Busy week

This has been a crazy, busy week.  I started off the week with Easter of course.  It was a nice Easter.  Stan had to work all weekend.  He was on call and the normal night shift person injured his back, so Stan had to work both Friday and Saturday night.  He didn't go to church on Sunday.  He was awake when we got home though and had the ham in the oven. We had dinner then Bryon and Margie came over and we did an Easter egg hunt with the cousins.  We watched a few funny Youtube videos and listened to a few funny songs too.  It was a good day.  Nice and calm.  No drama, no problems.  All was good.

Monday I had PT and I had an appointment with Dr Westgate.  It was my normal every 3 month appointment to get my Botox in my leg.  She was pleased with the progress I've made with walking.  I haven't posted on here much about that since last year when I had to start using a wheel chair, but since then, I have improved a lot.  Just before Christmas, I started walking just a little bit.  At first, it was only a few steps and it was so slow.  Now, I can go 40 feet or so before I have to rest.  I can't walk with shoes on though.  My toes drag too much so my shoes cause me to trip.  I have to use a walker too.  I've been trying to walk some around the house when I can.  I walk in the kitchen when I am making dinner and while I am sewing.  Anyway, Tuesday, I had an appointment with a new doctor.  He is evaluating me for a baclofen pump.  I am taking oral baclofen to treat the spasms I have.  They are the worst in my right leg, which is why I get the Botox, but even the Botox can't take care of all of them.  I can't handle the side effects at a dose that is effective enough to treat the spasticity.  By putting in a pump, they can give me the baclofen directly into the spinal cord and then it will be a much lower dose, so almost no side effects even though it will be way more effective. I then had Cub Scouts at my house; we did sewing and wood working.  Wednesday wasn't busy at all, but I needed to rest all day.  I was exhausted from the previous 2 days.  Thursday was just errands and normal stuff.  Friday brought PT and babysitting in the afternoon.

I was trying to be really careful last week to not over do things because if I get too exhausted, I set myself up for a flare.  It turns out, I was already starting into a flare and didn't even know it yet.  Starting around the 3rd of April, I started having a burning sensation around my chest, along with a lot of pressure and occasionally an electric shock feeling.  It is commonly called the "MS Hug".  Not the kind of hug you really want though.  A few days later, I had a week of overwhelming fatigue set in.  I didn't think anything of it at the time.  I thought it was just the change in weather since it was getting hotter.  I told Dr Westgate about this at my appointment and she was a little concerned.  Thursday, the weakness started.  The strength in my legs is down about 50%.  Considering I don't have a lot of strength in my right leg anyway, it took a lot away.  Now losing strength in my left leg, my walk is more of a shuffle, when I can walk at all.  I've had some bladder issues with this flare as well, but I won't get into those in such a public place.  I'll be calling Dr Westgate first thing in the morning and I suspect I will be starting steriods by tomorrow afternoon.  I'm not looking forward to this.  Stan gave me a blessing this afternoon though and I feel much better after that.  I was told that I would regain all that I had lost.  That was a huge relief.  It was frustrating me that I had just lost 6 months of physical therapy work and I wasn't looking forward to having to work again to regain that.  It seemed like an endless cycle.  I'll try to post later this week and keep everyone posted on my progress on this flare.

I decided the best way to allow people to download the Woman of Faith block instructions was to just upload the instructions to  4shared.  They are in a Word Document.  It anyone can give me tips on posting tutorials on blogs, I'm all ears.  I'm not very tech savvy when it comes to the internet.  I know how to do the things I do very well, but I don't do much on the internet, so not my area.  Feel free to share these instructions with anyone.  They are not copyrighted at all at this point.  The block is a very common block and the quotes are from the Book of Mormon and General Conference.  I think it would be cool for as many people as possible to be doing a Book of Mormon/Woman of Faith quilt.  We should share our testimonies through our talent and love of quilting.  If you do decide to make a quilt, please send me a link.  I'd love to see your quilt and your blocks.  Do you think it would be tacky for me to pin my own post into pinterest to get more people interested in doing a Book of Mormon quilt?  I don't care; I may do it anyway.  There isn't a blog/pinterest police to stop me and I don't think it is against their terms of use. 

I almost forgot the link  Women of Faith or Book of Mormon Quilt Block 1