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[justkeepsmyelin]

TEDx Talk About Living With MS

A while back I was asked to give a TEDx talk about how my MS diagnosis changed my life, and led to me becoming an MS nurse and to starting this little blog! If you aren’t familiar, TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas in the form of short “talks” about a variety of subjects. They then get broadcasted online for the whooooole world to see! It was terrifying, but also an opportunity to spread MS awareness that I knew I couldn’t pass up. If you are interested you can view the talk on the TEDx YouTube channel (and it should be on the TEDx website soon!). I hope you all enjoy it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuLOT6GsAxw

[justkeepsmyelin]

MS Moms are the Best Moms

Mother’s Day is an opportunity for us to take some time to go above and beyond for the special woman in our lives, because they go above and beyond for us every day. In the past few years I have met some particularly amazing women who truly take the motherhood thing to the next level. MS adds a whole different dimension to the mother-child relationship. It can be tough at times, but it can be beautiful too. Today I want to thank the the moms living with MS, the moms that help care for children with MS, and most of all I want to thank my own spectacular mother. 

Thank you mom for dropping everything and racing hundreds of miles to be with me in the hospital. 

Thank you to the moms who selfishly drop everything for their children with no regard for themselves, or how they are feeling.

Thank you mom for not leaving my side for weeks while we figured out what was going on, side by side. 

Thank you to the moms who don’t always have the strength or energy to chase your toddlers around the yard or chaperone a class field trip, but always have enough love to go around. 

Thank you mom for always being a phone call away, and for always knowing what it is I need to hear- even when I don’t. 

Thank you to the moms who have the strength of warriors but who are also kind, compassionate, and generous with themselves. 

Thank you mom for encouraging me while I give myself injections, and for watching over me during infusions.

Thank you to all the moms who are their children’s guardian angels and who know that motherhood is a job that is never done. 

If you are a parent living with MS know that your children are lucky to have you and they will grow up to be kinder, stronger, and more compassionate because of it. If you are a mother looking after a child with MS then know that you are the glue that holds us together. One day or one thank you could never be enough!

I love you mom!!

[justkeepsmyelin]

Multiple Sclerosis 101: The Importance of Taking Care of You

"Unfortunately there is no switch that we can flip (yet) to get rid of our MS. We may be powerless to cure this disease that afflicts our central nervous system, but we can still take steps to improve symptoms and keep the...

[justkeepsmyelin]

Letter To Myself On A Bad Day

Ok I have a homework assignment for you guys. Now now no groaning! And this is for everyone, whether you read this blog because you have MS,  you know someone who does, or just because you find me to be incredibly witty and fascinating (hah!). As you probably already know I’m recovering from a flare (sounds so much more fun then “relapse” right? I’m flaring, how festive!). Safe to say I had some bad days, and I think during this one it was more apparent then ever how stark a contrast your days can be with MS. One day I was out having a blast and literally the next day my symptoms hit full force. But that’s life for everyone right? Good day, bad day, good day, repeat.

So the next time you have one of those good or great days I want you to take a few moments and write your future self a letter that you can read on a bad day. I sat down and wrote myself one and my fiancé is writing one to himself because he is finishing up medical school and will soon be doing residency, a particularly grueling undertaking. He knows he will have some moments where it may help to remind himself why he is putting himself through 80+ hour weeks and going days without sleep. To get you inspired I’m going to share mine with you. You may not get some of the inside jokes I have with myself, but the point should still get across!

Letter to myself on a bad day

Today was a good day, great even. It wouldn’t seem extraordinary in the eyes of others. You woke up early without an alarm and without feeling like you had a hangover. You ran errands effortlessly, you went to the gym. You laughed…a lot. You laughed with good friends, family, and obviously Michael. You laughed at YouTube videos and things on TV. You cooked a big, delicious dinner- goodness you are a good cook! It was an extraordinarily ordinary day. 

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[justkeepsmyelin]

Latest Breakthrough Or Junk Science? How To Tell The Good Research From The Bad

Alright so I may have bitched and moaned through those two incredibly painful semesters of research that I had to do in undergrad and grad school, but at least they did teach me how to interpret research. Sometimes it just so happens that the driest of subjects can be the ones that you end up using everyday, and as an MS nurse/patient I do find myself reading through the latest research almost daily. I often get excited by the over promising titles, only to realize after reading the data and results that the whole study accomplished nothing…whomp whooooomp. 

So how do you tell good research from bad research? 

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[jeremyjohnstone]

I need to start looking for a Drones Anonymous group to join… If one doesn’t exist, maybe I should found one…

[brainshadow]

Human 'suspended animation' trials to start this month

The researchers behind it don't want to call it suspended animation, but it's the most conventional way to explain it. The world's first humans trials

[justkeepsmyelin]

What is World MS Day??

It’s a day to recognize those affected by multiple sclerosis.

It’s a day to teach someone a little something about MS.

It’s a day to raise awareness about what MS is.

It’s a day to meet in board rooms and call on our legislators to pass bills like the Disability...

[wired]

The weirdest computer Google owns is a 10ft freezer housing a single chip. But is it quantum?

They say yes, and if they’re right, it’s a huge breakthrough.

[MORE]

[singularitarian]

Remember Project Tango? Google’s crazy project to add 3D environment mapping abilities to a smartphone? Yeah, someone just went ahead and took the next logical step: they plugged it into a drone.

[jayparkinsonmd]

I’m obviously quite excited about this. Sherpaa started in February of 2012 with one client, tumblr. A little over two years later:

We take care of more than 100 companies

We’re 18 employees and hiring

Our monthly revenue covers our monthly burn

We’re now in California and in the...

[fight4future]

New FCC rules could let internet providers (think: Comcast) end net neutrality and slow down sites like Netflix and Tumblr. The vote on proposed rules is today!

Use Tumblr to take a stand. Share this image, and add this code to your Tumblr theme.

[radical--softness-deactivated20]

[diy]

4 Cool Science Tricks!

1. Build a solar cooker. Use an old pizza/cardboard box to build a cooker that bakes cookies, reheats food, etc. Try out different recipes!

2. Demonstrate capillary action. Use food dye to see how plants get the water and nutrients they need through tiny capillary tubes.

3. Make oobleck. Crazy things happen when you mix cornstarch with water. 

4. Grow crystals. Use evaporation to create intricate crystals on sugar, salt, or ice. Diamonds take thousands of years, but these can grow much faster.

[stansansastarkarchive-deactivat]

The Daily Show (05.12.14) #BringHomeOurGirls

[emergentfutures]

Paul Higgins: Jon Stewart Nails it (again and again)

[justkeepsmyelin]

Emergency Preparedness

My last post about relapses and remissions got me thinking about when I was newly diagnosed MS. I was always nervous, like there was a monster riding around on my shoulder and I never knew when he was going to attack me. Relapses are unpredictable, which didn’t exactly jive with my type-A-plan-everything-ahead-of-time personality. I decided that even if there wasn’t anything I could do to control whether my relapses occurred at the time that was most convenient for me, then at least I could do a few things to prepare. Having a few “survival supplies” on hand at all times puts my mind at ease a bit. After all preparedness is next to godliness (that’s a saying right?)!

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[bpod-bpod]

05 May 2014

Anti-Flu Solution

Western governments stockpile flu vaccines in case of a global pandemic. However, if a new strain of bird flu emerged that could jump easily between humans, scientists worry that many people would die in the months it takes to deliver a new vaccine. As of now, our best antiviral drugs are only partly effective and must be administered immediately after infection. But researchers have come up with a potential solution: a nasal spray containing lab-engineered proteins (shown in green) that gum up receptors on cells in the nasal passage (blue) to which flu viruses attach. When mice were given the spray a week before they got a lethal dose of the H1N1 flu virus from the 2009 pandemic, they were completely protected from infection. The team thinks their spray could be used as a preventative measure against a nasty new flu strain while an effective vaccine is developed.

Written by Daniel Cossins

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Image by Garry Taylor and colleagues The University of St Andrews, Scotland Copyright held by The University of St Andrews Research published in PNAS, April 2014

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