Stumblr: Life with MS

This morning I rose promptly at 7 instead of asking Alexa to perform all of her tricks -- news, Jeopardy!, jokes -- as I usually do to delay facing the day. I showered last night to speed my morning routine in the name of arriving at my infusion center at 8am, thus minimizing the amount of time I have to make up at the end of the day now that I am out of paid leave. #newjobproblems I'm back to the infusion center I like. It's a part of Arthritis and Rheumatism Associates, which ensures I think of Uncle Wiggily every four weeks. I go in, fill out a form about my abilities/sense of well-being (today I'm a six on the zero to ten/best to worst scale), and then settle in for 90 minutes of screen time and the drip, drip, drip of the drug that's helped my disease steady for the past three and a half years. "Uncle Wiggily wants to be cured of his rheumatism.  On the way to Dr. Possum’s office, he has many adventures.” – The Uncle Wiggily Game , © 1967 Parker Broth...

If my alarm goes off before 7am, there must be a damn good reason for it, preferably one that has something to do with traveling somewhere fun to eat wonderful things. In the case of last Tuesday, I rose at 6:08 to travel five miles across town for a brain MRI. Hardly fun or wonderful but a necessary twice-a-year ritual thanks to my current disease modifier, Tysabri . Tuesday's was my thirteenth MRI since 2010! (Hat tip to Google Calendar for that statistic.) I bet if you added up all of my MRIs since 2004, you'd find that I had logged a full day in the tube. It isn't quite enough to fulfill Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule, but I daresay I'm pretty good at it. MRIs begin with extensive questionnaires about the metal in your body. It is wise to take these questions seriously, because the M stands for Magnet(ic) -- and you do *not* want to forget to mention (and remove!) a nipple ring before encountering a super strong magnet. (I was once in the waiting room w...