Some good news.

I had a MRI on Tuesday. This time the correct MRI's were ordered and everything was good to go. I took my *I dont give a shit about being shoved into a small and very loud machine* pills before we got there so they had time to kick in. We get in the MRI room and I lay down on the small hard table, they put a wash cloth over my face, snap the horrible cage thing over my face (this scans the brain) and then slide me into the machine. I didn't freak out, just took a few deep breaths and I was ready to start. I did the scan, they pulled me out put a IV in and shot the contrast in and put me back in the machine for another scan. It was done in a little over a hour. After I was all done we went to lunch (I dont remember much from lunch since I was doped up) I slept for a few hours after we got home.

Okay, now that I have totally bored you with the details of the MRI, I will move on to the good news. I got a call from my Neurologists office this morning and they got the written report from the MRI. Everything is stable!! Yay!! I was VERY happy to hear that. I still have to bring in the disk when I go see her in March so she can compare this MRI with the last one I had done.

This helps ease my mind a little bit about being scared that I will have a relapse while my husband is deployed. There is still a chance that it could happen, but there is nothing happening right now and that is good.

Saying Goodbye

Saying Goodbye is hard to do!

Being a Military wife is not easy, especially when you have to say goodbye to the person you love. I have had to say goodbye many times to my husband over the last 14 years.

This morning I had to say goodbye again. I knew this goodbye was coming and I was ready for it, or so I thought. I was doing good yesterday until I walked into our bedroom and saw most of his things packed and the rest waiting to be packed. That was all it took! I was a crying mess on and off for the rest of the day. I did Okay if we were out in public. Like when I went to the Dentist or when we meet some friends for dinner so they could say their goodbyes to him. But, as soon as we were in the truck or at home I was crying all over again.  Last night wasn't any better. If I had slept much I would say that I cried myself to sleep, but I hardly slept at all. I cried for most of the night and as soon as the alarm went off I was crying all over again and I couldn't stop. I am surprised I had any tears left and didn't need to go get some IV fluids for dehydration with all the crying I have been doing!


He brought each of our daughters to school this morning so he could say goodbye to them. They seem to be doing okay and aren't to overly upset that he had to leave. I guess they are true *Army Brats* They have done this so many time before and know the drill.

When it was time for him to go I walked out to the car with him and didn't want to let go when I gave him a hug. He had to pretty much push me away so he could go. It was so hard to let go of him! I stood in our driveway and watched him back out and then drive away. I didn't want to go back in the house, but I finally did and of course lost it as soon as I walked in. The kids were at school and I was all alone. Thankfully I have one of the best sisters ever, I called her so I could cry to her for a while. It has become a tradition for me to call her whenever my husband is going away, she is always there to listen no matter what time of day or night. I also have some amazing friends who were willing to meet me for coffee so I didn't have to sit at home.


This will be his 8th deployment. He hasn't deployed yet, but we wont get to see him before he heads *over there*. He is heading to his new post and unit and then will deploy from there. We dont know when he will leave to start the deployment, but today started the count down until we get to see him again. Hopefully he will be able to take a R&R, we wont know that until after he is already deployed. There is a chance that he might not get to though since the unit is already deployed and he will be joining them late. I will be keeping my fingers crossed!

Even though we have been through 7 deployments before, this is the first one with me having MS. In the past I have been able to be super woman and do it all. Taking care of the kids, house, pets and everything else was no big deal. Yes, I got stressed out and hated it at times, but that is normal for and Military wife. Having MS makes everyday tasks harder than normal to do. Just going to the grocery store is exhausting for me and I have to have someone go with me. Doing normal chores around the house is more than a chore when you have MS. Everything you do takes more out of you. Stress is also a big factor with MS. Stress can make your MS symptoms worse or throw you into a relapse. Deployments are stressful and I am scared that I will have a relapse while he is away. I do have friends who will help me in a heartbeat if I need it but I am still scared!


I hope that this next year will fly by and that it will be uneventful!

What a weekend!

 Monster Monday!

It's Monday again. The weekends always go by so fast. This weekend was a good weekend for us though, we took a mini family vacation since my husband is leaving very soon. 

Since this was our last weekend as a family we wanted to do something fun. My first thought was to go to Great Wolf Lodge, we always have a great time there. If we weren't on any kind of a budget Great Wolf Lodge would have enjoyed the Zroback family for the weekend. I just about had a heart attack when they told me it would be $900 for the 2 nights! That didn't include food, souvenirs or activating the kids MagiQuest wands. Okay, where else can we go? I know, we can go up to Indianapolis! Wait, No we cant. There are absolutely NO hotels with even 1 room available. I forgot that the stupid Super Bowl was this weekend AND that it was in Indianapolis. Okay, third times a charm, right? I finally decided we would go up to Cincinnati. Found a great deal on a hotel and found someone to keep the dog for the weekend.

We left Thursday after the kids got out of school. That night we just relaxed at the hotel and took the kid swimming for a little while. Aubrey was VERY impressed with the hotel. They had a dispenser in the shower for shampoo, conditioner and body wash. She came out of the bathroom and said "How can we afford to stay at a place like this? It's SO fancy" I swear, that girl is so easily impressed. She cracks me up!

Fancy shower dispenser at our hotel.

Friday we went to the Cincinnati Premier Outlet Mall. After spending almost 2 hours walking around the Coach store and picking up about 20 different purses my husband and kids were bored out of their minds. My husband was even willing to let me get 2 purses just to get us out of there, but then that just made me even more decisive on which one(s) to get. I finally decided on just one. Then we headed over to the Crocs store to let them kids pick out some new Crocs (they didn't take near as long to pick out shoes as I did to pick out a purse) I dont remember Crocs being so freaking expensive! Holy Hannah. But, the kids were happy and that was what the weekend was about, right?

Coach = Love

After we were done at the outlet mall we headed over to Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal. They had 3 different museums and a Omnimax theater. We decided to buy a pass for everything. The Omnimax movie was really neat. It was called Rocky Mountain Express. It was about the building of the railroad in and around the Rocky Mountains. There were a few times both Shayne and I felt a little dizzy and kind of sick (does that mean we are getting old?) But we made it through the whole thing. Next we went to the Natural History Museum, we could have spend ALL day in just this one Museum! They had so many awesome things. There was a recreation of a cave that you could walk through, you could take the easy route or the difficult route. I stuck with the easy route since the difficult one had stairs (I dont do well with stairs) and there were some tight places you had to get through (majorly claustrophobic) Shayne and the girls went through the difficult route.  There was a whole area that was all about animals that are extinct, VERY COOL! Lots and lots of hands of stuff that the kids loved. We decided to skip the Cincinnati History Museum and go down to the Duke Energy Children's Museum. Turned out is was for little kids so we only stayed for about 30 minutes. Shayne was dead set on finding a Man vs Food place to go for dinner, even though he wouldn't be doing the challenge. We ended up at Izzy's. It is a sandwich place and the challenge is to eat a giant ass Ruben in 30 minutes or less!

Maddy and Aubrey at Izzy's

 After dinner we went back to our "fancy" hotel and relaxed for the rest of the night. All that walking had caused me to be in lot of pain and I was exhausted! (Thanks for that stupid MS)


Saturday we checked out of the hotel and headed over to the Newport Aquarium. We had heard that it was a really good Aquarium and I saw online that they do a Penguin march every morning at 10:00 in the lobby. We got there early and were SO excited to see the Penguin march.We waited and then HERE THEY COME!! Wait, those Penguin's aren't marching. They are in a cart and are being pushed. BOOOOOO! Oh well, at least we got to see some Penguins up close. We headed into the Aquarium and we were packed in like a bunch of sardines! There were so many people there, and you dont realize just how rude people really are until you are around a whole bunch of them all at once! 
We got over all the rude people and went on to have a awesome time. They had a live dive show. Two divers got in one of the big tanks with fish, sharks and turtles. They gave us a bunch of facts about the different fish and other aquatic animals at the Aquarium while big sharks were swimming around them. I think this was my favorite things about the whole place. There was a Rain Forest room with a bunch of different birds flying all over the place (next time I will bring a umbrella) The girls got to feed them some nectar while Shayne hid under a overhang.

This bird wasn't sharing the Nectar.

Oh and there were these GIANT crabs, I mean GINORMOUS! They were so cool. They had what looked like little faces on their stomachs. I bet they would have tasted good with a little bit of melted butter! :)

Japanese spider crabs

We of course spent way to much in the gift shop, but we got some really cool souvenirs. It was a great family weekend where lots of memories were made! I am very happy that we were able to do this before my husband deploys and has to be away from us for a year.

MRI = Major Frustration

Today was the day of my yearly MRI, or at least it was suppose to be. 

After freaking out all week about the upcoming appointment My husband and I drive a hour away, I take my "I wont remember a thing or give a shit" medication. We are all checked in and waiting for them to come out and get me. I am nosy so I am looking over the order for the MRI, and low and behold it is only marked for a brain MRI. Hmmmmm, that is a little odd since my biggest and most problem causing lesion is on my C-4, that is in the spine and NOT the brain. They tried to call my neuro office to see if they can get a message to her since it was 6:00pm and the office is closed, BUT the MRI people say they cant take orders/changes over the phone. I am given the choice to go ahead and do the Brain MRI and then come back at a later date for the C-spine MRI. NOPE, NO WAY!! I HATE have MRIs done and am HORRIBLY claustrophobic. If I have to be shoved into a small loud machine I am going to do it once and only once. I have to be medicated to even be a little bit ok with having a MRI. Oh, and speaking of being medicated, I had already taken my meds before I was aware I wasn't going to be able to get the MRI done. Kind of a waste if you ask me.

I have already spoken with my neurologist and we can hopefully get everything all figured out and get the corrected orders put in. I really want to get it done before my husband has to leave. he knows how crazy I get when it comes to a MRI and has been allowed to be in the room with me, standing next to the machine touching my leg. Just having him there helps A LOT.

Well I am nice and drugged up from my medication that was suppose to help with relaxing me for the MRI so I cant really type out much more. Guess it is time for bed.

And if this doesn't make much sense it is all the medications fault!! :)

Monster Monday.

My goal is to blog at least twice a week, with one of those days being Monday and I have decided to call it "Monster Monday" Why? Because no one is ever really all that happy about Monday, Monster Monday just sounds awesome and who doesn't love a picture of cookie monster with a pair of red sunglasses, right?

I have a feeling that this week is going to fly by, but it is one of those weeks that needs to go slow and take forever. This week will bring a lot of change for my family. This is my husbands last week home with all of us. He is preparing to PCS across the country and then deploy shortly there after. This wont be our first deployment but, I think it might be one of our hardest. He will be in the states for a while after he gets to his new duty station and we wont be there with him. It will be hard knowing he is *here* but not with us. Not being there to see him off and say our goodbyes is going to be hard on all of us. We have always been there up till the very last possible minute with him, watching him get on those big white buses that will take him to the plane. This time the kids will say goodbye before they go to school and I will say goodbye at the car. I will have to get in that *Deployment* mode right away since we dont know exactly when he will be deploying. All we know is that he has some things to do once he gets to his new duty station before he can deploy.

I am sure more than one of you are reading this and asking why is he  PCSing alone, why aren't the kids and I moving with him? Well, that is a good question and will be happy to answer it. We were all set for all of us to move with him, then BAM! We found out that he would be deploying shortly after he got there. Around that same time we found out that my mom had cancer, and the doctors weren't exactly sure what type or what the course of action would be. We talked and decided that given everything it would be best if the kids and I stayed here while he moved and then deployed. We have everything that we need right here. I have my amazing MS doctor and it would take some time to find a new one after moving and my husband wants to be able to help with that and also meet the new neurologist. We wouldn't be able to find one before he deployed. We live on post here in a one story house, which I need since I dont do to well with stairs. We wouldn't be able to get a house on post, let alone a one story one before he left to deploy. I have some really amazing friends here that are my support system in a lot of different ways. They know all about the MS and what could/might happen and are willing to jump in and help me out. I trust them to take care of my kids if I were to have a relapse. I would know NO one if we moved and wouldn't have a support system. Last but not least we are only 12 hours from my family. We can go home of my mom were to need us and my family could come down here if I were to need them.

Once the deployment is over we will be packing up and moving to be with my husband.  :)

I have more to write but I dont want this to get anymore long winded than it already is, so I will save that for another day!

What's in a name?

I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while, but there was always one thing that kept holding me back, what do I name my blog? I always see blogs with really cool names and I didn't want to have a "lame" name. I came up with a few different names but I never got that "That's my blog name" feeling from them. Until, last night! I finally came up with a name.

(with the help of some friends)

Why did I pick this name? What the heck does it mean? Why is the M and S capitalized in the word monster?

I plan to blog about my life, and a big part of my life is living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). A lot of people who have MS refer to it as "The Monster" and I am one of those people. I decided to have the M and S capitalized to represent MS.

I wont only be blogging about MS, there are many other things in my life and there are other "monsters" in my life (eg- my children, my husband, being a army wife, cooking, reading....you get the point) No, I am not calling my children and husband monsters, well on most days I dont. Just using the word to tie in all the other parts of my life.

I am just getting started in the blogging world so please bear with me while I get the hang of this.

A little FYI- I am no English scholar. I cant guarantee that I will always spell 100%  or that my punctuation will be 100% either. Heck, I cant guarantee I will always make sense. My hands are constantly numb due to MS and sometimes it is a little hard to type and I may miss a typo.

If you are looking for perfection you have come to the wrong place. :)