9 Paper Plates on the Kitchen Floor

I've been away from my writing for some time now, but it probably isn't something my Facebook friends would agree with. They would probably say I say a lot in my postings.

This has been a rough year for me and probably for a lot of people, but last June 16th, I was informed of the death of one of my beloved friends in Georgia, Margaret Betz, I called her M'Beez. She had been diagnosed with uterine cancer 6 weeks prior to June 16th and was in Hospice when she died. That's her on the left.

The day after she passed away, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). My doctor advised me to have a brain scan (MRI) at St. Claire (Morehead). I did and that's what showed up. It answered a lot of questions about some of my symptoms and I won't go into those, because it is too medically-oriented, but people get the gist of what MS is.

It is an incurable disease. Mine is called Intermittent Late Onset MS (ILOMS) and it "comes and goes" = therefore, "intermittent". The brain waves, at times, as you can see from the bottom picture (in red) go "haywire" at times. The picture at the top shows you what it does.

The first week in October last year, I woke up and was completely blind in my left eye. Had surgery on the eye to repair the shattered retina (the surgeon said he didn't know what caused it, "it just happens", he said. He repaired the retina and it took 3 months to completely go back in place, but the surgeon could not restore the vision. It is now like looking through the bottom of a Coke bottle. I can either keep it uncovered or wear a patch over it to protect it. I wear the patch sometimes when I go out in public to protect it from the sunlight, because the surgery makes it impossible for me to close the left eye all the way. I am in constant discomfort from it.

Last year was the year of Murphy's Law for me, but the constant forces in my life are my 9 babies = Boo (Baby-Doo), Darby (Doodle), Toot, Emma, Pete, Penny, Linus, Lucy (Belle) and Charlie (Brown). They are the reasons I get up during the day. I'm usually up all night and sleep all day, but Penny and Boo wake me up about 6 in the morning to feed them. So, I put 9 paper plates on the kitchen floor and feed them and then lay back down on the couch. Penny cannot make a sound (the sub-freezing temps she endured before I rescued her several years ago destroyed her vocal cords), but she looks at me with those big brown expressive eyes and that tells me all I need to know = you know, "the windows to the soul".

I don't have pictures of all of them yet, but that is my next goal, go get those picture as soon as I can get me a digital camera next month, but these are the pictures of 6 of them.

Emma

Penny

Darby

This is Darby the day I rescued him

Pete (female)

Toot

 

 Boo

When those 9 paper plates are no longer on the kitchen floor, that will be my cue to leave this world. Those plates are the reasons I live each day. God will hopefully take me by the hand one day after the plates disappear and lead me Home.

He walks among us, I can feel His presence and I received a sign from Him the other day (that's the way I saw it and I can't be convinced otherwise that it wasn't Him) to tell me that he is watching over me and my 9 babies.

I have lost a lot of friends, relatives and fur babies over the years and each loss has created pain in my heart and soul that no amount of time can heal. I put the  pain in a "bearable" place until it is too much, then I let it out and grieve. The tears cleanse my soul, but the losses are still there.

Hopefully this blog and these columns contained within it, will help keep me occupied, keep my mind off a lot of things. I am grateful my mind is still intact enough to do this = writing. The MS undoubtedly will take its toll eventually and I don't know what's going to happen then. Only God knows. Maybe He has a miracle for me up His sleeve.

Until then, this is The Last Word this time around.