Last updated at 10:23, Tuesday, 03 November 2009

Part II of Katie's blog about life with MS - and her dog Moose!

Katie and Moose

What a busy month this has been. The days are flying by far too fast and Christmas is fast approaching.

This month I am making a big effort to get organised in just about everything to try and make my life as easy as possible. Just about everyone I know says there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything you need or want to do. Well that’s me but I’m trying to do everything as I would have done and funnily enough, it’s not working out. I still expect myself to work a full day and then come home, take Moose for his walk, tidy most of the house up, make dinner, check my emails, surf the internet for a while, watch a bit of TV and maybe play on my DS before going to bed at about midnight. Oh no no no. Now, by the time I finish work I’m like a zombie and struggle to do one of those things and I like to be in bed by ten but sometimes earlier. I’m slowly coming to terms that I don’t have the energy to do all the things I want or need to do and I’ve found it quite hard. But hopefully with practise and organisation things will get easier.

I have a confession to make. Over the past month, two addictions have played a big role in my life. One of them I have managed to kick, but the other one is still lingering. The one I have kicked is a certain farming game on Facebook. I was totally hooked into this game and I was trying to get on to play at least three times a day. It all depended on when your crops needed harvesting and the cows needed milking and on and on it went. Until one morning I slept in and I didn’t have time to harvest my crops. It was as if the world had ended! But I gave myself a bit of a talking to and I have recovered. And since then I have been a bit more chilled and haven’t been up so late planting pumpkins!

My other addition, which I haven’t kicked, is a certain diet caffeine drink. I have always been quite sensitive to caffeine and as a kid I used to get very hyper. Now I will drink it at work when I’m feeling very tired or a bit stressed out and it helps me get through the day. I don’t drink tea or coffee so this is my thing. However, in this diet caffeine drink is an artificial sweetener called aspartame. There have been some studies into this sweetener against people with MS and it can make the symptoms worse. But this seems to happen when it is hot, like if it has been left in a car on a hot day. Nothing has been proven and it doesn’t affect me. So my justification is that I always drink it cold and it’s one or two cans a week. I don’t smoke and hardly drink alcohol, so if my downfall is a can of that, a couple of days a week, then I don’t think I’m doing too badly!

Now that autumn is here, so is the cold weather. I am a particularly cold person and when everyone else is in short sleeves, I have a jumper and a coat on! But I like this weather so I can put my layers on and enjoy the fresh air. Unfortunately, Moose must have some brown bear genes in him, because when the cold, wet and windy weather comes, he hibernates. Trying to get him off his bed in the morning is hard work. Sometimes I just get a slightly open eye when I walk in the room. It’s like he’s saying ‘If I keep my eyes shut, she won’t see me!’ He has even got smart to the piece of ham trick! The little darling that he is! But he has his own problems. He is allergic to a lot of food and is on a prescription diet from the vets. He has an underactive thyroid, which he is on tablets for. Due to his allegies, he needs a bath at least every six weeks in medicated shampoo. And more recently, he has been diagnosed with arthritis in his front left elbow. He isn’t doing too bad at the moment but we avoid walking too far and we don’t do hills. I don’t like hills either! So between us we make a right pair!

• See also Katie's last blog.

First published at 11:14, Monday, 02 November 2009
Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk