I was talking to my mom yesterday and she read me an "article" (read "police report") about a boy, well, he;s grown up now, who was Lew's best friend growing up. Just like his sister was my best friend growing up and her sister was Amanda's best friend growing up and their mom was mom's best friend. He is now facing 6 felony drug charges, and a small part of my heart died. He is only 22. He has ruined his life by selling cocaine to undercover officers on three seperate occasions. As mom was reading this literally a million thoughts ran through my head, memories, what-ifs, mistakes, wishes, regrets, excuses... And then of course I thought of Lew. They were so close. And how differently they turned out to be. It is a testament to unbringing and environment. We had a loving nurturing supportive family. They had an abusive drunk father, a lost hurt mother. Trying to find love where they could, and following a horrible example set before them that was only apologized for or aknowledged on a death bed created by drug and alcohol abuse. And here he is following in those footsteps.

We all grew apart through the years, following the path set before us, the direction dictated by the choices we made. But no matter how far apart our paths have gone from one another, it doesnt erase that love you have in that special place in your heart for friends who were, at the formative years of your life, more like family than friends. So it is that place, and that love that sears with pain upon hearing that one of them has followed a path, followed his choices into a dark, miserable and tragic life. It is that place that make the tears burn your eyes when you think maybe, you could have a made a difference all those years ago... Knowing that you cant change what happened, and knowing that you cant save that person from what they have become.

How do you save someone who doesnt know they need saving?

It is a good thing I dont have a weak heart cuz I would have had at least 5 heart attacks the last few days. well, yesterday and today. It has been so warm here the last couple days (and by warm I mean 31-33 degrees) so the 3-4 feet of snow that is sitting on our rooves is melting and falling off. It is SO loud. You can imagine how heavy the 3-4 feet of WET snow is and it is falling off the roof... and depending which side of the house it is falling off of it hits either the garage in the front, or the eve over the door in the back, before it hits the ground. It scared me SOOOO bad yesterday when the first one fell cuz it was so quiet and we were just watchin TV and that snow started crashing down. My heart skipped one or two beats! And throughout the night tonight the rest of it is falling, just ever once in a while. There is enough time in between that you forget about it until it falls again! Scares me ever time. It piled so deep in front of the house, Matt had to dig a path cuz the snow popped our basement window open and it was so heavy we couldnt get it closed again.

I offically started at the office today. We have so much work to do... Hope Matthew doesnt want to see me for the next three months. Between the office and the CM, I am not going to be home much.

On the up side, I have something to look forward to, I am going to be able to go home for Sarah's weding in June. I wasnt sur eif I would be able to, but Marianne is gifting my some of her airline miles so I dont have to find a way to pay for the tickets. Matthew really wants to go hometoo, but I dont know if he will be able to. I found a pretty decent flight for $633, which isnt too bad. I just wish that it wasnt so damn expensive to go home. We were talking about scoping out places to live while we are home since we have about 25 months till we move back. Kinda scary to think about it, and I would like Matt to help me look. But if we cant afford it, I guess I will have to do it on my own. At least I get to go to the wedding, and hopefully mom and dad will have the pool ready to I can just lay by the pool for two weeks... Ah, now THAT"S something to look forward to. When I am cold and tired, I will just think about being in the pool ,in the warm sun, with some sort of fruity drink... not a care in the world. Maybe two weeks wont be long enough!

Christmas Video

I watched a video that my mom sent to me of their Christmas st home. It was so hard not to cry through it, even though they were cracking jokes and making me laugh. And then that made it even more emotional. And then I got to thinking that I have to move soon. I have to find somewhere to move to. So I am open to help, or suggestions. We want to go back to Iowa, closer to the Quad Cities. Since Matt is going to be workin in Moline, and I think that I may have a better chance at findin work in the Quad Cities too. I was thinkin DeWitt, maybe... But If you have any suggestions or know of a nice area, let me know. I am SOOOO not lookin forward to trying to find somewhere to live. I realize that I have two years but before I know it, I am going to have only a year and then only 6 months and so on and so forth, so just help me out.

I have never before seen an actually Emergency Alert Broadcast but in this past month there have been three. two for major snowfall and white out conditions and tonight there was one for the tsunami warning. Cuz of the huge earthquake in Russia. Thre where 4 earthquakes here in AK in a three hours time span. Then add on top of that the 8.5 that hit Russia. Those poor people, running from their homes into -2 degree weather. i pray it doesnt happen here.

I guess this whole MS thing has been more of a mind game for me. I cant do anything about the body stuff cuz you cant stop it, sometimes you dont even now its happening. You cant predict it, and its never the same. So that is what is really hard about it. Cuz for two years (since my last MRI) I thought I was fine, but you put that image of those spots up there and it is clear I'm not fine. And it is so hard to deal with it. Logic says that there is a cause and an effect for everything that occurs. That is the way it is supposed to be. That is normal and right with in the rules of the universe. So when you are presented with only effect and you dont know the cause, and you know that you will never know the cause... It becomes too much for ones mind to deal with. And that is what I am overcoming right now. Forcing my mind to accept that, though invisible, there is a cause and I need to do whatever I can to counteract it so i can mantain a pseudo-normal life. But then what is normal? In the eye of the beholder.

I guess I am growing up. Dealing with this instead of excusing it away. Excuses are easy. I cant stand up and put my shoes on, well, I have a bad knee. I dont have any drive to have sex with my husband, well, I'm just tired. I am so exhausted all the time, I can barely lift my arms, well, I work two jobs, I am just working too hard. I cant remember where I put things if I dont put them in their assigned place, well, I am an airhead. I choke when I am eating cuz I dont have a gag reflex, well, I just eat too fast. See, excuses are easy, I can think of a million of them. But I shouldnt have to. I mean I am only 24. I shouldnt have the libdo of a 90 year old. Or the energy level. Or the bladder control. Or worry that I will choke on my food when no one is around. THAT is NOT normal. By any standard

Imagine what one could do with 1.6 million dollars. One could pay off one's debt. And then one's husband would be more pleasant to be around. That is what they are figuring you'd walk aay with if you won the jet. Wait... Start from the beginning. Alaska's former gov bought himself a private jet with the taxpayer's money. Now he out of office and the state still owes $2.5 million on a plane they never wanted in the first place. So they have put the jet up for auction on ebay but they cant get enough money to pay the thing off. So a radio show suggested holding a state wide raffle and let someone from the state win the jet and then do with it what they wanted. It is estimated that it costs $500 an hour just to operate the thing. So you figure most paople would sell it. The minimum bid was $2 million. So after taxes you would have about 1.6 million give or take. They are selling the tickets for $100. So sell 30,000 tickets and the jet is paid off plus some. The extra can go to a charity organization. It seems so cazy, but I think it is genious. $100 for a chance at $1 million? Those tickets are already sold. So its all they can talk about on the morning radio show, so I just get to thinking what you could do with that much money. I am so tired of being poor. I am going to have to have two jobs for a long time. Even after the one at NMSS is over, I think I am going to have to find another one. I just dont know what. But at that time it will be summer and I can spend a lot more time at the CM without losing all feeling in my body from the cold. I am so tired of living like this.

So basically, my neurologist said he is surprised that I am actually functioning as well as I am considering what my brain looks like. He sat down with me and showed me all the layers of my brain and all the lesions. There is a big difference in the coloring. They are brighter than they were, there were some new ones. There was a big one in my cerebelum, which would be my balance problems. There is also a big one in my frontal cortex which helps explain my extreme emotions, crying at everything and lauging so hysterically. But there are a lot of lesions. He is doing some blood tests and I have to get a bone density scan. And then I go back in a month and we will go from there to see what we are going to do. Basically, there isnt much more that we can do than what I am already doing. Mainly starting back on my meds. But we'll see what happens after the tests come back on whether I start with a speech therapist or whatever we may decide to do. Basically, I have spots on my brain and to keep them from getting worse, I just have to use my meds. So while there is no good news, there isnt any super bad news either. So thanks for your thoughts and support, and everything, I'm not out of the woods yet, but it looks like, for now, the damage has been done.

I have time to kind of wrap my head around all this crap, and I realize that I cant wrap my head around all this crap. So three days of thinking had come up completely empty and complete futile in trying to figure out what is happening to my body, and what is happening to my brain. My brain. It isnt even my brain that is the problem! But it is definately a huge part of it. It is just so frustrating!!! I dont even know what I feel about it. And that seems to be my issue for the last few months, I dont know how I feel. I dont know what to feel. And that is frustrating. I am getting tired of just trying to live. I am just trying to keep my head above water, and I am so tired of tredding water. Its like all I do is tred water. I am so tired of trying to stay afloat. Because everytime I feel like I am getting myself stablized, something else is thrown on the pile and I start drowning all over again.

Our Snow gauge. Check out the grill! 

I cant stand this whole situation. I have to get my strong mindset back. I have to pull it out of the file, and dust it off. And face this just like I have faced the six months of my life. God, can you believe six months? Well not quite, on the 11th. But still, six months. Since all this shit happened. And now I have to deal with this. I tell you what, I dont want to sound cocky or anything, but I dont even know how I deal with all of this. I dont even remember. Like i block it out of my mind.

Anyway, I just have to wait until Tuesday, I cant do anything until then. I wont even know how bad it is until then, but I cant keep myself from thinking about it! It hits so hard when it comes so unexpectedly. I dont want to start thinking that bad things will happen all the time, but I dont ever expect bad things to happen so it always comes unexpectedly. And then I get knocked off my feet.

I got letter in the mail today that said my MRI was worse than the last one that I had a couple year ago. So this whole time I thought that i was doing fine but I wasnt. I wasnt at all. So I have to go to Nuerology on Tuesday to see what they want to do. They said treatment in the letter. I hate this. I am thought I was doing so good. I know that I am doing my meds again, so that pisses me off so much. How could I be so niave. What if I had been doing what I was supposed to all along. Would I be in a better position than I am right now. It is so scary. I am so scared. I never felt sick. But in the back of my head I knew that I was having problems. My tremors hae gotten worse. My balance. My ablity to think of words. You know that once in awhile you get that tip on your tongue thing? It happens to me all the time. I just cant think of the words. I have bladder issues. I have to wear pantyliners everyday. And I went throught the most stressful time in my whole life. How can that not effect me? It is just one more way that she has fucked up a part of my life. (Sorry out the f-bomb, but it is the only appropriate word). I dont care about her. screw her.

What really bothers me is that "nothing" really happened. Nothing big you know? So it was all happening inside me, and I had no idea, and that scares me. I know I need to not stress about it because that isnt going to help matters at all. but I cant help it. It is just hard to come to realize it. I thought I was growing and accepting that this was happening to me, but I dont know if I... I just dont know. I is so hard when you get information like this. It drives in a little deeper and a little sharper. It cuts. Deep. I have years till my 10 year mark. When they think something "big" will happen. 10 years. Please, give me 10 more.

I am SO sick of snow. We got at least a foot so far today. Probably more. And it is still snowing. Last I heard it was to be around 14 inches. So I am serious in saying that we are accepting donations for a snow blower. We were both out there shoveling the drive today. We have a snow gauge in the back yard since neither one of us go back there. The snow is three feet on top of the grill. It looks ridiculous!I'll post a pic of it when I get it on the computer! It took my 45 minutes to get across town today. Imagine that. It took me the same amount of time to drive across town that it takes to drive to Moline! It was so scary cuz you couldnt see anything. I was shaking, I didnt know where the road was... I wish I didnt have to do it. Starting next month, I wont have to.