ELLIE'S BLOG on Living Well with MS

Last week my two wonderful sons put up  a ramp off of the bridge going over our back yard which runs from our house to the deck.  This ramp allows me to go down to our garden to where my raised salad bed is.

  So on days when climbing down           those  steps to the garden and standing and walking is not that good                                                       I will always be able to pick my own greens from my raised salad bed.

  It's easy for me to go up and down the ramp with my wheelchair or my new walker.  If my walking is gone after I've been out front or I'm not good I can go back up the ramp by sitting on my walker and  push myself up backwards very easily.

In every way this new walker was a wise choice. The larger wheels make it easier for me to go over grass, gravel or bumpy dirt.  This walker also has a basket with space to carry my gardening equipment.  And of course I also can more easily check my plants like my Climbing Fairy Rose Bush and other plants on that side of the garden.

In addition it allows me easy access to the side of our house to check on the plants there too.Then I go around to the front where I garden also. As I have also  put in a lot of time and thought there too. So it's important for me to check that out just like I do in back.

And Rejoice and welcome each plant that reappears or newly appears. Or like the tulips opening up! Have a wonderful Spring

ellie

My son's will be putting together a slide show on how they made the ramp. So be sure to check back if your thinking of putting up a ramp, They put mine up in 2 days!        ellie

Last Tuesday I was down at my Neurologist's office having my monthly IV Sol-u-med treatment.  There were four other patients there also. We were all of a similar age and had had MS for years. We had adjusted to our losing function by adapting to continue to have a good life.

I was feeling good coming out of my last relapse and a bit chatty. The room has low light a very easygoing nurse and comfortable chairs which produces a restful environment.  We started talking about things that were of mutual interest and found that the ways we have been accommodating multiple sclerosis in our lives was quite similar.

For example: we started talking about how much we like using the computer. And we found that we were all dependent to quite a degree on the information given to us by our children and grandchildren. Then laughing we shared that they all were giving us too much information too fast!  They didn't do it on purpose. Their brain's just worked faster than ours now did.

We also were finding similar ways to compensate for this too. We unanimously agreed that having them write it down so that we could do it at our own speed was the best.  And it was a unanimous very strong no- no to giving us two or three Windows Shortcuts at the same time.  One at a time is our speed.

Then we moved on to talk about gardening which was a love of us all.  I had just recently received three Rose Plants from the Antique Rose Emporium in Texas.  I shared how I want to use them as a bower over part of my bridge that goes across my yard to get from my house to the deck.  One of the group there had a husband who loved planting roses so we shared information on roses.  And when we talked about our vegetable gardens I had to share my raised salad bed too. One person was going to try the upside down tomato plants as her dog was into everything. As we all had dogs at some point,we understood.

And of course the conversation came around to the heat problem. In the summer for all of us it was early to bed and Early to rise so that we could get out before it got hot. When we went out we all brought our cell phone's with us so if we stayed out too long and couldn't move we could call to get help back into the shade.

I've been thinking about this conversation throughout the past week. I've been trying to figure out why it seemed to be so satisfying and meaningful to me.

Could it be that over the years we had had to face and learn to live with most of the same problems with MS. And over these years we had all learned to adjust to our losing function by adapting to continue to have a good life. None of us were giving up on finding ways to continue in some fashion doing things that we love to do. I think it was because of this there was a real emotional connection of similar problems we faced . 

For example most times when I mention heat being a major problem limiting how much I can do outside in the summer to non-MS people I feel a sense of disconnect. There's no gut emotional connection that you feel they understand. But this is what I was getting with the other women from our talk .

But then when someone talks to me about their divorce or the loss of a spouse or child I can't that say I have a gut emotional understanding of their situation either.

You can understand other people's issues on a much deeper level if you have had a similar experience. You can try even if you haven't had the experience but it will not be a gut emotional connection with that person.  I'm sure that this is the reason why support groups are so popular.

I know of people whose only friends are those in their support group.  I haven't done much with support groups and when I tried it didn't meet my needs.  However this casual conversation with like people was very important to me.

It was also a reminder to me not to expect the impossible from people who haven't walked in my shoes.   ellie