the future, predictions, predictability

I posted about being worried because of being denied disability insurance.  But for the moment, I feel pretty good.  As M told me the other day, she's glad I'm as good as I am.  I am sure not going to run any marathons, and some days I limp and hobble along, but that is the bad knees, not the MS.  In some ways, the whole MS thing hasn't really hit home.  Sure I saw the little white lesions on my brain MRI.  Sure, I have had issues with numbness in my feet and legs, some of which will flair back up, I sometimes feel like I walk on a pair of balled up socks under the ball of my feet.  But is it really real? 
I believe that I still have a long productive road ahead, of work, life, etc.  There are a lot things I haven't done yet that I want to do.  So, I am stubborn enough, determined enough, to want to do them.  Right now, M & I are working towards getting healthier, eating better, getting more physically fit, losing some of the excess weight we have both put on over the past few years.  I get frustrated with things that seem to keep jumping in as road blocks - things like breaking my ankle, finding out I have MS, etc. But I'm no quitter.
I have had to learn to reinvent myself several times in my life.  M likes to say I grew up in "leave it to beaver's" household.  In some ways I did.  When I was small both my parents worked, but my mother quit her job and took care of me and the house and my brother by around the time I started school.  My parents were married more than 52 yrs when my dad died.  So yeah, I was fortunate. 
It didn't stop me from wanting to get out and on my own as soon as I could.  I couldn't wait to leave home, to leave the small town and everything behind.  I dropped out of college to get married at 18. I followed my husband overseas where my daughter was born.  We had a very rocky relationship.  Abusive.  I thought many times about leaving and heading back home, but I was too proud.  So I stuck it out.  While overseas, I managed to snag a good job with good pay, as a graphic designer I liked what I was doing. Then I found out I was pregnant.  We came back to the states soon after J was born.  I was trying to figure out if we could make things work.  What the future was going to be.  If I had the guts to leave and strike out on my own again, this time with a baby.  I didn't have to make a choice.  One night the police called to let me know my husband had been picked up.  He was trying to arrange a hit on me for the insurance.  Didn't much care what happened to our daughter, then decided she was worth more to him alive, due to being able to stay in on post housing and out of the barracks. So my choice was made, and I again had to start over. Thankfully my family welcomed me and my daughter til we got back on our feet.  I went back to college and managed to graduate with honors.  I obtained two degrees, one in accounting and the other in computers.  During the final years in college I worked at a local accounting firm, and went there full time and become a CPA after graduation.  I worked hard, raised my daughter and life was good.
After another 7 yrs or so, I guess the 7 yr itch struck, and I also fell for someone who lived 1000 miles away.  I also felt stifled in the small town, in the bible belt where I was raised.  My lifestyle was not that welcomed there.  I met someone online, what started as a friendship, chatting online, exchanging emails and phone calls, and long letters, even trips back and forth across the country turned into a relationship.  So I packed up me & my daughter and we moved.  Once again, my choice in a relationship continued to be lacking, so that didnt last.  M tells me, that it was a necessary step, one that brought me here to meet her.  Perhaps.  I can't argue with that.
M & I have been together almost 10 yrs now. Good years.  When I moved across country 15 yrs ago, I reinvented myself again.  I gave up the accounting which I had come to find tedious and focused on the computers and then branched out into networking and then VOIP.  Most of the time it is work I enjoy.
Whatever happens going forward, I'm not afraid of the future.  It will all end up ok.  I am a believer in good karma if nothing else. 

The ride and recovery, and knees and things

So we survived the MS Bike Ride.  M did the whole 25 miles - she claims she actually did more like 27 miles due to getting lost with another MS Biker that had trouble following the course.  I only made it less than 3 miles.  I did at least 2.5, but less than 3.  So I guess that makes me a 10%-er.  Kind of fitting in a way.  I am a leftie - like supposedly 10 % of the population.  I am gay - another supposed 10% of the population.  Who knows there is probably lots of other things I am that matches only about 10% of the population. 
Saturday was extremely hot - it was almost 90 at 6:30 when we arrived to register.  Plus the heat index.  The route was all rolling hills, and not gentle ones.  I don't do well with hills.  Especially steep ones.  My knees can't handle it.  So after pedaling what I could and walking the bike up the worst of two really big hills, I was on the side of the road catching my breath.  Wondering the wisdom of even being out here in the heat, when a SAG vehicle came by to ask if I was ok.  I took him up on his offer of a ride back to the start/finish.  He said no shame in calling it quits.  Which I didn't feel any shame.  I got out and I struggled and I did what I could handle.  If I had kept going, I could have gotten myself in a serious mess.  M asked me if I was sure I didn't want to keep going, and I said no.  I did the right thing for me.  I did what I set out to accomplish. I raised over 1175, and I went out and tried.  Next year, we are opting for a "flatter" event.  Flat and gentle hills I can handle.
Other than trying to ride on a day that was way too hot - temp & humidity, I've been enjoying being back on my bike.  I am making an effort to get out and get more exercise and to eat healthier.  I know that if I was to lose some weight it would help with my knees.  Course that too is a catch 22.  If I felt better, I would feel more like exercising, if I lost some weight my knees would feel better, making it easier to exercise to lose the weight to feel better to exercise.  Oh well, it is easy to procrastinate, and find excuses.  It is time to just get busy and "do" and stop waiting for something to magically happen. 
I am trying to decide whether I want to plan to have a knee replacement next year or not.  I want to lose some weight and get physically stronger, and get my knee especially physically stronger before doing that.  Originally my osteo wanted me to wait until I was 52 at least.  Now he seems to think I'm a candidate now, whenever I want to do it he will refer me (he doesn't do that surgery, he does the non-invasive stuff, and surgical alternatives).  So seems to me he is saying it's getting time to do it.  My concern is that I want it to help give me more of my life back.  But what if it doesn't? Not being in pain all the time would be a great thing.  If it gave me the ability to exercise and not constantly evaluate things as to whether or not my knee will allow me to do this or that... those would all be pluses.  On the other hand, I've also read and heard it isn't for people who are looking for some miraculous cure, or that it won't eliminate all the problems, just will help with the pain, that with a replacement you aren't suppose to run or jump (ok, not that I do either now anyway), but I also can't kneel, crouch, etc.  One reason I was always told to wait, and hold off is that the life span on the knees (the plastics) is only 10-15 years, and since you can only replace the knee 2x per knee in a person's lifetime I didn't want to end up not being able to walk at the end of my days.  The other thing I keep thinking is that if I keep putting it off and wait for some magic time frame to arrive, what if I wait too long, and MS strikes and I can't walk anyway.  So, I've decided I just have to determine if it will help me today. if so, then I should explore doing it.  If it won't help me today, then I should wait.

Motivation, the importance of cat naps

I'm finding it hard to get motivated.  As M would say you are just being lazy.... Ok, maybe I am. I know what I should do, even what I need to do - I need to get moving, get my heart rate up, whether it is to work on losing those pounds I could do without, or just moving for the sake of moving.  I know that I actually feel better when I am exercising and moving.  But I just can't get motivated.  I can procrastinate - I'll do that later, tomorrow, this weekend, some other time besides NOW. 

I should get back on my bike and ride.  My ankle is pretty much healed.  My right knee is much better since the surgery.  My left, well, it wants to give out, and it still protests but that is nothing new.  Actually in the past I've found the exercise helps. 

But really I'd rather go take a nap... Lately, I have been wanting to sleep a lot.  I don't get to.  I average only 6 hours or so most week nights, closer to 8 on weekends (that is IF we sleep in).  Even those days I can/do sleep in, I wake up at normal times, but I find it sort of a luxurious feeling to get to get up and pee and climb back in a snugly warm bed/cocoon and not have to force myself to stay up and get ready to head to work. 

I also think cats have it made (maybe it is just our cats, I realize those on the streets not so much).  We have 3, two boys and a girl.  Each with their own personality. The girl (calico) is definitely "miss thang", and you don't get in her way or she will give you attitude.  We also think she suffers from permanent PMS (kitty bitch mode).  She will meep at you (she sort of has like laryngitis where her mouth will move in a meow but only a squeaky "meep" comes out). Get you to pet her, then without warning might turn and try to bite you.  The boys have also pretty much learned to stay out of her way - she hisses and snarls.  Z the older tiger, is a snuggler, and a definite love bug.  He loves to curl up and sleep with me.  If I'm not available he will curl up with anyone that will pet him.  He loves to walk just in front of you and then fall down and roll over as if to say ok rub my belly.  It is a common thing in the morning as I head out for work for him to meow at me, talk to me telling me all his complaints about the world, he follows me from room to room, falling in front of me and rolling over in an attempt to get me to rub him, then as I walk around him and continue on, he will jump up and run up ahead to repeat the process.  He is definitely attached/bonded to me.  He is often my shadow, sitting at my feet if I am working in my office, snuggled up beside me in bed, or when sitting in the recliner.  His brother (ok they are none of them related, but hey we also call the dog their brother as well), is a maine coon, looks like a lion with a mane of fur and thick fluffy feather duster tail, and tufts of hair coming out his ears, and so much fur/hair coming out the bottoms of his feet his little pads have never touched the ground.  He has sooo much fur (strangely the vet called him a short hair when we got him at about 8 mos old) that we take him in the summer to have him shaved - they do a "lion cut" he seems to like it, keeps him cooler, and not so much fur to make hairballs with.  He is such a fraidy cat, that we call him our cowardly lion.  He and the tiger are true buds, boyfriends?, they snuggle together, groom each other, the tiger took him under his wing and played protector when he was a kitten, and tried to teach him all his bad habits.  Such as how to sling water across the kitchen floor with his paw - the tiger loves to play in water, he drinks it from his paw, and he will sling water at one of the other animals if he feels playful.  You can tell when he has been playing in the water bowl, he will jump up to have you pet him, and he will be soaking wet - both front paws and his chest.

They all make us laugh.  The dog too.  The dog is part golden retriever (his mom) and who knows - he has short red hair, a knot on his head, stands almost as big as a great dane, is built for speed (most dogs can't catch him, and he recently gave a deer a run for his money).  He is a gentle giant.  He used to whimper and whine when we would feed him a can of dog food and one of the cats (a 4th that is no longer with us, RIP coot), would take over his bowl and lick all the gravy.  He could have pushed the cat away, barked and/or scared him off, but no, he would come over to us and whine.  End result? we had to set out 2 bowls, pour off some of the gravy into one for the cats and put the rest of the can in his.   They are all spoiled. 

Watching their antics is good medicine.  Some of the silliness can make us laugh.  This morning I watched the tiger try to catch his own tail, he would spin around trying to surprise pounce on it, and then miss and sit and stare like what the hell is that thing attached to the end of my butt? I never saw that there before.  Comical, and he isn't a kitten, he'll be 8 later this fall.  I wouldn't take anything for him, or any of them, they can provide comfort and companionship when we feel down.  Nothing can beat that.

Now I think I am just going to go ahead and give into the urge and find a warm bit of sun (or just the couch or futon) and take a nap and see if I can get one of the cats to join me in a cat nap.