Adrift Without a Compass

It's been 2 months now since I was diagnosed with MS.

I have begun a new treatment regimen: Rebif 44 3 times a week by subcutaneous injection. I am lucky enough to have been prescribed a nurse to administer the injections for the first few months or until I feel ready to begin doing it myself. The nurse is really nice and very good at doing injections. It doesn't hurt at all when she does it and it is nice to have someone to talk to before and after having the injection.

I have started seeing a psychologist who is meant to help me learn how to cope with having a chronic disease that can't be cured at the current moment in time. It might turn out to be curable in few years, but as of right now, it's only possible to extend the time between relapses by a small amount of time and it is possible to actually heal some of the lesions in the brain, but it is not yet possible to cure the disease so I need a shrink to help me come to terms with that knowledge. The psychologist I have been given (my school has an insurance policy thing which gives us employees access to trained mental professionals if need be)is a specialist in helping people who have chronic illnesses so she should be able to help me. So far, she seems very nice and quite capable, but I've only been at her office once and have only had one session with her so it is hard to judge.

Time flies! I can't believe it's already been 2 months since I was told I have this terrible disease. I've had no ill effects of the new drug and have had no sign of the disease except for the injections 3 times a week. I am healthy and able to do everything I was able to do before being diagnosed and I am even beginning to feel confident that this is not the end of my life after all.

I was certain that getting diagnosed with MS would be the end of life as I knew it and that death would be imminent, but now I can honestly say I am starting to see that that was not the truth. All is not rosy just yet, but it's much better now than 1 month ago. I work a full time job, work out in my spare time and do RPGs for fun. I read a lot of books and I feed ducks at the pond just like before. I am not going to let the disease limit me until it actually starts being limiting. If I do that it doesn't matter if I am actually sick or not, I would be making myself sick with all the worry and sulking around. So far, I am not sick and my body works well. I am fit and happy, but have a faulty brain that might end up crippling me some time in the future. That's then, not now. I have to keep that in the forefront all the time so I don't let myself descend into depression and melancholy.

I have gone through an enormous crisis these past two months and I've been through the same steps you go through when someone dies and I am now closing in on the final steps of accepting my situation. I am not there yet, but it's getting closer by the day. For about 2 months I've been completely unable to plan anything or even remember simple messages or the plots of movies I watched. Anything really went in one ear and out the other. My brain simply couldn't process anything. One might say all the available RAM was engaged and the ROM had overheated. It's getting better now. I can remember who tells me what, when and why. Which is enormously nice when one considers I'm a teacher and students tend to talk a lot and they take offense at being forgotten... I can also start planning the curriculum again and not have to do everything on the fly as I did for the past 2 months. Which also is nice because doing everything on the fly is kind of stressful.

My husband and I have decided to turn vegetarian. He's read a scientific study that indicates that eating a predominantly vegetarian or vegan diet can have a positive effect on MS and I think that anything that might have a slight effect on keeping the disease at bay is worth a try, so I've agreed to it even though I am a huge carnivore and I love me some tender steak and hot dogs, etcetcetc, but if this can help then it's worth it to kiss the chops goodbye.

Title: No Borderlines.
Warning: None.
Word count: ~900
Disclaimer: Don't own the rights to the show, the characters.

The station looks the way it looks every evening: 6 desks littered with folders, documents, evidence envelopes and half full mugs of tea. Typewriters with sheets of paper and partial sentences are waiting for diligent fingers to come along to finish reports, statements and requisitions. Ashtrays filled with cigarette butts and chewing gum, waste paper bins brimming with the usual detritus of investigations and one or two open drawers sit here waiting for hands to close them.

D.C.I. Gene Hunt's office sits in the dark.

If walls could talk, these would have some top stories to spill. Luckily, walls can't talk.

Noises, though, can tell stories. These noises tell the story of two people finding themselves together.

The tape recorder on D.I. Drake's desk is still playing the mixtape Chris made Shaz last year. It's the third time. This time when the tape runs out, they don't notice. To them it is as if the music continues to play around them as they move in a tight embrace in the darkness of D.C.I. Gene Hunt's office.

The scent of the wine they shared earlier at Luigi's fills the air between them as they move to their silent soundtrack. It is late and they both know they would be far better off going home, but the music is beautiful and they know that home is not an option. Not now.

Here in Gene Hunt's office they are together. Completely together, on their own terms for once. They share an unspoken understanding that this evening is their evening. Tonight they're Gene and Alex and they're a man and a woman. Dancing to a beautiful song. Together on an island of romance and opportunity. Gone are the cumbersome titles and masks that make up their daily lives. Gone are the snarky comments and veiled innuendo. Instead they have found the words to speak the truth, the courage to show the need and together they have uncovered a way to share this truth without deceit or apprehension.

Alex is tall in his arms, but she is fragile and pliant tonight. She thinks it is because of the wine and the starry night walk from Luigi's to the police station, but it is not. Her body yields to his embrace because she wants it to and because she has wanted it to since he carried her in his arms that first day 3 years ago. She wonders what he is thinking as they slowly shift on the floor. As they float in their private world in his office.

Gene's eyes are half open and he is watching her, looking for clues that she has changed her mind, that she is done, that she is appalled, ready for anything but what he finds is her smiling eyes turned up to meet his. His lips part to say something, but all he can manage is a soft sigh and a choking feeling in his chest as she lifts her head from his shoulder and plants a small kiss low on his cheek. He turns his head slightly to brush her lips with his before she draws back, but he is too late.

She immediately lowers her eye lids as if she's embarrassed that she did that to her superior officer and he can feel her body tense up for an instant before she finds her music again and he wonders if he imagined it all. He wonders if he's imagining this whole evening and if he will lose it if he opens his eyes.

His arms glide slowly from their place on her shoulders to rest on the dip in her back while her arms find their way to the back of Gene's neck and Alex allows her fingers to stretch up into the soft hair at the nape of his neck. She feels him shiver at the intimate touch and her breath catches in her throat as she realizes what is happening.

She feels his chest rise and fall as his breath quickens under her touch and she knows this is right. She knows there is no turning back now and she knows that whatever happens tomorrow or ten years from now, the only thing that's ever going to feel real again will be this moment. This dance.

His fingers stroke her back as he attempts to raise her shirt to feel her skin against his own and he sees her eyes widen as he dips a finger under the soft edge of her skirt before letting his finges run up her spine. She presses herself closer to his chest and he feels her skin through her clothes. He knows she is burning. Knows she is there with him and knows that this will be their one chance. Their one chance to preserve the world they have made for themselves. A world that can't ever exist outside of this night, this office, this song, this breath.

"Beautiful women don't want this from me, Bolls" he says and breaks the tight embrace to make certain he is not reading her wrong and is shocked to find that she has tears in her eyes. She keeps her eyes on him as a single tear spills from her left eye and she reaches her right hand up and pulls his face closer to her own and whispers in his ear: "I want this, Gene. I want this. With you. I have wan...." she doesn't finish her thought this time, but turns away from him.

He reaches out for her, but finds only empty air.

3 things I can't live without:

1. My husband Adam. Without him my life would be a cold, barren desert wasteland.
2. My medicine. Without it I would be out of here in a split sec.
3. Beautiful men on the telly. Without them I would be in a state....(;x)

I've had all sorts of depressing thoughts since being diagnosed which is probably quite normal and maybe even healthy for a person to be able to come to terms with it in time. My life might be ruined or it might not really be affected much for a great many years. It's so hard to say because the damn disease develops differently for each person and no standard course exits. It sucks.

So, I got a letter today about the new treatment I will be on from the 2. Of January and one of the wonderful side effects I can expect is suicidal thoughts and self-injurying. This sounds like a lot of fun. If that happens the nurses will take me off it and try to find me a new kind of meds again. I've had one kind of meds earlier in my life that made me suicidal and it was terrible. I don't know if I can deal with that one more time... although it doesn't have to happen, but now that the thought of it has been introduced, my mind is reeling.

So these days my thoughts revolve around the bad things that might happen as time goes by and the disease develops. It's freaking me out so much.

Every time I feel something new, a new sensation or have a problem remembering a word or whatever, I get scared and worried that it's a symptom of the disease and makes me scares that I am worse off than the nurse seems to think.

What if the new/meds don't work and nothing will ever wwork for me and I will be forced to just accept the disease developing and slowly crippling me over time

I am worried that the disease is more advanced than the doctors have said because my cheeks and eyes are spasming which is pretty much not nice. It feels quite strange and unnerving. I hope I will have many more years left to live without too many attacks or troubles. I want many more years with my Adam and to do my wonderful job. I think the worst thing I can imagine would be to not be able to work any more. I love my job so much and it would be bad to not be able to teach anymore.

Part 1:
So, for you guys still reading along here, I give you the news that have been shaping my life over the past few weeks. I have just been diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis).

I have only had one minor and quite mild attack of the disease so far, but being given the diagnosis was quite a shock to my system and to my image of the life I want and hoped to have for many years to come.

The attack I had was centered around a weakening of my optical nerves which resulted in disturbed vision, dizziness and lack of depth perception. It took about 10 days to reset itself and for those 10 days I was all but certain I was going blind and that I would be unable to work ever again. It was during those 10 days that I sought out medical help and was sent to all kinds of doctors and specialists to have my vision checked out to determine what had gone wrong.

Turns out vision issues are often quite serious so I ended up with a specialist doctor who referred me to an MR scan and a spinal tap to see if it was a neural problem and if so, which kind of neural problem. I drew the MS card and have thus been given a wild card disease that can either be benign and do nothing over the next many, many years, or it can develop into a very debilitating disease in a short time. No one can predict what the disease will do in my specific case as the thing that really defines it is the unpredictability of it.

MS is an autoimmune disease that has the wonderful feature that my own infection fighting cells have gone insane and have gotten a memo that ordered them to start attacking perfectly good tissue in the brain and fight it because, according to the memo, the tissue is bad news and needs to be eradicated. Fact is, though, it's perfectly healthy tissue and the only thing wrong with it is the fact that the receptors between brain cells are covered in it and need it to be able to send messages around the body. That's why MS is such a dreadful disease: it can literally cripple a person and there is no cure for it.

Luckily, my specialist doctor has evaluated my attack of it and he's calling it a Clinically Isolated Symptom which means it's still in the very early stages of development and he seems to think that it will be several years before anything else will even happen to me which is nice. Definitely nice, but it's very difficult to retain any great optimism after being told that I have this disease.

So, I was started on a new drug called Copaxone and managed to be on that for 4 days before being taken off it because of a bad allergic reaction to it. The doctor and nurses have decided to try to start me up on a new drug in the new year...

Copaxone is an injection drug - actually, they all are at this point - which you take every day. It involved sticking a prickly needle into yourself once every 24 hours and that sucks all on its own, but the allergic reaction I had didn't make it any more fun times. Nope. What happened was: I would inject myself as prescribed by the doctor and manual and then 2-3 minutes would go by and I would lose all muscle control and have to lie down, shaking and rattling and teeth clattering for about 15 minutes. It was horrible and it certainly didn't make me any happier to have to inject myself every day. I've been off it now for 5 days and I still feel quite beside myself at the thought of those experiences. I am still disturbed by the feeling of not having any control over my muscles or anything and it's certainly made me much more scared of the possible ramifications of having this disease.

Ok, so it's been a while since my last update and I actually kindda thought I was done with this journal, but apparently not so much.

I have had a killer of a week this past week. Seriously, this past week has made me want to kill everyone and everything. That's how frustrating it's been. And then today my aunt and her daughter just managed to piss me off completely with some seriously stupid ass BS.

First things first, though. Last week at work my colleagues asked me to be in charge of planning a week long project for our freshman class, which I said I would because it sounded like a fun idea, but after spending an absurd amount of time planning out what the individual teachers would be teaching and what the students would be reading and a class schedule for the week, I am met with puzzled looks from one and all and questions about the project that make it sound like they're unhappy with my planning and that they htink I'm stupid or something. I spent so long planning it and even had to cancel going to gaming on WEdnesday in favor of spending time planning this junk and then to be met with that reaction the following day was just too much frustration for me to handle. I basically felt like a huge failure all day and wanted to dig a big hole to hide in...

Then to add insult to my already exisiting injury, a lecturer I had booked to come give a lecture to all the students didn't show up so again I got that look from the colleagues like I was useless and like they don't know how I can suck that bad at something as simple as booking an outside lecturer. Honestly, it was the first time we've done it this year and no one offered to help and it wasn't even my job at first, but the person whose job it was originally had a minor breakdown so she couldn't handle it after all and so it fell to me. I had sent all the information to everyone at the school and would've expected that someone would email me back if there was a discrepancy so it could've been fixed, but noone did anything and one of the newer people even took a call from the external lecturer and didn't tell me about it, so Thursday rolls around, we gather all the students from all three classes in the lecture hall and wait. And wait. And wait. I was not aware that anything was amiss at first, but then someone asked me to go make sure the person was coming and I called the number I'd been given only to be told that she was preparing for a lecture on FRIDAY! Geesh, she's gotten the dates mixed up and hadn't checked back with me to confirm. Dude, what's up with that? Doesn't matter because it's obviously my fault and the colleagues gave me the "you suck" eye all day Thursday and friday and I was really angry and upset because of these two things.

Friday morning things got even more annoying because one of my colleagues that I can't really stand came into my office and wanted to have me do his job for him because he couldn't be bothered to do it for himself. I kindda bit his head off slightly more than I had planned to, but he seemed to get the message after a bit of chewing him out.

The only thing that's been keeping me sane this past week is the students at school. They're great! I really love being a teacher because of them and I don't like being a teacher because of all the paper work and all the stupid planning crap that just never works out.

Then fast forward to today and my aunt's birthday party. We go there and have lovely food, ice cream and layered cake and then all HELL broke loose when suddenly the discussion turned to immigration and my aunt and her daughter unleash the vilest diatribe against immigrants you could ever imagine. I felt like killing them both because it was just so disgusting. I can't deal with people who are racist against people they don't even know. I can't believe these people even think it's ok to just generalize about whole groups of people that they don't know the first thing about. How dare they? How dare they be that closed minded and judge based on rumour and hearsay? Such a bunch of asshats. My husband is an immigrant (AMerican)... but they apparently don't think he counts as a true immigrant because he doesn't mooch on the country (whatever that even means...)

Grr.

Will now go out and pick some plums with the hubby and the sister unit.

From epiccoterie:

Rules are that I answer the questions epiccoterie asked me and you comment to this post and I'll make 5 questions for you. Enjoy!

1. Would you have chosen your career if you knew then what you know now?

I love my career to death, but the road to getting to where I am now has been strewn with bad and icky things... Maybe I would've done a few things differently along the way, but hopefully, I would've ended up right where I am today.

2. What was your happiest moment/time in your life?

When Adam moved here and we got married :-) Oh, and the two years after the wedding have been a continuation of the happy;-)

3. What's your favorite thing about where you live?

Country: We have free medical, free school (we're paying our college students to get an education) and good roads. We have good food regulation so if there's any problems there's an immediate recall of the tainted foods. We have a good social safety net that ensures that poverty is almost non-existent here. Abortion is also just a right here and no one in their right mind would try to tamper with it because it's a right and everyone can have one with no questions asked...

Local: That we're close to everything: woods, sea, shopping, a renaissance city center and our allotment garden. We live right next to a wonderful pond where we go and feed geese who will eat out of our hands. We have a great apartment:-D The closeness of the woods and ocean is fantastic in that we can collect a lot of lovely herbs and mushrooms for free and we can make all kinds of syrups from the different berry bushes around here. It's great!
Ps: we also have the best pizza places here;-P

4. Which three people in your life are you most thankful for?

Adam, of course :-D Best husband ever! My grandmother, who's a wonderful person. My parents (they're one entity under the law, so they're one here too) who are my constant support and they're my go to pps for all things.

5. What's your favorite ice cream?

I love vanilla the best:-)

Hmmm, a teacher's job is a many facetted creature, as I found out yesterday when I was asked by a student to please help him with his contact lenses. This is one of my freshmen who's been wearing glasses the entire time I've known him, but has now made the decision to switch oer to contact lenses and he's having some issues with this transition. So he came to me for help.

I would've thought that was outside the job description of a teacher, but apparently not.

It did involve teaching of sorts, in that I taught him how to safely remove his contact lenses and how to safely and painfully put them in place. What a weird request from a student, though...