Move along

I have bought myself a tiny gadget and it has improved my life so much. I bought a fitbit One - a wireless fitness tracker. Sort of a glorified pedometer but much more accurate and, with the help of a few iPhone apps, so much more useful.



So cute! It records my steps, distance travelled, calories burnt, and best of all flights of stairs ascended or equivalent. So I today I climbed the White Cliffs of Dover - 35 flights. Not too shabby considering most of my exercise was on the flat.

It has given me the push to fight back against MS aggressively. I had been reducing the distance I walked Millie gradually, thinking she's running around off leash so she's getting a good workout. She might have been but I was not. So I hitched up my big girl pants, grabbed my walking pole, tied on my trail shoes for stability and started doing a 3k loop. I got to the point where I could forget my pole and disaster did not strike. Then I moved up to twice around the loop on occasion - no chore because I was circling a basin surrounded by bush and crossing inlets on wooden bridges and walkways. I felt much better. I still hurt but I decided to just push on.

I started on Clonazepam for my funny jerks and it seems to have helped with the wobbles and shakes so I look a little less Bride of Frankenstein's monster.

Then Millie and I decided to try a new route, due to her grass allergy and the increasing wet wet weather. We worked out a 5k loop that circles a volcano and even dips up and down it's slope - how's that for fun!

This got the step count up.

Since April 1st I have been officially allowed to run but apart from a try on April3rd I haven't been brave enough. Well I sucked up and decided that the treadmill at the gym was going to get a workout. I do go to a gym populated by people recovering from strokes, in wheelchairs, with brain injuries and a few senior citizens for good measure so there are no gym bunnies to laugh at my lurching.

I've started the Couch potato to 5k program because that was my grand ambition - a 5k. I'm on week 2 and am amazed to discover I can run for 1:30 at the all out pace of .....8kph with a final one minute dash at 9.5kph.

It sounds good and I get my 10000 steps but I do have difficulty even walking afterward but this is war and I am not going down without a fight. As long as you can run, run, when you can't run, walk, when you can't walk crawl and when you can't crawl, well then find someone to carry you (Love my captain) so that is what I shall do.

Where's Inigo when you need him?

Today was the day when I was going to go from boring long crazy hair to funky street. Unfortunately I appeared to have been the victim of a Princess Bride moment. You know - "This word you are using, I am not thinking it is meaning what you think it means."
I hate bobs - they are fine on other people but I don't want one and I certainly cannot provide one with the care and maintenance it deserves. So I said "I don't want a bob. Every hairdresser tries to give me a bob and I don't want one." Basically the bob is the hairdresser changing moment.
So new hairdresser today to remove the three or four years of growth since the last bob episode (there may or may not have been some slashing with sewing scissors during that time but that is classified information.)
I take along a picture of what I want. I reiterate that no bob thing. My chosen haircut is cast aside as not really for my type of hair.



Now here comes the irony. When I was 13 or so I wanted a Dorothy Hamill or Marie Osmond bob desperately.



But the hairdresser said it was not suitable for my type of hair and gave me a style affectionately known as a shag. Turn the clock forward many years and when I present a picture of a shag I get told its not suitable for my type of hair and I get the bob. Next time I am going to ask for a number 2 and bright pink highlights - I might just get that shag.

Oh my aching jaw!

One of the gifts MS has given me is bruxism. I grind my teeth. I in fact grind my teeth to the point that I have a whole lot of tori.

Tori are an overgrowth of the bones in the jaws. Oh joy, there are three forms - torus palatines, a lump of bone that forms at the midline, on the roof of the mouth - check got that; mandibular torus, a lump that forms on the inside of the lower jaw under the tongue - yep got that; and buccal exostosis, the accumulation of bone between the cheek and jaw and yes present and accounted for. All perfectly benign but sure to get a reaction when someone looks in my mouth.

So my constant teeth grinding has made my jaw bone and hard palate look like something belonging to an alien. I have a highly attractive night guard that stops the grinding so my teeth will stop being ground down to stumps. It also makes me drool so I'm a very pleasant bed fellow.

The night guard may be saving my teeth from becoming stumps but it does little to stop the tori problem. These are there and breeding because I clamp my jaw really tightly in a spasm. I do it day and night and it makes me look grumpy. It also makes my jaw sooooo sore. The Baclofen I take for leg spasms may have helped a bit when I started to take it in the morning as well but it wasn't the death null for the bruxism/clamping. So I take the highly addictive, apparently, Clomazapam. It seems to work well if I also remember to put in my night guard.

Today I have a cold and forgot to wear my guard last night so I'm suffering. So now I have to try the third line of defence - maxigesic - paracetamol and ibuprofen. Hopefully it will help or I may end up with a face only a Klingon mother could love.

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Don't you want my money?

I wear my hair in a ponytail or in a chignon. If left unrestrained it decides to cosplay as Medusa. So I decided to bite the bullet and have it cut. I tend to second guess myself if I have to make bookings too far in the future, hence the head of snakes.

Fortunately the hair salon of my choice has online booking. It means I know when they have available slots so don't have to play the stupid battleship game of them saying 'when do you want to come in?" I suggest a time and they say "Miss".

I went on the site and lo they had an appointment or 3 available the next day(today). Great I booked. I got an email to say they'd received my booking and would get back to me to confirm. I'd booked for 12:30 so there was plenty of time to confirm.

So we get to 11:30 today and no email no phone call. Hmm. So I get myself sorted. You can't go to a hair salon unprepared. The lights alone turn an unmade up patron into a crone. So we get to 12:10. I must leave now if I am to make it. Off I drive armed with my hoped for hair do photo.

At 12:27 I park outside the salon. For the last time I check my email but surely if there had been a problem they would have rung me. Gadzooks! At 12:12 an email was sent saying they could not fit me in and suggesting rebooking. WTF! So I replied that I may rebook but I thought advising me by email at 12:12 was a little on the late side.

I have not as yet rebooked. I am waiting to see if they reply. After all there are hundreds of salons to choose from, all happy to take my money. On the other hand I have 101 hair ties and enough hairpins to build a death robot so I could always keep my money. We shall see.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad