  Of course the blue jay is important because it fends off the crows and the larger preditor birds.  In fact, a blue jay quickly becomes a hero when you see a cooper's hawk show up.  They're the only birds that will just fly out and attack the hawk and all the other birds watch and say "Wow, that was close!"  Robins are kind of meek and loved by everyone but don't like to be the heroes.  They prefer to be entertaining and funny and don't make great fighters unless they're really provoked.

Okay I could go on with that analogy choosing other country's birds (is Britain represented by a wren?) but quite frankly the moment I started that analogy with the blue jay thing, I quickly tired of it!  I do think Australia is well represented by the cedar waxwing...they are known to eat the previous fall's berries in the spring (once they've hung fermenting on the vine all winter) and get absolutely loaded to the point where they fall over and fall asleep!  That sounds Australian to me!  But really I had no intention of running with this at all!

My cold is much worse and today I'm actually going to go back to bed as soon as I can.  I am enjoying the chance to read my hypnotherapy book.  It's incredibly infomative.  I used it to help my husband with some relaxation techniques and some quiet suggestions about how to better view some of life's challenges.  Just using what they call "hypnotic reframing" and "hypnotic suggestion" and "post-hypnotic suggestion".  Trances are all about the person who is falling into the trance.  They're not about the hypnotist, in fact the hypnotist is really only there to babysit and gently guide the subconscious thought process.  The real hypnosis is done by the person, who must be receptive and willing to take the lead over their subconscious.  I'm a little jealous of my husband!  He gets some creative reframing and some mild hypnotic suggestion to help him achieve his goals!  I hope he can eventually learn to help me the same way!  We'll see...it should be possible, afterall I was able to hypnotize him easily, so he should be able to do the same with me, in theory!  If not though I am learning how to self-hypnotize, which is the ultimate goal for me...to be able to hypnotize myself so that I can reframe anything I need to reframe or change my views on things like spiders!  I really look forward to learning more from my book and from practice. 

Suicide Wings=Tattoo

When will the rain stop?

Man that "Pineapple Express" from Hawaii is sure making the whole continent look like England!  It's been rainy and cloudy for days.  However, with a cold bug, that is actually perfect!

This morning I woke up feeling exhausted like I hadn't slept for more than a couple of hours.  It turns out I was asleep for a full 8 hours or so, but I still woke up feeling tired.  That is one of the prime signs that I have a cold.  I usually wake up feeling pretty good, and only get feeling tired and crappy towards the middle or end of the day.  So when I wake up feeling that tired (especially when I didn't take any different meds or anything) it tells me that I'm worn out and I haven't even started the day.  That is a sign of a cold.

I started reading my hypnosis book last night.  I am one eighth of the way through the book and they are still warning of all the problems you can encounter with hypnosis and all the reasons why you should not practice it!  It's a pretty heavy first chunk of the book and I keep thinking "Could we just get to the technique part please?" 

My goal with hypnosis is to use it on myself.  Self-hypnosis is one of the most underused ways to hynotize.  If I can visualize my body healing itself of MS I may be able to cure myself or at least stop the disease from progressing too rapidly.  Another "angle" on hypnosis that occurred to me yesterday was that I could use it to remove the pain from the tattooing process.  If I can successfully learn the technique, I should be able to hypnotize my husband so that he feels no pain when he gets his tattoo done. 

If I ever open a tarot card/tattoo/piercing parlour I would DEFINITELY offer to hypnotize clients to avoid feeling pain for the duration of the tattoo.  I know there would be a whole pile of paperwork to fill in saying they acknowledge that I am in no way a hypnotherapist and that I'm basically doing a parlour trick on them, but if it prevents people from feeling pain and pain is the main reason people don't get tattooes, well you can see how that could be very profitable especially if you were the only tattoo parlour in town that had that service!

Speaking of tattooes, mine are healing and peeling!  The flakes of coloured skin are coming off in a very constant stream.  Some flakes are tiny but others are as large as half a centimetre (about 1/4 inch) and are fairly substantial.  I am keeping it moisturized with polysporin and today I'm going to add some lotion to the mix.  Unscented lotion is the next step in helping heal the last bit of the tattoo...I place it on after a shower and then top it off with the polysporin to trap some of the moisture in the skin.  I figure that in another week both tattooes will be completely healed and the skin will have peeled off, exposing the fresh new ink underneath.  Then I can really start to admire them!  I don't know if everyone always feels this good about their tattooes, I suppose it depends on how long they thought about it first and how important the subject matter is to them, but all I can say is that I'm so happy with mine that I'm just beside myself!  I mean I am in love with my bat all over again...I think that's the nicest surprise of all, that the retouched tattoo feels like a brand new tattoo now!  And the heart with the pins in it just feels so "me" but also so "Tim Burton".  I'm very excited to get my next tattoo!  Of course I don't know what that tattoo will be and where I'll put it; I'll probably take another ten years deciding!  I mean the heart tattoo was an idea I had come up with about two years ago...so even when I do decide on a design it seems to take me a long time to get my butt over to the tattoo parlour.  Next time I'm going to jump on it quicker.  I forgot how much fun they were!

I'm going to spend the rest of today just lazing about in bed reading my book.  I have to wait until the parrot goes to her cage for the night (as soon as it starts to get dark out)...but then I can go back to bed.  If I try to go to bed while she's up, she sits on the edge of the bed and just as I'm falling asleep, she says "hello" in a really cute little voice.  It's always right as I'm falling asleep though and it wakes me up!  She's evil...don't let anyone tell you differently!  But I still love her...you know when I'm not sick!

Peeled Bat Skin

Finished my book!

Well I finished Neurolinguistic Programming.  Now I want to read it again!  The problem is that I need to let it sink in first.  Instead of reading it again, I'll think about what I learned and then when I go to read it the next time we'll see how much of it I retained.  Besides I have so many other books I want to read.  Neurolinguistic Programming was at the highest end of my comprehension scale and I suspect that reading it a second time will help it gel a lot better, but reading about Hypnosis in clinical practice seems like it could help more. 

That's the book I'm starting now.  It's a book that teaches you exactly how to induce trances and then make suggestions that will really help someone change the way they think about things.  Sometimes you can use hypnotherapy to speak to the subconscious through the consciousness.  In other words the person would be aware of the suggestions and be in agreement with them.  Other hypnosis speaks directly to the subconscious and needs to skip the conscious mind in order to be effective.  That's a bit more difficult to achieve, but ultimately if you are working to help someone and they trust you, it should be do-able.  Basically they need to be open to your suggestions without really understanding your intent because if they understand it they might see through it and be able to undo the suggestion.  For example if you were to suggest to someone that a certain behaviour should trigger a different reaction, like someone who is homophobic being told that the idea of gayness should no longer frighten them...in their conscious mind that might be rejected, but if you speak directly to the subconscious you will meet with less resistance.  For that example it might be appropriate to address homophobia when the person may not be willing to even admit that they are indeed homophobic, but the psychotherapist recognizes it as the root of the problem.  Just an example where someone might not be open to a conscious conversation about their deep-rooted issue.

Oh I'm going to totally change topics here, but I just want to say to any Americans who read this post, "KUDOS!"  Way to clean house!  Seems like balance has been returned to the force if you know what I mean.  I am of course talking about election day.  Well done.  I hope the Republicans do in fact lose the senate as well as the house and it looks like they will.  Now the world can hopefully go back to paying a little less attention to what that lunatic Bush says.  He won't have the political strength to pass anything too insane and that should keep him in line until they can elect someone with some interest in the job. 

Personally I'm hoping that the Democrats will elect Barach Obama as their leader, not Clinton.  Clinton supports the war in Iraq.  Obama does not.  They need a non-white leader I think.  I think it would look good on them.  On the other hand, a woman would be a better choice than another WHITE man.  Seriously, I think that the WHITE house needs a black man or woman running it.  There's been too much back slapping and croneyism over the years.  They need a minority member as a leader to restore some balance and remove the "football jock" leader mentality.

Clinton is a step backwards.  It's nostalgia for the 90's that makes people want to elect her.  It's also the possibility that Bill would once again somehow be involved in government.  The truth is that the Clinton legacy was one of croneyism as well.  He set things up for this current administration to be able to grab as much power as it did.  So I think a totally NEW direction is what is in order for the DNC.  I am going to go on record here as saying that I predict Obama will win the DNC leadership race.  Or maybe it's that I WANT him to win...either way, that's the hope from Canada...that a moderate voice will rise up, not another grandstanding Clinton.  Obama is Clinton's only real competition unless Nancy Pilosi decides to run.  She likes to grandstand also, but she's been around doing that for so many years that she has really honed it to a fine art.  She's much less abrasive than Hilary.  I think that's exactly it, Hilary may be the nostalgic choice but she's a bit more dislikeable than the other names I've mentioned.  And let's not even consider Howard Dean please.  The man is great, he has a good line on the issues, but holy crap that lunatic edge he has is just a bit too freaky.  The DNC need to elect someone the American people can relate to, not John Kerry.  If they don't put up the right candidate, John McCain will win next time around.

So the cold is still "kicking in" and I'm still fighting it but not very successfully, but the GOOD news is that my tattoo is healing very nicely.  The top layer of dead skin is now peeling off the heart tattoo and the bat tattoo is almost completely healed.  It probably won't peel because it's so small.  Soon I'll be able to switch from polysporin to unscented lotion to keep the tattooes moisturized.  That will be a great change.  Also, I'll be able to go back to bathing in a few weeks instead of having showers.  I prefer to bathe because it's easier on me than all of that standing around with my eyes closed in the shower...that's just a good way to lose my balance and fall down!  So it will be nice once I can soak my skin again.  For now though I'm okay with taking showers and protecting my new ink.  I just have to be careful not to close my eyes or else I get very dizzy.

Speaking of dizzy, this cold is also making me a bit discombobulated...just the sinus thing with the inner ear balance.  You know how it is with a cold.  So I'm feeling a bit woozy...which sometimes makes me feel nauseated.  Weird eh?  A cold can cause enough disturbance in my inner ear/balance that it can make me feel ill.  Nevermind the fact that the cold itself makes you feel ill.  The good news is that I'm not having as much froaty pain as I was having yesterday.  Of course that can all change very easily...but for now my froaty isn't as sore.  *cough* OW!

Today I start my hypnosis book and after that I believe it might be the handwriting book!  We'll see...there's also the Psychology of Persuasion.  Both look interesting.  I think that the human brain is an incredible thing, and the more I read these types of books, the more I learn about just how incredible it really is. 

A-choo!

So I think I can officially call it a cold now because I'm sneezing and having periodic runny nose problems!  My joints ache and my throat tastes terrible.  Bleh!  No surprise though, after that train ride to Toronto with all those people coughing and sneezing, it's hardly a shock that I would pick it up...I pick up everything!  Seriously if someone even thinks about having a cold I end up with it!  It's a big change from super-me who used to be able to fight off anything...but I don't mind it this way if it means that my immune system is no longer in overdrive and chewing on my brain...of course we don't know that it means that do we!  In fact it might still be chewing on my brain but now my body is no longer strong enough to fight off infections and colds.  Lame. >:|

Either way, I'm sick now and I'm going to try and enjoy my new load of books!  I'm still reading the Neurolinguistic Programming book, which is very interesting but hard to read.  I find it hard to read because it's a bit esoteric and so if you lose your focus for even a second you find yourself saying "Huh?  What the hell is this all about?"  You have to really pay close attention to this book, and so it's taking me a long time to read unfortunately.  Once I'm through it I'm hoping I can get into the book about persuasion and avoiding allowing yourself to become other people's pawns.  Then there's the book on hypnotherapy in practice and how to use it.  There are many interesting books in the pile and I just got word that the last of them are on their way too!  YAY!  I can't wait to finish reading them all so that I can use the information in them to help myself heal.  Of course some of the information is just for fun, like the handwriting analysis book.  That's supposed to be a VERY good book but it's not for any real "need" on my part, just curiosity.  I am curious about all of these things.  I like to learn about stuff that reveals information about people.  I think it's interesting.  I should have been a psychiatrist.  Or maybe a psychologist.  Whichever one you don't have to be a doctor to be!  I could never have made it through the grueling hours that make up a medical degree. 

That got me thinking the other day.  What would I do if in two or three years I was cured or otherwise healed of my MS?  I mean it is a possibility with all the HUGE discoveries they're making.  So my insurance company would have to retrain me (after 4 or 5 years off work they have to retrain you to put you back in the work force)...so what would I want to be retrained to do?  At first I thought that a Reiki healing job would be up my alley, but after having that tattoo I realize that THAT is what I'd want to do.  I'd love to be a tattoo artist.  I mean I'm already an artist in my own right, but I think that being a tattoo artist would be awesome.  Of course next week I'll probably be like "I want to be a film producer" or something.  But really I think that either special effects makeup artist (as I have always said) or tattoo artist.  Both are jobs that would put you in touch with some interesting people, but the tattoo artist job is more stable.  Maybe I could do BOTH! :)  I like the idea of having a tattoo parlour in my little tarot card shop!  I could have psychic consultations and tattooing and piercing all under one roof.  I could do mehndi as well.  It would be fun having that kind of business.  My husband would be totally jealous of me in my little shop!  I suspect it would quickly become OUR shop and he'd work there too!  He'd take care of the books and inventory and that stuff and I'd look after the more artsy stuff!

Of course we wouldn't even consider doing that until we had the right business model and until my husband has made a bit more money from high tech.  Don't want to throw away a perfectly good career in exchange for a pipe dream.  The other thing is that it would be nice to not "need" to make money off the shop for a couple of years, which you could only do if you had a good sized nest egg built up.  That takes a good business plan and a lot of planning.  It's a bit of a way off we'll say!  Nevermind that as it stands now I cannot even consider working at a shop!  MS makes that possibility very slim...but not impossible.  As long as it's not impossible I'm going to keep on behaving like it's just a matter of time!  I mean they really might CURE MS...and that's a possiblity I can't help but be excited about.  I know it's not something I should be planning for, but it IS a possibility and so I can keep my pipe dream! :)

This afternoon, after I put away the parrot, I'm going to go back to bed and read some more of my neurolinguistic programming book and hope that I can finally finish it off.  Then I can go to the next book!  Most likely I'll read a few pages and then fall asleep but that's okay too!  That's the beauty of a cold, you just do what you can! 

They found it!

Looks like Tblog found my previous Sunday afternoon post!  It's now up before the one that says "I had a bunch of stuff written out but TBlog ate it!"  So I guess it showed up eventually.  Nice too because I didn't remember what I had written!  Stupid drugs!

So my tattooes are starting to get dry a bit, I mean not that I'm letting them dry out, but as the natural healing process occurs and we keep adding polysporin but the top layer is starting to dry and will eventually peel off.  The main thing is to keep it from getting infected, so polysporin every few hours.  My husband is coming home at noon so he can minister to my tattooes!  I can't really reach them so it's a lot harder for me to take care of them.  In a few more days the tattooes will completely peel like an old sunburn and I'll be left with fresh ink!  Then I can take some photos and show them off!  What will be great will be comparing the old bat with the new bat...the retouched version.  I have a good close-up photo of my bat tattoo from before, so it should show off the new details perfectly when we take a new photo of it.

I think the next tattoo I'll get will be double cherries on the back of my neck.  I want something that signifies "Gemini" but I don't want the typical twins or "II" sign.  I thought a double cherry sprig would be "Two" and that represents Gemini sort of like the twins or the "II" sign, but it's a little different and you wouldn't immediately know it was a Gemini symbol.  I'll wait until my husband gets his first tattoo though!  He's sort of jealous of me that I have two right now!  He said he needs to close the gap!  I think he'll come up with something as soon as he decides on what image he wants first. 

It's funny how when you're going for your FIRST tattoo you want the thing to be everything...you want it to perfectly represent you and you want it to be bold and different and exciting.  It takes a lot of mulling it over and then one day you realize that it's been right there all along and you were just spending too much time obsessing over it!  My husband had an epiphany about his first tattoo and I think he's going to now decide on a design.  He wants to use one of his family's seals which has a bridge with a hawk flying over it on it.  He'd like to get the tattoo artist to look at the various versions of this crest and then make a new version using the old ones as a guideline.  But that first tattoo is always so important.  Once you have one getting a second one is not nearly as difficult.

You know it's funny because the tattoo artist didn't like my bat too much when she saw it, and she really changed it so that it looks much better, but I always liked it even when it was kind of boring looking!  It was never that spectacular, but it was always very "me".  However now it's unique and nobody else's looks quite like mine.

I'm feeling pretty sleepy with this cold.  It's got me feeling hot and itchy around my eyes...you know that feeling that tells you you're just about to get very sick...yuck!  I get colds in slow motion.  They start out slowly and where someone would normally feel the cold coming on and the next day or two they'd have it...well for me it's like I feel the cold coming on for a week or even more...then I get the cold which lasts for about two weeks with me just stuffed up or with a sore froaty or just aching and sore and then it takes another week or so to get rid of it.  It's very slow.  I often get urinary tract infections too when I get a cold.  That sucks because I have to keep drinking cranberry juice or I'm in the washroom every ten minutes thinking I have to pee!

There is one thing that I do kind of like with a cold.  It allows you to just give up and stop trying!  With MS you're always doing this insane balancing act in your head where you spend a lot of time trying to convince yourself that you should TRY to do something to keep yourself healthy...and you spend almost as much time trying to convince yourself that you shouldn't be trying so hard and stop feeling guilty about it.  There's a lot of guilt that can be attached to those two extremes...some days you feel like you're not doing enough and other days you feel like you're doing too much and need to slow down.  You often don't feel good about the level of exercise you're getting or the or about how much rest you're getting.  It seems like when you think you need one someone tells you that you need the other.  So when you have a cold it's like "freedom" in a way because there is simply no way you can bother to try!  You just have to give up and be sick.  It's like all that effort can just be stuffed somewhere!  So there is a certain amount of emotional freedom in having a cold.  Maybe that's why I get so many of them :(  I hope not!

I used to never get colds.  I used to tell people "Vampires don't get sick!"  Which I don't actually know if that's true, but what was true was that I never got colds!  I would get a bit of that cold feeling and I would simply ignore it...like it wasn't going to stop me.  It would be gone in a few days but more often than not I'd just not get colds.  I'd say too "I don't get colds...I think I've got a FANTASTIC immune system." 

Turns out I was right...I had an immune system that was SO fantastic it was taking care of problems I didn't have!  It was chewing on my own central nervous system!  EEK!  So now my immune system is in overdrive and I need for it to slow down.  I am guessing that maybe that's why I now get so sick when I get a cold.  It's probably better that way.  I don't want a hyperactive immune system anymore.  Now I just want my central nervous system to remain healthy!

I added Vitamin B12 to my daily pills which helps with CNS health.  I'm hoping that I can sort of nurse it back to health and encourage healing with the massive doses of Vitamin D.  Sometimes I think that just believing that these pills will help is helping in itself.  Having a lot of faith in medicine really helps me to get the most out of it I guess.  I think that understanding how the medications work is what actually puts me at ease.  I don't take anything I havent read extensively about.  I am very careful with my medications and I don't allow them to just take them away from me because they're satisfied with the results.  I've stayed on Verapamil long after both doctors have said they didn't know if it was helping or not.  I know it is.  It's helping to keep the calcium out of my cells, and that's HUGE as far as I'm concerned.  I think that Verapamil may be the prescription that is helping the disease the most.  I mean obvious I treat symptoms of pain with cannabis and that works really well, but it's not necessarily helping the disease course.  I believe the Vitamin D and Verapamil are helping the disease.  Now that I'm taking B12 I expect to see some improvement in my nervous system.  Maybe that's expecting a lot, but I also have read that believing great results, and visualizing those results will go a long way to achieving those results.  So if I visualize Vitamin D and Verapamil curing me, I can probably make it happen if I believe it enough.  I believe it enough. :)

Sunday afternoon

Sunday afternoon

Well my husband is taking a siesta and so I thought I'd write a little more in my handy blog!  The tattooes are healing nicely and we are having a grey and dark day...so it's a perfect day for ordering in food and just eating in front of the fire on the floor (with the dog trying to eat off the plate!)  After my husband and the dog wake up (they're both napping in our bed!) we'll order something. 

I think I'm going to want something different, like a quesadilla or something.  I don't know what.  It's so hard to find something I enjoy with this stupid cold.  I normally have a hard time with eating, but when I get a cold I almost refuse to eat...it's like NOTHING tastes good.  I can't quite figure out why.  I guess a cold makes it hard to taste stuff, but since I have a problem with the way things taste, this should improve my odds of finding something that tastes good!  Instead it just makes everything taste bland.  It's really lame.  Makes me want to invent a new food just to taste something interesting!  Like basil, pineapple and tabasco with shrimp.  That sounds like something I might go for!

I'm still reading my book on Neurolinguistic Programming.  It's extremely interesting.  I wish I could explain more of it but it's just all about how language can be used to trigger responses that can be positive or negative.  Then it takes those experiences and teaches you how to use them to help increase your understanding of others based on stuff you may have made up in your own head.  It's like tricking your mind into believing things a little differently in order to spare yourself the pain of a past experience.  Like a slight of hand for the brain.  Very amazing that the mind can be manipulated that way.

I tried using the things I learned when I was getting the tattoo.  The part that was the easiest for me was to frame the pain in a box.  But what actually made me happier was to simply relinquish myself to the pain and embrace it.  I tried at first "isolating" the pain, which made it feel like someone was poking me with a hot pin.  When I embraced the pain I broke out in a full on sweat but then I was able to get used to it.  The way my body reacted was a big help too.  When I was trying to frame the pain in a way I could isolate it, I found my body tightening up with all the resistance it could handle.  When I embraced the pain, my muscles relaxed and my whole demeanor just went limp.  I can see how being in pain can be framed in a box, and how it could be helpful at times to be able to do so, but when I was getting tattooed it felt more important to me that I actually relax and just feel the pain for good or bad.  It really made me feel alive.  Framing the pain in a box was like trying to dissociate from the pain a little, and I realized that the pain was an important part of the experience and leanred to enjoy it instead.  I think that THAT demonstrates the higher goal of Neurolinguistic Programming...that the mind can isolate things, but that it's even more powerful when it doesn't have to.

New Ink

Well I got my tattooes done.  My bat was retouched and it looks AMAZING.  It's got new colour, detail and it's got a new series of lavender cloud/swirls around it that I just love!  The heart with pins stuck in it turned out perfectly.  My tattoo artist really added her own flare to it that made it so perfect!  She did a great job and my husband is now VERY eager to get his done.  He hasn't decided what he wants yet, but he got to see the tail end of my bat tattoo being done and is now a lot more eager to have one.

So this morning I removed the pads and washed my new ink.  They look great.  I put some polysporin on the fresh wounds and then left them alone.  I'll check them in a while and put some more polysporin on them just to make sure they don't dry out.  Now for the next few days it's just a matter of keeping it clean and moisturized without allowing it to get sweaty or soaked.

Now that my husband has met my tattoo artist he feels more confident about asking her to make a tattoo for him.  It turns out she does do that!  I always thought that at the place I go to that they just will do what you want.  But she will consult with people and do up something for them.  So he is thinking that he'll get one made up by her using the elements he brings her.  I know she'll do a great job.  He wants a Bettie Page style tattoo of an angel with blue wings.  He said he wants it to look like me, in cartoon form!  He has several ideas.  He wants to do a family crest, the Canadian shield.  His difficulty is in deciding which one first!

Friday before tattooing!

Well tomorrow I go for my tattoo!  I'm as blasé about this as I was nervous about the train ride!  I keep forgetting we're going and I have to remind myself that I am getting inked...10 years after my last one!  I can't wait until it's done.  I hope it doesn't hurt too much, but we all know it will hurt.  It's just a matter of how much it gets to you.  It will give me a chance to practice some of the things I'm learning from my neurolinguistic programming book...controlling pain and keeping it in a mental box.  Should be fun to try.

While I'm getting one tattoo, I'm going to also be having my old one retouched so it will look nice and pretty again.  It's a bat flying in front of a moon.  The bat is blue/purple and the moon is pink/light blue if I remember correctly...it's been a while since I looked back there!  So I'll have a heart with pins in it on my lower back and then the bat on my shoulder blade.  Should be cool. 

We've been watching Miami Ink to get an idea of the tattooes we won't be getting!  They're the most amazing tattoo artists, but we don't have anything like that around here.  Most of the artists around here are just able to copy a piece of work exactly.  That's pretty good, but if you want help with your tattoo they won't give it to you.  You come up with the design and they'll say whether or not they can do it.  It means that you have to find a different artist to make the tattoo than the one who puts it on.  I mean they have some on the walls you can choose from and I think they might even have some books, but they aren't organized in any way so that you can search them alphabetically or anything.  It's better to come with your own artwork, at least around here.  Miami Ink is a great show though and hopefully they raise the bar a bit for people so they realize what a good tattoo artist CAN do, as oppose to all the times they say "no we can't do that unless it's a lot bigger!" I saw a good tattoo artist do fishnet stockings on a person's tattoo...tell me you can't do the fine detail work in a normal tattoo!  I think it's a matter of "if it's too hard, make it bigger!" because they always want to make them bigger!  They also sell the tattoo based on how many pots of ink they use, so maybe that's why they always seem to need it bigger!  Whatever the reason, we simply don't have access to the kind of tattoo artist that makes skin art of that caliber...but if we make the artwork something we love, and as long as the artist can copy it (which they seem pretty good at) it's fine.  It just means that you don't have someone to sort of scrutinize it beforehand and say "hmm...that might look better if I turned it on an angle" or something.  Basically if you make a lousy design, too bad, that's the design you paid for. 

So you have to be a bit of a graphic artist to come up with a good tattoo design.  I mean let's face it, a tattoo is a personal statement of symbolism that is important to the wearer.  But you don't get a tattoo so nobody can ever see it.  You expect that even if you get it somewhere very private, that eventually someone will see it.  You are making a statement on your skin about yourself.  That is never done SOLELY for your own self.  You want someone to see it at some point and say "hey nice tattoo" and then ask about it.  When people ask me "Why a bat?  Why not a butterfly or a bird or a rose or something pretty?"  I say "Because I'm a vampire."  Or sometimes I say "Just because I wanted to be different." if I don't feel like saying my little vampire comment!  Not everyone finds it as amusing as I do! 

The truth is that I don't see myself as a "girly girl" even though I like to pamper myself with bubble baths and sparkly things.  I see myself as a reformed Tomboy.  Reformed in the way that I now see that "being one of the guys" was never good enough for me...and settling for that is a cop-out that a lot of girls fall for.  You don't want to be a princess either though.  The point is that you shouldn't allow yourself to be "categorized".  You're not a Tomboy, you're not a Princess and you're not a slut.  You're a girl living her life.  Same goes for guys...they don't have the big stereotypes that girls get though.  For guys, most "labels" are sources of pride.  "Slut" for a guy is a badge of honour.  I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not excessively interested in the things that the TV tells me I should like because I'm a woman.  I am however NOT masculine either.  I guess what I see is that I want better for myself than that which society says I should want.   I don't want to be just another pretty face, but I do want to be a pretty face!  I don't want to just be an upper-middle class family, I want to be an engaged upper-class family! :)  What I mean by that is that I want to be wealthy so that I can engage myself in the problems of the world and society.  My goals of material wealth allow me to eventually become the person I want to be (I hope)...someone who can travel to a third world country to teach english or something.  I mean obviously with MS I can't exactly do that, but I'd like to figure out how I CAN help.  One way I KNOW I can help is to make a lot of money so I can give it to people who need it.  So that is an admirable goal, even though it is material in nature.

Wow what a long tangent!  I don't really know where I was going with that except to say that I'm not a female "victim" but society would like me to be.  White men have long wanted to keep women and minorities from having any power and any wealth.  They encourage the victim persona in children in schools in inner cities in the US by telling them they should join ROTC or by telling them that college courses are "too hard".  They're saying "please don't exceed the potential we want you to aim for".  White men are terrified that they'll lose the power and control of the purse strings.  If I can amass wealth and then give it to someone who needs help and then also teach that someone to stand up on their own, then don't I break the traditional barriers of those who might otherwise resign themselves to living a life of poverty?  That's the kind of social changes the world needs.  I'm tired of listening to news reports that tell me that black men should be criminals and that single mothers are unfit mothers.  Stop forcing single mothers to work and they won't be horrible mothers.  Stop only showing crimes that are perpetrated by blacks and the world will stop believing that all blacks are criminals.  But that won't sell newspapers will it.  Anyway all of that to say that I really get tired of the world trying to insist on certain stereotypes and I really believe that the solution is to become independantly wealthy.  Then stick it to the man!

What has that got to do with my tattoo?  Well basically it was just a point I was making that someone with my keenly honed sense of outrage is not feeling feminine enough to have pretty butterflies on my body because I'm too angry with the way the world works.  After even reading my last little rant, you can hardly picture someone like me wearing some little cute tattoo right?  Still there is a part of me that would love to get a big gossamer butterfly somewhere on my body...maybe in time!  For now I'll continue with my outrage and my horror movie references and Tim Burton stuff!  You can probably picture me with a sword across my body or some other set of scales or something...that's really more my style.  Gemini isn't the most feminine of the zodiac signs!

The last time I had a tattoo done they commented that I had chosen one of the most painful locations for a tattoo because there was no fat over my shoulder blade.  Fortunately this time there IS fat over the area (lower back)...fortunately for the pain factor...of course I AM trying to LOSE that fat!  It's almost gone now but I still have some weight to lose on my tummy...so that area has a bit of extra flab...and that flab is going to disappear slowly as I continue losing weight (losing about 2 pounds per month).  I've been losing for over a year now and have only taken off about 20 pounds, but it's a steady loss and it is coming off.  Anyway, I wish I was going to the tattoo artist as slim as I was the first time I went, but I'll get there!  In the meantime I'll take some solace in the fact that the extra fat will pad the needle and make the tattoo less painful.

I have a cold beginning, no doubt as a result of being in the train with all those people who were coughing.  No worries though I just got a shipment of books from Amazon! 

I can't read "stories" anymore because I find following the plot actually annoys me.  Seriously.  I read the stories and as the long descriptive narratives unroll in front of me I find myself thinking "Oh good lord, now I'm going to be reading for hours until I find out what happens!"  I don't have the patience for it and I find following the long tangents that writers inevitably go off on to be annoying as well.  I feel like I wish I could say "GET TO THE POINT, I'm going to forget the first paragraph if you don't hurry up!"  So fiction (my former favourite mind trash) is out of the question now.  I must instead read "how to" books now to avoid the impatience and forgetfulness.  However, I've discovered that "how to" style books are very informative!  I am learning all sorts of new little talents that I never would have learned before because I was busy reading horror novels!

For example, I'd say that I'm pretty good at doing Tarot card readings now.  That's because of the reading and practicing that I've done.  My latest book was about Mehndi (henna tattooing) and its history.  Very interesting stuff.  I am now reading about NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming).  It's all about the psychology of persuasion and words that are used to tap into subconscious codes of behaviour.  It's a precursor to my hypnosis books.  I want to learn about how the human brain can be manipulated (so I can see when others try to do it to me) and how to protect against it.  I also want to learn hypnosis so I can hopefully practice it on myself and others who want it. 

My husband would love to be a bit more organized for example, s