Just Go With It

WOW its been almost 1 year since I've made a blog entry and so much has changed in what is really a short time. As many know back in May 2010 I went back to giving tours at Cave of the Mounds on the weekends, it was amazing and did so much for me mentally and physically. I have been very fortunate to learn what makes my MS flare up so early in my diagnoses ....dairy, heat, and stress....being in the cool cave again helped me tons, it was really the only environment where I felt like myself and symptom free. It was something I went back to for myself rather than a "job", now as my friends and co-workers know, I am not there anymore, I come and go like like a boomerang at times LOL. My good friends and family know I'm a risk taker, so back in November 2010 Tom and I decided to follow his job down to Kentucky where he had been working for 2 months, that time alone w/ our 3 monsters was quite the adventure ;) Everything happened extremely fast and when it was already a fast decision it ended up happening sooner than we thought. I went into this move excited to see new places and excited meet new people. Moving down to Kentucky I like to joke that we brought the WI snow with us, although we'd consider it a mild WI winter it was still a lot more snow than KY was used to LOL, so w/ lots of snow like were used to, our winter was normal while many new neighbors in their homes...now that its spring time we're slowly meeting people but I'm finding that people are too shy or I'm too outgoing ;) Although we've been very fortunate to have a very nice young family living below us, its been wonderful to go to the park and for walks w/ our kids. Besides our neighbors we haven't been meeting many new people... at least not seeing the same people twice, its such a large complex that people aren't as close as they are when we lived in a small town where everyone knew your name and then some (which was kind of scary sometimes LOL). The boys are doing great as well, they do miss their friends back in WI but only having each other to play with at times has brought them closer as friends and not just brothers.

Back to MS again, I'm still dairy free and having fun making new dairy free recipes and substitutions; I've even built up an aversion to most dairy products, sour cream for example smells terrible to me. Yoga has been a great natural medicine too, stretching beyond and through odd sensations in my body has become a great feeling, rather than avoid these sensations of sometimes tingling or losing my balance I just go with it, my muscles have become stronger and have learned to compensate during these times. Well I'm sure I've said this before but I will try to blog more often, have a great day everyone or if its anything like my recent gap between entries... have a great year!

Just left with questions

So, way toooo many things have happened and continue to go on and now I am just left with questions......

How low will people go?
Are there any decent people left in the world?
When is enough...enough already?
When have we had enough?
How much can I take?
What will happen next? Will it be good or bad?
When will we get our break?
Does someone have to fall in order for someone else to get a break?

and ultimately ....When does having hope pay off?

My kids and husband are wonderful, for what has happened we've proven to be very strong. I am finding it hilarious that MS right now is the least of our problems, I thought MS could beat the shit outta me pretty good but apparently it has nothing on life itself.

Most things are clear and sometimes I'm stupid

Not stupid in a goofy way (that's a given) but I have been stupid with my health, I don't want to depend on medicine my entire life and the answers are very clear but I am choosing to take baby steps, I wish I were stronger though. Its ironic enough that I can't eat dairy and I live in Wisconsin, I don't mind being dairy free, but it seems that a lot of things cause my MS flare ups which aren't that bad (mainly surprise numbness somewhere! right now its in my right knee) but I know that things can be better. Its also ironic that I'm a baker and most of the things I make I should NOT eat, I could become one of those people that just bakes for others just to make them happy which would bring me joy as well but c'mon realisticly that's not fun allll the time. Just like the start of being dairy free, this could be a new adventure in the kitchen to come up with new recipes. Right now I am seeing MS triggers as stress and sweets! I plan to take baby steps to figure out MORE about my MS and I'd like to switch to natural sweeteners as well as cut back on gluten. I feel I'm being a little too picky on being "normal" again because I have come across many people that have it way worse than I do but truely everyone does have the answers somewhere. I feel very blessed that I've rebounded very well; I can walk normal, I can see and I can carry my boys.

Dairy FREE Oatmeal Pancakes

Filling, very easy, and HEALTHY!

Ingredients

2 cups oatmeal
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp salt
1 T baking powder
1 T brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 cups water
1 T veg. oil
1 T honey
1 egg (beaten)

Process 2 cups oatmeal until fine (it will always have some sort of rough texture), you can leave the oatmeal as is but the pancakes will be very thick.

Mix together oatmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, b.sugar, and cinnamon. Add water, oil, honey, and egg to dry mixture and combine well. On greased skillet pour 1/4 cup batter for each pancake, flip when bubbles start to appear (a few minutes, be careful not to flip too early as they can be fragile), once flipped cook approx. 2-3 minutes longer. Serve with your favorite syrup! Enjoy, this recipe make 12 pancakes.

**TIP** between batches cool the pan so the next batch doesn't cook too fast and become too thick.

I wanna have my cake and eat it too

Seriously! My "cake" is health and I still want to eat cake! Mainly talking about sweets and sugar, contemplating another diet change. I am feeling amazing with my dairy-free diet change, to me that was easy but I know I can still feel better. I've come across various diet change personal success stories and in most of those stories MORE than dairy was cut from their diets. As a baker I am honestly scared and being a big baby, I know the right answer but I am just plain chicken! My goal from the beginning of being diagnosed was to do EVERYTHING that I can, hitting MS from different angles and yet I know certain things I am putting into my body are bad ideas and a little further into that day I'm not gonna be feeling as good as I could be. So WHY am I having trouble with this? I am considering maybe a slow transition, but whats the point of that when I already know!

Everyone knows someone with MS

MS has come out in the open for me as if it were the ultimate 60 foot monster (why 60?, *shrug* its a # why not LOL), its a very complex and surprising monster that always has something up its sleeve, and MS has become so common that everyone know someone who has it, kinda hard to miss a monster that big. Its kind of like when we found out we were having twins, twins didn't seem as common to us at the time but now everyone is having twins or had them and we have a good amount on both sides of our family! MS on both sides too, yup that sucks doesn't it :P

We have 3 boys and often are asked are you going for "that girl next?".....hmmmm...probably not, I feel a bit selfish just wanting to work on bettering myself these days but also I feel as if I'm protecting "that girl" that might have been in our future. Studies have shown that MS effects women more than men, in my family alone there are 3 women living with MS! I'd rather not risk something like that for "that girl". Everything happens for a reason and I like to think things through and analyze, it makes sense to me :)

Forget about the backburner

I was thinking the other day about how MS is truely appart of me, it doesn't control me, I am still very much capable of being my active and busy self. I just need to be more aware...esspecially with my lack of ballance, falling sucks! LOL Everyday I feel like I am improving and to keep that going I can't just forget I have MS, I need to be active with staying healthy, sticking with my tight medicine schedule and dairy free diet (which I also learned the hard way I CAN'T cheat on....that leads to numbness in a surprise area lets say...could be my knee, could be part of my stomach?). So far I am doing very well with never missing a day that I need to give myself a shot, good thing I don't mind needles, I think my tattoos already showed that :) which I'm wayyyy overdue for another one.

My dairy free diet has led to some fun kitchen experiments; I now make my own dairy free cream soups to use in casseroles and other recipes. I've also had fun creating new recipes for healthiER desserts like brownies and other bars. Its actually quite easy to substitute dairy in recipes, I'm not really deprived of too many flavors at all.