Sorry - I've been busy!

Making a baby! Yup, that's right. The Boy and I, contrary to popular belief, actually HAVE done something useful with our lives and are currently incubating a tiny little miniature Spatula.

Here are some fun things I have learned about being pregnant:

1. It's hard to look excited when you are constantly on the verge of puking. It doesn't mean I'm not excited, so it's unnecessary to ask "Oh, is this a good thing?" when you congratulate me and I don't jump up and down and give you a big hug. I'm trying not to barf on your shoe.

2. People are so nice and mean so well, but the number of people who ask "So, was this planned?", is truly astounding. How should I answer that? "No. I wanted to be COMPLETELY off the drugs, but we just couldn't wait."

3. No one can out-burp a pregnant lady. We won't even talk about all the other gross stuff my husband has recently discovered about me. I'm sure he yearns for the days when I was all shy and didn't want to gross him out with my bodily functions. Now they're appropriate dinner conversation and any time, day or night, is the right time to remind him just where in the digestive process I am at that exact moment.

4. The baby is called a "fetal pole" on the ultrasound machine. Today we saw it moving and wiggling and declared it to be a "fetal pole dancer". I was pretty much the only person that thought this was funny. We're considering naming it Angel Chastity Heaven Cherry Pie Spatula, just to cement things.

5. Haagen Daaz Peppermint Bark Ice Cream is the Best. Thing. Ever. for pregnant ladies. If your lady is pregnant now, has ever been pregnant, or is even just a female, buy this for her. I really, really mean it.

Anyway, needless to say, we are extremely happy and excited. Yes, it was planned. Yes, I will probably write about it now that we've told everyone. I'm almost done with the spectacularly evil first trimester. Hallelujah.

Build a little birdhouse in your soul.

A bajillion years ago, when I actually used to write here more than once a month, we used to have this little meme we would do about "Things I'm Thinking About" and "Things I'm Not Thinking About". I can't remember the rest of it, I think it had stuff you were reading or watching or whatever. Anyway, my life was way more entertaining back then, but I will try a similar theme to update everyone.

Things I'm Thinking About:

Typing: My hand seems to be slowly coming back to life, which is nice. I cannot be bothered to be productive when my hand is numb. I'm forced to read The Superficial all day and contemplate my deep-seated existential angst. It's pretty much a full time job.

Babies: I think I might want to get one. Not in the "kidnapping" sense, but more in the "throw caution to the wind and have sex without birth control for the first time since I was 18" sense. I will be sure to let you all know how that turns out.

The Boy: He's wonderful. I looked at him the other night and said "This is the first time I've ever been married where I didn't want to kill myself after the third day." Awwwwwwww, I'm so romantic. That guy is so lucky!

Things I'm Not Thinking About:

The Election: OK, I am thinking about this a bit. Up here in the Northwest a lot of people have the Sarah Palin Alaska/Minnesota/Wisconsin/Canada accent. That always reminds me I hate her.

Work: Again, I am thinking about it. I need to be actually doing it, but...baby steps.

Things I'm Reading:

In Defense of Food. I like it, but it can be a bit preachy. I feel extra-guilty about my Diet Coke, so then I have to drink another one to make me feel better. Vicious cycle. Sometimes, I throw caution to the wind a gulp down a Butterfinger Blizzard to boot.

Things I'm Watching:

Pushing Daisies. LOVE IT! I love Emerson, Ned, Olive, Chuck and most especially Digby. Finally, a show not set in a damn hospital or on a desert island. Thank Jebus.

Well, I guess that's about it for now. I wish I could talk about work, it's been exciting lately. But, alas, we bought a house in February, and I need the money. So, it would be inconvenient to get fired. You'll have to trust me that it's been a wild ride lately.

Yup yup.

4 vials in which to place blood (1 red top, 3 lavender): $4.00
3 Nurses for 25 minutes: $120.00
5 needles and setups: $1.28
2 rubber tourniquets: $0.36
5 holes in my hands and arms: Free apparently

FINALLY HITTING A GODDAMN VEIN: PRICELESS

Pity: Party of 1

I'm pretty much in a funk. A deep, dark, blue, sad, numb-handed funk. My body just keeps betraying me over and over and over again. I'm 33 years old and I am a sad person with numb hands and it's just pathetic. I try very hard to look at the bright side, or to at least not focus constantly on the negative, but right now it's pretty hard. I ate ice cream for dinner, I haven't been drinking (yet), and I am positively melancholy. The Boy will be home soon, and he is sooooooooooo nice and such a wonderful person and he always wants to make me feel better and he takes it so personally when I don't.

On the up side, my diet coke well runneth over and I have a job that allows me to pend $4.00 on a pint of ice cream that I will eat in secret while crying and bemoaning my various woes.

The claw

I am around, Numb hands make blogging a hassle. MS sucks.

New couch! We're official adults!

We decided to buy a new couch. We're getting a different fabric, but we really like the style. It's from Dania...we're finally graduating from Ikea to Ikea Plus!

I miss air conditioning

I tried to come up with a clever title but I couldn't because my brain has actually baked inside my head and is no longer capable of retrieving things like funny movie lines.

On the up side, The Boy is making me dinner. He's so good. I swear, I totally don't deserve him. I've showed him my broken toe at least 53 times since Wednesday and he is so patient - he goes "Mmmmmm...gross", EVERY SINGLE TIME.

On the not up side, my left hand is basically totally numb, making typing extremely difficult, which will likely cut into my blogging in the same way it has cut into my work productivity. I totally can't feel my left pinky, which seems like not a big deal, but think of how many times you hit the Shift key or Shift with a special character. My inability to feel my ring finger is the tragic downfall of A S Z Q W and X. Typing the word "ass", one of my favorite words, has lost its joy.

If you are considering getting multiple sclerosis, I would highly advise against it. What a hassle. Thank god I can still hold a wine glass.

Oh yeah. Also it's 90 here. And no one has AC (very hard to type!!!), so it's like twelve thousand degrees in our house and even though I have a fan pointed right at me it is not even helping - my lipglosses are all melted like they've been in my car, and I think maybe my spleen is actually liquified.

If it weren't for bad luck...

I'd have none at all.

Let me recap:

May 2007 - diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
December 2007 - compression fracture of T-10 vertebrae because I'm a dumbass and should have never gotten on that ATV
January 2008 - bad personal life event which I won't discuss online, but trust me, it sucked
August 12, 2008 - running down the stairs to grab the phone and broke my freaking toe! It's purple and black and blue and red...like tie dye if you could tie dye a bruise. Awesome.

To add insult to injury my left hand is pretty much completely numb now which is making typing a true adventure. My neurologist is switching practices and won't be available so I can't even get seen until after Sept. 1. Not that there's anything he can do really...welcome to MS - the incurable disease that causes a bunch of totally shitty symptoms with no real treatment except a bunch of drugs that make you feel even shittier than the disease or medicate you into a drug-addled coma. FAB!

I'm gonna go get a glass of wine. I hope I can go to the gym tomorrow...between numb legs and the broken toe, I'm ready for a damn vacation.

This is why the Romanians hate me*

Normally, I consider myself to be pretty much an upfront, outgoing, tell it like it is kinda gal. For some reason, this all goes out the window when confronted openly and in person about a subject I am uncomfortable with. For instance...my alleged fatness. It's true that I have put on a couple of" happy to be married" and "thank god my husband loves to cook and also loves curvy girls" pounds. So, I joined a gym. I have been diligently attending said gym three or four times a week at 6:00am. Yes...SIX in the ANTE-MERIDIAN.

Anyway, part of joining this particular gym is two free sessions with a personal trainer. I vehemently oppose the idea of going to one of these trainers for a whole variety of reasons...they try to sell you supplements, they try to sell you more time working with them, etc. But, given my fear of open confrontation, when I signed up for the gym and the membership guy signed me up for a personal training session (it's FREE!), I was powerless to resist. We set it up for last Monday at 6:30. In the MORNING! It's FREE!

I was there. He was not. SWEET! I thought for sure I had actually managed to escape. No appointment, no one measuring my fat, no one trying to sell me protein powder, and no confrontation. But then, later at work...my cell phone rang. I didn't pick up. That's OK, I thought...I'm totally OK with being passive aggressive, I just won't call back. Problem solved.

Tuesday at the gym passes uneventfully. Then, Wednesday morning, I'm working out and I hear "Energy Spatula? Come to the front desk. Ms. Spatula...please come to the front desk!" And, here's where I made a mistake. I looked up! And, there he was...standing at the front desk...our eyes met...he waved...I knew I was in trouble.

I couldn't ignore him, eye contact was made. So, I stepped off my treadmill and headed over. He apologized profusely and wanted to set me up with a new appointment. How come no one, INCLUDING ME, has mentioned that he showed up at the gym at 6am specifically for the purpose of stalking me down? Why didn't I think of that??

So, I give in. I set the appointment for the following morning. In my 1/2 hour with the trainer, here is what I learned:

1. Muscles burn glycogen. Not everyone knows that.
2. If you take 8 years to get fat, you can't expect to lose it overnight. Fatty.
3. Most people quit the gym after four months.
4. If I manage to stick it out for four months, I will find myself becoming more magnetic as I shed my dull, inactive, unenergetic persona for a more "active" and "fit" and..."likeable" self. (People like thin people. I'm not thin. But, someday, with his help, I could at least make an attempt to get there.)
5. Romanians hate Gypsy's. Swear to God he told me this.
6. He knows all about MS because his sister-in-law has it. I shouldn't focus on my limitations, it's counterproductive. If I can't feel my legs, well, squats will help me with that if I would just quit whining.
7. Glycogen!
8. If I want more sessions, they can be had for the low, low price of $125. An HOUR!
9. Oh, I was in the Air Force? Well, he was a Marine. He's surprised I even know how to find a gym.
10. On a scale of 1-5, I know o, ZERO, about weight-lifting. The sooner I accept that, the sooner we can all get on with our lives.

But, I made it through. I fulfilled my commitment to have one free training session - I'm done, right?

WRONG! Today, I'm on the elliptical machine, headphones on, minding my own business. If I wasn't such a pussy about my MS and all focus-y on it, I would be on the treadmill, but the whole "numb from the thighs down" thing has me pouting like a five year old. I look over, and guess who is standing next to me in all of his pony-tailed glory? The staring commences. I'm not taking off my headphones, and apparently he's not budging. Finally I say "I'm watching the news." And he goes, "Yeah"...and then stands there in further awkward silence for at least two minutes.

Anyway, the whole thing is just creeping me out. This guy wants to save me from my own fatness, and I just want to be patted on the back for getting up at the crack of dawn and not falling off the treadmill and killing myself. If he had bothered to ask me my goals, he would know this. Instead I am cowering behind the elliptical machine every morning and dodging out of my own gym like it's the walk of shame or something.

*Actual quote from my trainer right before he enlightened me on his Gypsy heritage and the fact that Romanians hate Gypsy's for their superior ability to do squats and lunges. Seriously.

Fail!

I can't even believe this John Edwards thing. OMG WTF. As the kids would say. I swear, when will these sanctimonious assholes stop lecturing everyone else about how to stay happily married and all that other BS when really they're out banging whatever adoring staffer comes along? I'm disgusted.

Let's see. What else is going on? Not much. The MS is acting up again. Numb left fingers, and numb legs from mid-thigh down. For all you people without multiple sclerosis (ie: probably everyone who reads this blog but me), "numb" is not the same as "paralyzed". It's more like wearing an oven mitt while trying to type. Your fingers are there, and you can feel them yourself...like sense that they are still on your hand, you can move them, you can see them...the skin just feels like it's been liberally hosed down with novacaine. Which sounds fun, but isn't. So, anyway...I'm walking funny again. Sadly, no booze and no awesome story to go with the funny walk, unless you think brain herpes is funny. Which my husband totally does.

I am so excited my internet is back. I keep thinking of things to write about...and then when I didn't have the internet I would just come home and rant and rave until The Boy's eyes glazed over and then be passive aggressive for a week. Because I'm mature like that.

PS: The example labels that Google suggested for this post are "scooters, vacation, fall". Done.

Um.

Yeah. My internet has been down for like two months. I have just been too lazy busy with the wedding/reception/honeymoon to call the guy and have it fixed. As of today...fixed! So, I may be back on some kind of regular basis depending on if the internet holds out for more than five minutes. The nutshell of the past two months is: Wedding in Vegas - awesome. Reception in the backyard - Fun and stressful at the same time. Honeymoon - Relaxing, gorgeous, lots of booze. And I saw a whale. And dolphins. Woo!

You only get married...three times

We got back from Las Vegas last night...I'm officially Mrs. The Boy. YAY!

It's absolutely crazy how busy we are. House renovations (he's doing most of it, I'm helping...sorta), wedding, reception (50 people - early July at our house), honeymoon (mid-July - cruise), work, family stuff, friends, separating the recycling, laundry, remote control needs new batteries, did anyone buy coffee??...you get the picture.

So, we're back. The Boy is doing his renovation projects (he's a drywall master - and I'm not just saying that cuz we're married), and I'm viewing wedding photos online. All I can say is "Thank God we got married in Vegas, because anywhere else and the dress I chose would probably be banned as pornographic". Tee hee!

Hopefully now that we're back I'll have a chance to write a bit more. We'll see.

If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball!

I've been swamped. I went to a CLE where someone said, I swear to God, "It's been a great learning lesson." Awesome. Bureaucracy rocks!

I also met some militant disability rights people who are very accusatory about my views of disability laws and their "ableist" perspectives and biases. Aren't I the one with the disability? Aren't I the one giving myself shitty shots three times a week that make me look like a pink polka dotted skin rashed pincushion freak? What is "ableist"? What does that even mean?? These people want me to (apparently) admit that because I have a medical issue versus a psychological or learning issue: (1) I'm lucky that I am able to be diagnosed within the "established mainstream medical community", and (2) I'm OBVIOUSLY not stigmatized, degraded, or discriminated against because of my diagnosis. Oh obviously!

I have to tell you, having any disease/condition/problem/disability, be it mental or physical, is basically The Suck. Who wants to trade their "psychosocial" diagnosis for my freaking incurable degenerative neurological disorder?? Bah!

Anyway, the bottom line is that people are weird. I already knew that, but it's good to have it confirmed once in awhile.

I'm getting married three weeks from Friday. Weird!

Also, I'm learning to drywall. A girl can never have too many skills to fall back on.

The thing about MS

Here's the thing about having MS. You look SO good! It's funny, because if you read books or websites about MS (and why would you not?), PwMS (that's People with MS for all you non-initiated) talk about this phenomenon ALL the time. I look exactly the same as I did before I was diagnosed. Exactly the same as before I had my first exacerbation (ahhh...the totally numb feet during law school, turns out it wasn't stress Dr. Smartypants!). Well, I'm fatter. But other than that, I look exactly the same.

However, inside my head, it's a different story. Multiple sclerosis literally means "multiple scars". Inside my brain are scars that result from inflammation caused by my immune system attacking my central nervous system and lead to a disruption of the nerve signals traveling to and fro. And, lucky for me, I also have scars in my spinal cord nerves...a good indicator of potential mobility problems later in life.

As a result of my scars, or as I like to call them, "Tinglemakers", I have numerous ongoing, yet invisible, symptoms. These include: numb hands, tingling in all extremities, trigemic nerve pain (pain in facial nerves and teeth - it's excruciating), headaches, blurry vision in my right eye, and fatigue. Fatigue is a result of nerves finding new, but less efficient, ways to do things. Think of saving a penny off of every dollar you spend - it adds up! If your nerves reroute themselves in a slightly less efficient manner - by the end of the day - it adds up! As a side note, most medical books call the scars "lesions", but I hate that...it sounds so...so...brain herpes.

So, I don't know where I'm going with this. I drop my keys a lot. I need more naps. I fall down quite a bit more than your average Jane. It's not the end of the world. The side effects of the meds are honestly worse than most of the actual disease stuff. But, it's coming up on my one year anniversary of diagnosis (Happy Memorial Day everyone!), and I'm not sure I can say I've come to terms with all that this means. I look in the mirror and I just see me. And I kind of think that's OK. I mean, I don't want to be one of those sad-sack, I'm all about my disease type of people. But, when I feel really shitty, I kind of wish I could have a rash (ok, maybe not a rash so much) or turn blue or something...just to prove I'm not faking it. Maybe I just need physical validation of my occasional internal ickiness. (PS: Dear God, I promise I do NOT need physical validation in the sense of a cane, wheelchair, breathing tube, or any other horrible MS related medical nightmare. I'm sorry I even brought it up. Love, E. Spat).

OK. I've rambled enough. The Boy is making me dinner and has poured me a HUGE glass of wine, so off I must go. These meds are supposedly hard on my liver, but I kind of feel like a life without wine and cheese is a life I'd rather not live. They test my blood every three months - someone would let me know if I was sliding down hill in the liver department - right? Let's drink to healthy livers!!!

PS: Go visit Postcards From Yo Momma. Hilarious.

Stuff and things.

Today we registered for wedding gifts. It sounds fun, but really it's exhausting. By the time we were done I pretty much didn't want to get married anymore - even with the free gifts. We also had a hard time because we kept feeling guilty about how much everything costs...I mean, I don't want to ask people to buy me a $129 Calphalon sauce pan...but, somehow I overcame my fear and registered for a bunch of stuff that I will love and use all the time, but that is NOT cheap. It's weird to think about having grown up cooking implements. This is my third marriage and his second, and it's the first time either of us has registered for gifts. It was fun to point the scanner gun at things though. Click - it's mine! Click - it's mine! Very easy to get carried away.

We also bought wedding rings today. Tungsten steel for him (no, seriously), and two tiny diamond bands for me, one for each side of my engagement ring. Mine might not be ready by the wedding, but that's OK...we'll still have the piece of paper, the unending love and devotion, and a 10-piece set of Calphalon to show for it. Right?

That brings us to the wedding. June 13th. Friday, June 13th. Friday the 13th. Oh well. My mom was born on Friday the 13th and she's pretty cool, so I'm going to work with it. We're going to Vegas...a small elopement there and then a HUGE reception/party here in July. I think it works better that way. Then we can really enjoy the party without the wedding stress...we're doing a huge backyard barbeque. With a cupcake tower. I heart cupcakes!

Let's see...what else. I'm typing this on my beautiful sunny back patio, which is pretty cool. Other than that, we are just trying to keep up with wedding plans, honeymoon plans, working, taking care of the house (The Boy is drywalling the basement right now), and doing all those regular life things. Add in the MS, perpetually numb hands, and medication side effects, and it's pretty much a neverending party. WOO!

Oh yeah, I also bought an at-home chemical peel and gave it to myself today. Swear to God, the label says that if it's burning, it's working. No pain, no gain - I guess.

Brokeback E. Spat

For Christmas, The Boy and I went to visit my parents. If you're a reader from way back, you remember they live in the mountains in southern Oregon. They were very excited to have us there for nearly 10 days, and planned LOTS of activities for us. Including riding ATV's. As it turns out, shifting with my hand while braking with my other hand is not really my strong point. During my "training session", there was a point where The Boy and Daddy Spatula were yelling "HIT THE BRAKES! HIT THE BRAKES!" I was yelling "WHERE THE HELL ARE THE BRAKES???" You would think the first part of the training would be where to find the brakes. But, you'd be wrong.

Exhibit 1: The Hedge
















You don't actually "know" me in person, but you can trust me when I say that the hole in the hedge is the exact shape of an E. Spat on an ATV going full speed.

So, even though any person with an IQ above freezing would know that I am clearly not cut out for the high adventure of ATV riding in the woods, we set off for just such an adventure.

To make the long story short...shifting from neutral into first while accelerating will definitely cause the ATV to go straight backwards onto the back wheels, throwing the rider off onto the rocky path. Hard. And, just as an aside, if this ever happens to you and you hear a giant "CRACK!!", it's not your helmet hitting the ground, no matter what everyone tries to convince you. It's your T-10 vertebrae breaking. Just so you know.

Exhibit 2: My T-10 vertebrae
















I didn't go to the hospital for nearly two months. It was two days before Christmas, I didn't want to make a scene and ruin everyone's holiday. My mom was already crying when we showed up from our ride with me covered in dirt and barely able to walk or move. I decided I had pulled a muscle and left it at that. When it still hurt at the end of February, I went to my doctor, had an X-ray, and...well...I guess the picture speaks for itself.

It's feeling pretty much better now. The ortho I went to told me it would probably take 6 months to heal most of the way, and hopefully I won't need surgery. Going to the ER probably wouldn't have changed anything - it still would have been a wait and see thing, but I would definitely have gotten better drugs. No one could believe I survived this on Aleve and a couple Flexeril the first day or two that my mom had left over from a hip injury. It hurt. Bad.

So, the moral of this story, if there is one, is that ATV's are dangerous and I'm a bad shifter. And also, I'm a total badass because I broke my back and didn't even cry!

Out of towners

We decided to make a spontaneous trip to Oregon to see my dad for his 60th birthday, which was yesterday. We flew in, showed up, and surprised him pretty good. It was fun. Anyway, since I have been pretty much the world's least reliable writer over the past few months, I thought I should say...no I haven't disappeared, yes I will be back in a few days, and no my home wireless internet isn't working. Again. Oh, you didn't ask? Well, it isn't. Just so you know. Not that I'm bitter.

In other news, my mom took us to lunch at her golf club today. The food was horrible. Not just run of the mill not that great. Truly awful. I actually didn't eat past the first bite because I knew I would be sick later. They did give it to us free. Yay. Too bad they couldn't have given it to us...say...edible. But, hey...whatever.

Third time's a charm (you know that's what you were thinking)

That's right guys - I've been gone for, like, six months. Sorry about that. The short version of events is that I was dealing with my MS and medication side effects, then I got engaged, , then I broke my back (oops!), then we bought a house, then we moved, then I made like a billion business trips. Whew.

Moving in order of occurence, I'll start with the engagement. It was very romantic...and, of course, there's kind of a funny story.

So, The Boy took me to Victoria, Canada, for the weekend (this is in mid-October). On our second night, we decided to walk to this restaurant right on the harbor and have dinner. As we're walking, we come across a girl in a motorized wheelchair. For someone in a motorized chair, she was moving at exactly the speed of totally stopped. We stopped to talk to her, and it turned out, the battery in her chair had died.

The Boy, being the nice guy he is, asked her if it would be OK if he took a look underneath the hood (metaphorically speaking), to see if he could help. She said "sure", so we spent a good half hour trying to get the chair moving. While The Boy is trying to become an expert on Canadian motorized wheelchair technology, I start talking to the girl. It turns out she has MS, and has just suffered a severe exacerbation that left her unable to walk. She was 26.

The Boy offered to disengage the emergency brake and push the chair to the restaurant we were heading to, where she said they would let her sit at the bar and recharge her battery. Unfortunately, the e-brake did not have a "disengage" setting.

To make a long story somewhat shorter, The Boy pushed this girl, in her motorized wheelchair (a total of at least 250 pounds between her and the chair), UP HILL, for probably close to a mile. We got to the restaurant and she pointed out her apartment, just at the top of the hill. So, yeah, he pushed her the rest of the way home. Swear to GOD.

Meanwhile, the boy has developed a certain, shall we say, sheen. He won't take his jacket off, no matter how many times I ask. Finally, on the way up the last big hill, he handed it over. He told me later he was terrified I would feel the ring box.

We get back down the hill to the restaurant and walk in, both of sweating like pigs. The bartender goes "Is it raining outside"? Uh, no. So, we tell this story and get a free round of drinks. Finally, we head up to the balcony and eat a lovely dinner overlooking Victoria Harbor. After dinner, The Boy proposed - with the ring of my dreams and two colors of pink M&M's printed with "E. Spat, will you marry me?" (half the message on each M&M, them's a lot of words!)

So, we came back engaged, and with an added bonus of good karma.

Also, at another bar we said we had just gotten engaged, so the guy next to us bought us some shots. After we did the shots, he goes "So, are you pregnant?" Yes. Yes I am. My baby loves Jack Daniels and secondhand smoke! Who asks that?

And, perhaps the best part - which I learned later - The Boy sweat so much that he had to go to the bathroom for probably 15 minutes to find two M&M's with the words still on them. Sweaty M&M's are so awesome!


In the next few days, I'll tell the scintillating story of how I got a compression fracture of my T-10 vertebrae.

I'm considering coming back.

Thoughts? Is anyone still checking for updates? Drop me a line. I haven't checked my email for nearly 6 months (I suck), but I miss writing, and I miss all my pals. I'm still not practicing law, but I am getting married, and I am doing really well. Tell me if any of you are still out there!