Santa baby

Dear Father Christmas,

I do hope you’re well and gearing up for all those deliveries. Don't forget to wrap up warm and make sure your beard is properly protected.

You should have received my daughter's list by now. She's been very good this year and has done her homework without (much) nagging and cleaned her teeth beautifully.

Since we're chatting, Father C (can I call you that?), here's what I'd like for me – and every MSer – this festive season:

A cause, a cure and continual myelin repair, please. Plus genuinely feeling as well as we look. You could make a lot of people very, very happy.

But I appreciate you may not be able to deliver those in time for Christmas 2018. So, on a personal note, here's some alternative options for me this year:

1. Beautiful sky-scraper heels with hidden microchips in the bottom that automatically balance me. I'd quite like to sashay down the street again without wondering where the nearest flower bed is to cushion my fall.

2. A wearable hot water bottle/cool pack suit, which intuitively adjusts to my personal temperature needs, thereby preventing my hands/legs/everything packing up on me when the environment gets just one degree too warm or too cool.

3. This eyepatch. Styling out my eye damage.

4. A flashing badge with a changeable slogan to represent my experience on any given day. Options include: “TODAY I...said stupid stuff in a work meeting because my brain won’t function/cried in the kitchen to hide the worry from my daughter/slurred in public and had to explain the not-being-drunk thing for the 75^th time/inwardly crumbled at a thoughtless comment....BUT I AM STILL GOING.”

5. A machine which allows other people to experience all my symptoms: both the ‘Bam! Gotcha!’ out the blue ones and the constant, wearing, dragging ones – emotional and physical. I'd only switch it on for a short period (unless they’d really annoyed me), but it might help them to get an insight into what I'm trying to explain.

If you could possibly see your way clear to bringing just a single gift from the above suggestions (number one! bring number one!) I would be extremely grateful.

Yours in hope,

Mildly Scrambled xx

P.S. Carrot, milk and mince pies will be in the usual place. I don't mind the crumbs, but please don't let Dasher and Prancer chew the carpet again.

:: Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt

Be strong now

I've been invited by an online MS community to write a letter to my newly diagnosed self that they can share with their members.
I enjoyed doing it, so thought I'd share it here too:

Dear 2004 me,

You are stunned and worried and trying to be brave.

I am older and wiser and have a few things to share:

• You are hugely stubborn, we know this. You are pig-headed, independent and bloody-minded and sometimes this will help you. But your family and friends will want to look after you. Let them. They are scared too and need to stop feeling helpless.
• Start looking after your body more, it may not feel like it at the moment, but it's on your side and will try and repair itself in more ways than you can imagine. It will lace up its gloves and step into the ring for you time after time - the least you can do is be kind to it.
• You are still working, but you do change jobs. Twice. Perspectives change and your professional outlook has shifted too.
• I know it's on your mind; yes, you do have a child. She is beautiful.
• NEVER lose your sense of humour. It will be tested, it may get darker, but it remains a remarkably effective lifejacket.

In time you will wake up and those two letters will not be the first thing you think about.

Life will continue; you will stubbornly wear your best high heels and laugh and cry and learn along with it.

You are far, far stronger than you think and I am very proud of you.

Love 2017 me.

Ps that man you're with? The one who didn't run when you found out the news? You're right - he is the one. Marry him.

:: Be strong now by James Iha

Reward

I was on the train to work, half reading something to do with a celebrity I’d never heard of in Metro when I couldn’t help but overhear the phone conversation of the passenger behind me.

He was speaking in that exaggeratedly hushed tone people use on trains. A tone which tries to indicate that you realise it’s annoying to virtually everyone else nearby but you have to take this call as it’s really, really important.

Anyway, I don’t know what the bulk of it was about, but I did hear his report of a trip to the dentist – which was fine, in case you were worried - he needs to go back next August but he didn’t get a sticker.

And this made me smile.

We’re so used to this rewards-based recognition of dental appointments as children, that it’s almost a universally accepted trade-off.

It also remains an irrational but slight disappointment when you don’t get the same sticky well done as an adult.

So, with my annual neurology appointment looming in two days time, I’ve been considering what might be suitable rewards to receive at the end for those of us who are a bit more scrambled.

Obviously new brains and spinal cords, the ability to continually remylienate and genuinely feeling as well as we may look would be ideal.

But in the sad absence of those, here’s my thoughts:

1. A personalised hot water bottle/cool pack, which can be adjusted to suit your personal temperature preferences. And therefore prevent hands/legs/everything packing up on you when the outside environment gets just one degree too warm or too cool.

2. High heels with fancy microchips in the bottom that automatically balance you.

3. This eyepatch 

4. A flashing badge which has a slogan to represent your particular experience on any given day. Choose from: “TODAY I wet myself in public/said stupid stuff in a meeting because my brain won’t work/cried in the kitchen to hide it from my children/fell over outside a pub and had to explain the not-being-drunk thing for the 75^th time/despaired at the benefits system/inwardly crumbled at a thoughtless comment BUT I AM STILL GOING.”

5. A machine which magically allows other people to experience all of your symptoms – both the Boo! Gotcha! Bam out the blue ones and the constant, wearing, dragging ones, both emotional and physical. Admittedly it would only be for a short period (unless they’d really annoyed you), but it may help them to gain some insight into what it is you’re trying to explain.

:: Reward by The Teardrop Explodes

The incidentals

Ack. November. Without doubt the worst month of the year. It’s cold, grey, generally exhausting and thoroughly depressing.

November doesn’t have the lovely crisp goldenness of autumn, the tingly excitement of the Christmas countdown, the potential new start of January or the pancakes of February.

It also heralds the danger period for my relapses, all of which have fallen between November and February. 

So, as the traditional gatekeeper to MS crapness, I don’t tend to greet this month with much pleasure and instead try and conserve as much of my rapidly depleting energy as possible.

Therefore, to stave off the bleakness, I’ve made a list of ten things that I could do to cheer me through the month. 

My rule for drawing up the list was any activity must involve minimal effort but bring maximum joy.

1. Hot water bottles. Oh, could there be anything more lovely than strapping a few wobbly hugs of liquid love to your torso with a blanket?

2. Yes! Yes, there could; it’s having a stack of Marmite on toast within easy reaching distance of said hot water/blanket mound.

3. And also a pot of tea.

4. If I have to leave the marmitey cocoon (which actually doesn’t sound all that pleasant when it’s described as such) to go to work then at least I can read books on the train. Hurrah.

5. Putting on high heels.* Yes. Despite my shocking balance, I LOVE the heels. I have loads of pairs from my pre and early-MS days when I could still wear them without wondering where the nearest flower bed was to cushion my fall, but I still love them, the minxy dignity-killers. So I take them out now and again, dust them down and walk around the house in them. Can’t get far, can’t manage the swagger like it used to, but rather than making me sad for what I may have lost, they still fill me with joy for what I can still do – just for slightly more limited periods.

6. Humming to myself. Particularly shoobie-doobie-doo type refrains. And not just in private.

7. Making up songs about poo with my daughter; it’s not sophisticated but it’s very funny.

8. Radio Four Extra. Drama, comedy, comforting marvellousness.

9. Visitors. As long as I can be in pyjamas, they make their own drinks and don’t mind if I stare blankly at them. I’m sorry, blame November, it makes me a rubbish host.

10. Viz. And Bottom. I am a 13-year-old boy.

:: The incidentals by Alisha’s Attic

*In the past I have tried to convince a very dear friend that high heels work much better as a mood lifter than chocolate scoffing and are a far healthier alternative. She was never sold on the idea. However, I like to think she may now wear high heels to eat chocolate and I would class that as a partial success.