Universal Pain Scale

You didn't think MS was it, did you, after how I went on about illness? Aw, hell no. This could be the series that goes on forever and ever. I actually argue (In my head) with Myke that I've got it worse. But of course, everyone thinks what they experience is worse, and it never negates the pain that another person feels.

I think I was 11 when my issues started. I was called a hypochondriac by my father when I told him my right knee hurt a lot, and often. By the time I was 16 I had both knees, my right ankle, and my back in regular pain. At this point, after having looked at a universal pain scale, I'd rate it a 2-3. Nothing unbearable, it never prevented me from functioning normally, it was just occasionally annoying.

It escalated, as untreated pains are wont to do. It started to really bother me when my knees started to go out as I ran, or walked up or down stairs. When my hips started to hurt as well, and I could not longer sleep on my back without waking in pain, I told my doctor. She ignored me. This would be when I moved to Cornwall, so I was 19.

I went to the hospital twice for excruciating back pain; twice I was told it was nothing and to take some Ibuprofen, after cursory examinations. Last year I went in for an unrelated work injury after having dropped a case of Pepsi on my leg. It was July, just days before my birthday. While I was there I half-heartedly told the doctor attending me about my back... And leg.. And hip pain. She bent me up like a pretzel and ordered x-rays, making an offhanded remark.

She asked if I had a family history, which I do. The x-ray revealed the feared early onset of osteoarthritis. In addition, my body was poorly trying to compensate. Tendons and ligaments had weakened, rendering some joints (A few lumbar vertebrae and my knees) hyper flexible. Muscles in my hips and lower back were always tense in an effort to hold me up, pulling my hips and spine out of alignment and causing further problems.

In short, everything from my lower back down is decaying faster than it should. I've been warned that childbearing may be extremely difficult for me. What's worse? My family doctor refuses to treat me, on the basis that I eat sugar. Once again, I am not exaggerating. She is a proponent of the Paleolithic Diet, and claims that because I eat sugar and grains any medication she gives me will not work. So I've had to try and band-aid the issue with various holistic supplements, which have generally not worked for pain management and, in some cases, made it worse.

I only realised how bad it had all gotten when I saw that aforementioned universal pain scale, and realised that on a good day my pain has increased to a 5-6, and on a bad day I'm up at the 7-8 level.

I'm trying to find a new doctor.

Four Words To Change Your Life

I wanted to start a blog to talk about life... And illness is a major part of my life. It's depressing. I imagine that I am not the only person who lives with illness day to day. Maybe it's not you, but someone you love: a friend, family member, or pet. Regardless of the who, being a 20-something and dealing with a major illness is no fun at all.

In February 2009 my then-boyfriend-now-fiancé had to quit his job because of a mix of flu-like symptoms and an inability to walk. We thought it was a complete asshole of a flu, but when he was unable to walk even when he felt better, doctors at the hospital shrugged and said, "Maybe it's blood clots. In both legs. At the same time. Which is extremely rare." I am not paraphrasing. Okay, maybe a little. The point is that they had him stand in the waiting room for six hours, leaning on me, squeezed his calves and sent him home.

He felt better a few months later, and even packed away the cane we had to buy.

In May 2010 his vision started to go. Blurred edges, loss of colour, and extreme sensitivity to sunlight were the hallmarks. His optometrist took a look and knew he was in over his head, referring Myke to an opthalmologist. The man scheduled two diagnostic appointments, and referred him for an MRI, stating, "This is rare, but a common indicator of a major illness."

The MRI results and Myke were sent to the local neurologist, who took a look at them, and uttered four words that changed our lives.

I think shocked is a good word. Between the two of us our stress levels were through the roof, though Myke likes to think he was a cool cucumber. He was a bit more collected than me, but that's only because I have terrible stress management skills. December 17th of 2010 was the first day he turned to me and said, "You don't have to stay. You didn't pick this."

It wasn't the last.

MS is a brutal disease. All diseases are brutal, really, but I guess since MS is so close to me it feels so much more monstrous. We have so many ways to describe it to people and ourselves, it's ridiculous. The fact is that something triggered his body into believing that the coating on his nerves is an invader and needs to be destroyed. Imagine slowly whittling away the plastic casing on the wire to plug your television in. How long do you suppose it will keep turning on correctly?

That's how Myke's body works. In the past two years he's gone from Batman—and occasionally keeps thinking he is—to being so frustrated from his inability to perform simple tasks that he barely gets dressed anymore. Pajamas are easier than fumbling with buttons and tiring oneself out putting jeans on. His mental function has even decreased. He attempted to take a remedial English class, and found himself at a complete disadvantage. It almost broke my heart when he said, "I feel like an idiot." 

Tiredness, pain, and loss of function are the three major effects of MS. And boy, do they suck.

Spring Things (Among Others) Launching!

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be (And have been!) launching a bunch of spring things in my shop. I've already put up a few nifty collar listings. These were so fun and unexpected.

I was at Michael's and saw these ribbons, and I had to. The black-and-white isn't exactly springy, I know, but I think I more than make up for it with the brightly coloured flowers and the pink, green, and blue chevrons. The finished products are so cheerful!

The only thing I hadn't done here was affix labels, because at this point, I became certain I needed a new label. A new logo. A new look. Again. So after I sewed these up I spent the rest of the day putting together the new branding with the help of a friend (Mostly to say, "That one!" when I waffled.) I thought it was fitting when, I had finally printed the right sized labels, I put them on these collars first.

Squee! Now I have small labels for small collars and big labels for big collars. I may have to make some mini labels, because even the small ones didn't fit on my cat-sized ruffled collars, due to the way the ribbon is made and sewn to the collar.

And, what with having new labels on everything, I needed new pictures for my listings! I checked what I had full sets of, and took new pictures. A few collections were left out, such as my Animal Prints (My photography set still has OLD stitching, wow.) and cat-sized Mushrooms (Missing the blue.) I did as well as I could. I did notice after that in most of my listing photos the o-ring was just blown out, but I'm not sure if that matters? I don't think people click to see what the o-ring is about, it's just a nice touch when they realise that my collars are pretty + tough.

I'm also noticing that the reflector I use is not doing its job right, but I guess that's understandable, since it's a piece of aluminum foil-covered cardboard that I set at whatever angle seems best at the time, but I'm usually taking pictures for so long that I don't notice if a cloud passes and the angle changes. I need a proper reflector. Or a light and an aluminum foil-covered umbrella! I'm very DIY. Also, cheap.

Speaking of reflector, this cat:

Is a monster! Don't be fooled by that face, she's a bitch. I usually take her pictures first because she is pushy and gets up on the box anyway, and she's very into wearing "her costumes" and posing. I also find it gets Peach, who doesn't like picture-time as much, excited. Peach wants the attention and treats too! And after an hour of being told to go away while Astrid gets attention and treats for sitting on a box (Scary!) in front of a paper-covered window (Scarier!) Peach just wants to get up there.

So I shoo Astrid away, right? I shoo her, get Peach up on the box, and tell her how brave she is while I arrange her and take her collar off. I always put the model collars on very open so they just slip on and off, and she prefers that to the buckles. They're tough buckles, I find them very hard to just pinch open without tugging Peach all over the place. So she's getting into it, giving me little faces and turning in circles and standing (Basically, imitating Astrid, although it's harder to get cute product pictures out of Peach while she does that because she is very hairy and the hair tends to cover the collar) and then Astrid THROWS THE REFLECTOR AT HER.

I had it on a chair, angled downwards, and the cat just jumps on the chair, looks around the reflector, then puts her paws against it and pushes.

Peach's eyes bugged out and she leapt off the box, flinging it away, and into my lap, where she cowered and tried to dance away from the reflector. It weighs less than a pound. I yelled at Astrid and she ran a few steps away, so I smacked the floor and she ran out of the kitchen, turned at the threshold, sat down, and purred. Loudly. I had nothing on hand to throw at her so I shook my fist menacingly. Peach shook herself pathetically.

Yeah, I had to wave treats in Peach's face and coo at about twenty times the pressure after that just to get her to not look bug-eyed and sad. She kept eyeballing the reflector and jumped again when Astrid snuck up on me and sat in the collars, purring.

I did get one excellent picture before Astrid's shenanigans...

"Donuts? I love donuts!"

Family is Two Sides of the Same Coin

So for my mother's birthday, I told her I was engaged. She reacted as I expected I would, which was why I was so anxious about it. She squealed, flapped her hands, and tried to hug me from a sitting position. She tried to hug Myke, too, but he doesn't take that shit and just kind of huddled in the chair while managing Peach and trying not to die in his video game.

We're not assholes, I swear. My mother is a very difficult person to get along with. My dad was a saint for trying as long as he did. We affectionately refer to their separation-and-divorce period as "when my mother went crazy." The crazy was there beforehand. My mother is argumentative, paranoid, pushy, and loud. Maybe if I was a normal person I wouldn't mind the squealing, but loud noises really, really bother me.

There's also the fact that my mother will argue for the sake of arguing, and that I cannot forget her bawling to my father that my brother didn't need her anymore... When he was four. He could make a sandwich, he was all set. I'm also just a little bitter (This one's on me) that my parents blatantly favour my brother for his speech impediment. I got pushed; he got babied. He is still, at nineteen, being babied.

When I worked and lived at home, my income went to paying my way. He is working and living with my dad, and he's talking about buying a second laptop. For gaming. And my dad is only trying to talk him OUT of getting an Alienware.

I have a lot of issues with my family: they suck. Even so, they haven't done anything that means I don't love them, and they certainly help me out at least as much as they fail to. I guess I'm lucky: they rock.

That my dad yesterday waived a minor bill for us because of our trouble... And laughed about how I suck at budgeting. Way to go, dad! That my grandmother was able to come up with my mom, and we then had to patiently explain to her why my mom was freaking out. She gets to see a third granddaughter get married, if we play our cards right. That my brother and all that disposable income said, without prompting, "I'm helping them get married, too. I want to help."

That instead of spending the day freaking out, Peach was calm, and even cuddled her nemesis instead of barking.

 Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

Income Tax Sucks

Suddenly, I am less excited, and more tired and despairing. This is an unfortunately common feeling. Myke and I don't often get a break and the past few months have been unexpectedly easy. While my classmates flutter around like headless chickens, panicking about every presentation, paper, and exam, I often feel like I'm cheating the system. For the first time since we've been together we're living in a place where mold, neighbours, and heating aren't issues.

It's really my fault, so here's my warning: never, ever make a budget with money you don't presently have clenched in a death-grip in your fist. I made that mistake. If all had gone according to plan, our income tax return would be ten times what we're expecting to receive now. What reduced it? I was in school for over thirteen weeks of the year, and therefore rendered ineligible for the tax return we had been expecting. Maybe I could argue that I haven't actually attended more than thirteen weeks of school, I'm sure my professors would corroborate, but I doubt that would work.

So now, all of my happy has fled. I found myself wanting to smother Myke with a pillow last night for snoring (Maybe if you didn't have your head at a ninety degree angle to your body you wouldn't snore!) and vainly wondering what I could sell to make up the over thousand dollar difference in our budget, about seven hundred of which is a currently existing electric bill that is staring me down like some kind of angry dog.

All my hopes rest on that giveaway now, which is kind of an extreme swing of the pendulum back in the other direction.

At least with all the crappy weather today, the crappy mood I'm in, and the crappy job I had to do (Seam ripping labels from old collars to replace them with new labels for new pictures, ouch!) there is still someone who doesn't care what kind of day I'm having, as long as she can cuddle with me. I wish I could live life like a dog.

Bits and Bobs and Business Jobs

I finished off my business cards (Again) mostly today. I still need to print the new labels, affix them to the photography collars (Why yes, I WAS retaking photos so often that I started making collars that would never be sold and only be used for photography reasons!) and take new pictures to use on the business cards. And product listings. Oh, and this amazing thing that happened.

In November I contacted Dogster/Catster to see if they might want to do a giveaway for my little shop, then panicked because I'm a small-timer and my shop was still a mess. It's slightly less of a mess now? Maybe? Enough so that when Dogster/Catster got back to me gushing about how cute my items were and how nice my price point was that they wanted to do a giveaway for me, my first thought wasn't actually, "But my photography is a mess!" it was, "I get to do a giveaway!" Then that first one happened.

So I've spent the past few days juggling sewing, cleaning up the branding, and college work (Death to the Group Project!) and tomorrow I'm hoping to send off a few pictures that they requested to use in their post for my giveaway. Mine! On Dogster and Catster!

I will need to purchase some extra materials, since I'm running dangerously low and I totally don't want to run out in the middle of a giveaway-induced rush.

I'm excited.

How To Make a Business Logo

I feel like I've done this a couple of times... Oh wait, I have! Branding is one of my favourite parts of a business, and I didn't even know it until after I'd start the business and slapped a half-hearted banner up on my Etsy shop. I didn't even consider that the brand I was making was going to decorate every item, every scrap of paper, associated with my business, until I realised that I wanted labels. Then, that my labels looked kind of boring.

So I made some labels and matching hang-tags. Then I needed business cards, so I squeezed them in. Then I needed various images, and I found I was at a need for more fonts, and more images, and more paper items, and before I knew it my brand was all ajumble again, in a matter of a few months. With the introduction of my large collar line, my labels now looked very small, and I had no way to up-size them for my large collars.

So today, after sewing a bunch of collars, I decided I was going to look through my branding, identify the weaknesses, and fix them. I laid out the basis of my old brand: the colours, the fonts, and the patterns I was using, as well as my old logo.

How very un-inspired. I'd picked Goudy Stout for its strength, and the Bergamot Ornament was cute at the time. DK Claire De Lune sort of matched the Bergamot Ornament, when it became evident I needed a simple font, and Clementine Sketch was super fun to use on large announcement banners for Facebook. But it all felt so boring and cluttered when put together. I still like Goudy Stout, but the other fonts felt too complicated and overwhelming, and the colours were just too much.

After tackling the colours, I decided to work on my logo first. I wanted to stop using the Bergamot Ornament, and my recent love of outlined font bubbled to the surface. I fiddled, and fiddled, and came up with a passable logo and miniature branding board. I decided that I had to add my pets to my branding, so I did. They're extremely tiny here, but you can still see the supreme cuteness.