Oven update

Went to the store and picked out an oven $541 after taxes and warranty  Came home and Debbie had her handy man, Jim, over who took my old washer and dryer away.  YAY!  Anyway, I told him about the new oven I just bought and why. So he takes a look at it and says, "you can fix that with a new broiler coil for around $50."  WHAT?!  So I look it up online and there it is for $51.  Duh, should have done that in the first place.  Already canceled the new oven.  Thank you God for placing Jim in my path before I paid for a new oven when I didn't need too.

Catastrophes need to be done now!

Last night our oven went out.  It didn't go out with a whimper either.  It went out with a strange buzzing sound, sparks and smoke.  I was preheating the oven for supper when I heard what sounded like a bug zapper and saw smoke coming from the oven vent.  I open the oven to be assaulted with flying sparks from the upper coil.  I quickly shut the door and turned the oven off.  The stove top was dangerously hot too.  After we let it cool we opened it up to see what happened.  The top coil was melted and an entire section completely broke off.  So now we have to buy a new oven.  Another expense we can barely afford.  I feel we are under attack!  I've been so stressed out over finances lately.  The kids have already been warned that there will only be one Christmas present for each kid this year.  And if things keep going this way we may have to just make some presents instead.  I have been looking for a part-time job that will allow me to continue home schooling.  Pray I find something or that the Lord will grand us a miracle.  I am so blessed to have helpful family and friends.  Kiki is letting us use her oven til we get a new one and Debbie offered her's too.  Gotta count the blessing as they come!

The pumpkin

Matt's beater of a car finally died.  On the interstate no less. Of course we had to tow it back to town because it really was in the middle of nowhere.  I just about died at the tow charge.  Then came getting it fixed.  That was a total waste of time and money.  I should have gone with my gut and told them to trash it.  But instead we decided to try and bring it back to life.  This was no Frankenstein's monster; it was NOT coming alive ever again!  Mind you, this also happened right after my little trip down the stairs.  After realizing we no longer had a car and Matt needed one for work by Monday we set off on our search for a reliable car.  Debbie was nice enough to take me around and look at cars while Matt was at work (using the van of course).  We narrowed the choices down so the next day Matt just had to compare, select, compromise on price, and purchase.  Part of the deal was them "buying" our old car.  All this meant was we didn't have to pay to have it towed away.  Now we have a nice 2006 Kia Rio and a car payment again.  "Yay" for the car, "boo" for the new monthly bill.  I'm sure you are wondering at this point why in the world this blog is titled The Pumpkin.  This is why:

Zach wants to paint a jack-o-lantern face on it for Halloween!

The inevitable fall down the stairs

Well it finally happened, I fell down the stairs.  Tripped on the stupid dog's tail and down I went.  She just always has to be right by my feet when I'm trying to go up or down.  Thankfully, I was already holding onto the railing so I managed to fall on my rear all the way down. I did wench my shoulder because of the death grip I had on the railing and slammed my elbow on the stairs. Frost was fine.  She got out of there fast to escape the mommy bouncing down the stairs.  After a short recovery I decided to keep my plans of cleaning out my shed with neighbor Debbie.  I knew if I laid down and "rested" I would end up stiff.  I did however, ask Keith to interpret for me for Sunday.  I was pretty sore the next day (Oct 9th) and the pain in my shoulder has yet to fully subside.  I even got a massage, courtesy of my good friend Prudence.  It was nice, but I think I might need to see a chiropractor.

Vitamin D and MS

While at my neurology appointment I asked Dr Fleming about vitamin D.  I've heard and read a lot of stories where MS people claim miraculous healing by taking D or D3.  He told me the trial study on D showed no improvements for MS patients.  I told him that many people say doctors will deny the heal benefits of vitamin D because they don't make any money off of it; you can just by it in the grocery store.  He laughed.  And then told me something shocking.  "We [UW Health] hold the patent on vitamin D.  If anyone wanted vitamin D to be the cure, IT'S ME!  I would have made millions!  So tell your friends that yes doctors are corrupt and greedy (said very tongue and cheek) but we could not make this work even if we fudged the numbers."  He said, for some people vitamin D seemed to make the MS worse, if it was too high.  He told me a regular amount of vitamin D is good and I shouldn't stop taking the supplement, but don't take too much or expect it to cure my MS.
I don't have an aversion to taking vitamins.  I take lots.  And perhaps vitamin D alone doesn't work but I do think  vitamin supplements can at least help and perhaps coupled along with others can do a lot of good.  In fact, I'm adding kelp to my supplement routine. I need to improve my diet and exercise in my daily life more too.  Heck, almost everyone in America needs to do that!  Hard part is for the study/trial Dr. Fleming asked me not to put myself in situations where I would have to use my inhaler (so it doesn't skew the tests results).  He told me to tell the hubby I'm not to shovel any snow since my asthma is only a problem in the winter.  I can live with that.  So exercise has to have many breaks which makes it hard to make any progress.  Most of the weight I need to loose will have to be with diet control.  Crap.

First day of MS observation

I went to University Hospital this morning at 10am after dropping the kids off at Kathy Seeger's house.  I didn't get out of there til 2:24 pm.  Originally the appointment was suppose to be 2-3 hours.  Anyway, first was the blood work, then we went off to the MRI.  I fell a sleep while in the MRI machine.  Operator got freaked when I didn't answer right away that I was alright.  After that Namita was paged so we could get on with the rest of the tests.  Instead I waited and waited.  After 45 min I asking them to call her instead of paging. Sure enough she never got the page.  So after lots of apologies we finally got back to the rest of the testing.
Anyway, I got blood drawn, was asked a bunch of medical questions, MS physical [similar to a drunk test], and a math test to evaluate cognitive skills. I've never felt stupider than I did after that math test.  It seemed so simple.  A voice on the computer says a number (#'s1-9 only) then another number which I had to add and tell (not write) the sum before the voice says another number.  When the next number is said I have to add that number to the last number spoken. And so on and so on.  It seems easy but I tested it out on the kids and they got frustrated because they kept wanting to add the next number to their last answer and not the last number spoken.  Once you get it wrong, it's hard to get back on track.  The trick is is to just wait and add the next two numbers you hear and continue from there.
After Dr. Fleming was done with his part of the evaluation my MS symptoms were categorized at a 1.5 out of  10. 10 being the worst.  Mainly my eye and bladder got me that score.
Oh yeah, I also was sent home with SWAG.  Drum roll....stool sample kit!  Sam nearly through it across the room when I told her what it was. HA!  I have to bring in a sample to each evaluation, which is once a month.
I will have 5 evaluations (one a month) then I will be on the HINT (whip worms) for 10 months.  Then, more evaluations for a couple more months to see how I'm doing after the trial is done.  After the whole trial is done I am allowed to get a copy of how it went.  For now they can't let me see or know anything so I don't screw up the results.