Seedlings to Plant Premium Jigsaw Puzzle

Atkinson, New Hampshire, USA!

I can't do gardening anymore
I sure miss it

This granney is from Rhode Island--we're called the Ocean State because of the length of our land on the Atlantic. It has been raining for the last 2 weeks. I bought bulbs & seed & now (like Jingles) am feeling my age! Pray for me--I think these meds I take for my epilepsy are just wearing me out--gotta get going on--can't keep worrying about a seizure. Got to get back to nature.

Northeast Florida.

Gardening here was once referred to in an article at "Florida Flambe."

I used to love gardening until I had my knees replaced now I can't get down and work with plants. I am thinking of getting bulbs where I just have to dig a hole and drop them in. To keep weeds down, mulch works really great..

Hi Jingles! I'm here in Colorful Colorado were we are currently having a beautiful Spring snow storm! Springtime in the Rockies is a roller coaster. We've had days in the 70's, and the 40's, then it snows out of nowhere! We really need it though, it's really been too dry. Around here, it's not safe to plant anything till after Mother's Day. If you're one of the people that couldn't resist the call of the garden on some of the days in the 70's, you're now out covering your plants with boxes, laundry baskets, garbage bags, or whatever you can find. It's about time to head out to knock the snow off tree limbs. Fortunately, I am blessed to be able to watch all this from the large picture window in my bedroom. I have a great excuse, I can't walk so I can't do any work. I doesn't stop me from dreaming about a beautiful garden on the steep slope in our backyard! Now I just need a landscaper to make my dreams come true! (Sorry about the novel...I'm just a little chatty today!

I hear you dbnc. I'm still managing but it gets more painful every year.

You sound happy, Joyce. I've been praying those lumps were nothing. Do you know anything yet?

I finally got the doctor to send the test orders to the right people! So just yesterday I went to one place for an ultrasound, and another place for an xray and CT scan. The lumps are nothing (yay! ) just like I thought, and I now have a cd of pictures to take to an ortho to find out why my shoulder feels like it's ripping out of the joint. Boy! With MS, if it's not one thing, it's another! But you're right...I try to stay happy because the alternative makes me sad. Lol! And snow makes me Very Happy!

My sister has MS also and I know how painful it can be. She also fibromyalgia which is usually associated with MS. Maybe you should be checked for that if you haven't already. I see her dragging her one leg behind her and she is not doing her vegetable gardening anymore. I hope and pray that you are not that bad. Thank God you did get your results back and there is nothing there. Take care Joyce.

Praise God for His goodness. Another prayer answered with a beautiful, smiling YES!
So happy for you Joyce. You may have a frozen shoulder. I had it and it can be quite painful. The doctor sent me for physical therapy which also hurt. Then another doctor who was treating my son for a hand problem told me it would go away by itself in 6 weeks with or without PT and he was right about the 6 weeks. I don't know about the PT because I kept it up.

Mamag--so sorry about your sister. An in-law in my husband's family has it, but she's fairly young and so far is doing well.

Mamag, so sorry about your sister...every MS case is so different it's hard to compare. I also have spinal cord damage from having a bone spur removed from the cord during surgery for spinal stenosis. It has made my entire left side pretty useless and it feels like there is an angry beehive spreading from my left hip. I've never been tested for fibromyalgia, but at this point it really doesn't matter. I'm on the same meds they prescribe for that anyway. I can still walk, but only with assistance or using a walker or grab bars because I have no balance. I have a power wheelchair that I use when we leave the house, but it hurts to sit in it for too long. So I pretty much just stay in bed all the time! I keep myself busy watching tv, playing games on the computer, doing jigsaw puzzles (! ), and looking out my window at the beautiful scenery.
My husband is a saint, and even with his degenerating body, he is still a wonderful care giver. My family comes over often to visit, and we laugh a lot! My mantra when it comes to my body is: ADAPT!! Where there's a will, there's a way! Even if it means asking others for help. It's very humbling. God is holding me through this whole trial, and that's a big comfort to me! He has a reason for all this....I'll find out later what He wants me to learn.

Pixi and Mamag, thank you so much for your concern and prayers for me. They are what carry me through! I'll let you know about my shoulder...if and when my doctor ever calls me back! wink-wink

Joyce and Mamag, my husband has Acute Relapsing MS. He's had "symptoms" for years but his doctors attributed them to his spinal stenosis, his spinal fusion, and nerve damage from both. It wasn't until last summer when he had a seizure that MS was diagnosed. Funny thing is, the seizure wasn't due to MS but from my husband having almost no sodium, potassium, vitamin B12 and a few other vitamins and minerals in his system. A vascular neurosurgeon was put on his case and they ran CT scans and did a zillion tests to determine if he had MS but they couldn't do an MRI because he had a neuro-stimulator in his back (implanted several years before to relieve some of the pain he had). The seizure rendered the neuro-stim almost useless so his surgeon removed it. Then he could have an MRI and the results of two of those produced the MS diagnosis. Well, at least we had a name now for so much of the weird symptoms my hubby had over the years. Some of his symptoms include blindness in one eye (although the eye itself is perfectly fine; it is a nerve in the back of his head that's the culprit), 'white spots' in his brain (dead cells), liesons on his spine, drop foot, pain in his back and legs, speech "episodes" where it's like he's had a small stroke (but they're not strokes), memory episodes, balance problems and on and on.
One article I read said MS symptoms were of "great heterogeneity." Ha! That's almost an understatement. Translation: a great amount of conditions (symptoms).

That would be 'leisons' on his spine.

Ugh..."lesions"

Trynfindit, it sounds like your husband and I are on the same path. I had the same problems with diagnosis as he did. You'd think that doctors would have learned by now that when a patient has one medical disaster after another, they should look for a connection! The Neurologist says I have probably had MS since I was 18, but I was not diagnosed until I was 63. I still think that if I had been treated for the real problem instead of piece by piece over the years, I wouldn't be in as bad of shape as I am now. They need to treat the whole person, not just the individual symptoms one at a time. My doctor won't even let me ask him about more than 2 problems at a time because it takes too long, interrupting his schedule for the day. I think he's in the wrong business, and I'm looking for another doctor who really cares for his patients, not numbers. Okay, I'll get off my soap box!

I had a wonderful day! My grown grandsons decided to come over for a game day after church. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, and played a fun board game for a couple hours. Lots of laughs were had by all! This week my oldest son turns 41, and my youngest grandson turns 2. Neither of them were here, but we decided to celebrate without them! Let us eat CAKE!!!

Joyce, I wholeheartedly agree with having cake for your celebration.

The doctors said my hubby could have had MS since about 2002. The problem with diagnosing it is that the symptoms are so varied and don't follow a certain pattern like so many other diseases do. When he was diagnosed last year with MS we said, "Well, at least we know what you've had for the past 14 years! " Trouble is, the seizure that he had last August from the depletion of vitamins/minerals in his system (his doctor is now working to figure out what caused THAT) and the spinal tap that he had in the fall really accelerated the MS symptoms putting him with the diagnosis of 'acute relapsing MS.'

With regard to your doctor's '2 question time limit' I agree with you - time to find another doctor. Especially when discussing MS the answer to one question can lead to half a dozen more questions. It's not a time to be dismissed.

Trynfindit, I'd like to thank you as one of those wonderful caregivers that make our lives bearable! It's not always easy to find people who understand what we're going through and try their best to help us down the path that life has given us. I know my husband has to juggle a full-time job and taking care of me, and it is NOT easy! He had to make our house accessible (Lots of grab bars, ramps, removing rugs, etc, etc), make all of my meals (I can't stand up in the kitchen long enough to cook anything), haul me AND my wheelchair to multiple doctor appointments, and still be there for my bouts of depression. He's also an Elder in our church, so he takes care of a whole "flock" too! He recently had to become the "care receiver" for a three month long period for a knee replacement that went bad. He had 3 surgeries in 3 months to get the knee, replace parts and remove a severe infection, and then to seal up a final leak. Needless to say, he couldn't do anything he's used to doing. All of us who depend on him learned just how MUCH he does for us! It took a whole "village" to take care of both of us! Now that he's almost back to normal, I thank him a million times a day for everything he does for me! He may not do everything the way I would do it, but he does his best and deserves every word of praise! I couldn't live without him.

I know you can relate to all this. I admire all of you Care Givers out there! You deserve a special place of honor in heaven! God bless you!

Baygrannie, did you get your meds straightened out? You were dragging back in April.

JoyceRogers, How are you doing? Just wanted to check in with you. My husband is going to have surgery on Nov 9th for another spinal fusion and 2 procedures to put spacers in two more vertebrae.

Oh, no! I'm so sick of that kind of surgery...I have 4 fusions in the neck, and 1 more in the lumbar section. They all have artificial disks above, below, and between all the vertebrae. I had problems with 2 of the surgeries that caused more problems than the original stenosis. I had a recent MRI that showed I currently have more bulging disks above and below the fusions. My ortho won't even discuss any more procedures. The worst one is at C-1 which is practically in the brain. He won't touch it! So I'm just trying to get used to all the aches and constant pain, and pretend they are not there!

I pray that your husband's surgery is successful and helps relieve his pain. God bless you both. I know what an ordeal this is.

Prayers for your husband, trynfindit, and for you, Joyce. Is there some kind of external brace that might help?

Thanks for your concern, Pixi. But, no, a brace wouldn't help. (At least in my case.) MS is an autoimmune nerve disease that causes damage in the brain and the spinal cord. I don't think those can be braced! ;) It's difficult to explain MS. Everyone experiences it differently, so where one person has eye problems, another person is in a wheelchair. The most common symptoms are: eye problems, bladder/bowel problems, balance, temperature sensitivity, nerve pain all over body but it can localize on one side or the other, fatigue, insomnia, cognitive problems effecting speech and memory, etc, etc, etc. The disease is progressive, so symptoms build on each other, in random order. Some people get one or two symptoms, while others (like me and trynfindit's husband) can have them all at once. Sometimes surgeries are done to repair some of the damage that impedes normal nerve movement, like stenosis (which is a narrowing of the spinal column around the spinal cord - the highway for nerve travel). There still is no cure for MS, but hopefully one will be coming soon. Right now, meds (many different kinds with lots of side effects) can only slow down the progression, at best). So please direct lots of prayers for a cure!

You now know more than most doctors about MS!! Hugs to all...

To help understand MS, think of the nerves as wires like we have in machinery. Those wires are covered with a layer of insulation to keep the wire from being exposed. In our bodies, the nerves are covered with a protective coating called myelin. In MS, that coating is attacked and destroyed in places by the MS. The nerves then don't respond to what the brain is telling them to do such as move your leg/foot/hand, pick up something, remembering things, forming words and sentences, swallowing, and about a thousand other things. My husband is blind in his left eye but there is nothing wrong with the eye itself. The blindness comes from nerves in the back of his skull messing up the signals to the eye. Sometimes the nerves will 're-route' themselves to other pathways, but this doesn't happen often.

So sorry about that. What a terrible disease. Od course I will send up prayers for them to find a cure.

Thanks pix. :)

Thank You, Pixi! That may be the only way we can beat this!

"It is the sweet, simple things of life that are the real ones, after all." Laura Ingalls Wilder

May all your plantings unfold beautifully. Still about a month away from planting up here. Hugs.

HUGS!!!

Hi Aknan Just think, there are flowers blooming all over the world at all times of the year :) Hugs.

Thanks abacii, that was a nice big hug :) take care. Hugs back to you.

When it comes to parting, I let my comb do the honors. We won't need combs in heaven because there will be no parting there. ;-)

And apart from actually being there, the second best thing is there are no tears. Hugs.

I have zinnias, marigolds, salvia and basil in styrofoam cups on my window sill. I'm tempted to plant a few but know I can't trust the weather here until mid May. All this stuff is supposed to be deer resistant. I hope so.