Great News!! (and a dreaded question)

I was at the hospital on Tuesday for my yearly check up with my Neurologist.  I had to have an MRI in January to check that I wasn't suffering any nasty effects from being on Tysabri monthly infusions for 2 years.

The great news is that my MRI hasn't changed since the one I had in 2009 which means that the infusions have helped to stop the MS progressing!!!  How cool is that?!

But...

I'm still having the most awful pain in my legs.  My MS Nurse, Carmel, thought it might be down to the new pills I was taking so I need to slowly wean myself off them.  Unfortunately it means I'm having violently painful spasms again.  Once I'm off the pills altogether I have to start on the ones I was originally on.  Confused???  I think I know what I'm doing!!

When I talked to my Neurologist about the pain he asked the dreaded question 'Does it feel like a relapse?'.  To anyone with MS, this is a shudder inducing question.  A relapse is when your MS symptoms flare up and is treated with high dose steroids on 3 consecutive days.  And if its serious enough it can leave you with more disability than you had before.

The good news is that if this is a relapse, its a small one.  Just gotta wait and see how I feel once I've swapped the pills over.

Wish me luck!!

Hospital and journal pages

I had my treatment last Thursday and saw my nurse.  My treatment wasn’t as smooth as it usually is due to no veins being suitable in my arms and the stupid doc who came down to put the cannula in my foot, wanted me to have a permanent central line put in.  For a once a month treatment.  I ask you!! 


My nurse (Carmel) thinks that the pain in my legs and the tiredness is all down to my new pills, so I’m off tweaking the dosage.  I seem to spend my entire life doing this kind of thing LOL!!! 


My friend Lou, who I met through Graphicus, is a teacher and has asked us on to help her show the kids what a talented bunch we are on the Guild.  She's asked us each to do at least one 8" x 8" journal page with the theme TIME.  Here are my first two:

This 'page' is made from the back of a breakfast cereal packet from Aldi.  The girl was already on the pack, so I sanded the whole surface and gessoed it and used 3 colours of Lumiere paint for the background.  She looked quiet dreamy so I pasted a picture of a pool and an advert for orange juice into the top corner and stamped 'O's' to make it look like she was thinking about the pool.  I sponged through sequin waste and used a baby wipe with white acrylic to bring the page together.

I wanted to make the girl stand out a little more, so I drew round her with a black PITT pen, but made a mess of her mouth, so I stuck a pair of lips from a different picture on to her face and coloured the lips with a Promarker in poppy.  A happy accident but it works!!

The second 'page' is made from corrugated packing cardboard.  I gessoed the surface and while it was damp I tore some of the top off it reveal the ribs.  I used Claudine Hellmuth paint in a Dash of Red and a Dab of Yellow, and a tongue depressor to spread it.  It really accentuated the texture of the cardboard.  I've had the image from a magazine for ages. 

Jo bought me a quote book a couple of Christmas's ago and she found this one which fit the picture perfectly.  I hand wrote it onto a piece of backing paper I got free ages ago, but I can't remember where from so I can't credit them, but thanks anyway. 

I was amazed that my writing was so good yesterday.  Couldn't do it today as I'm absolutely exhausted after mine and Jo's crafting session yesterday.

Legs and cool boots!!

My spasms have stopped (YAAY!!!) but I have really painful legs at the moment (UGH!!!).  They feel like lead and walking is really hard work for me.  I can get relief from pain killers but they knock me out so I'm trying to get by without them.  Its a different pain from the neuropathic pain that I'm using my TENS machine for.  This is like toothache from my hips to my toes on both legs!

I decided last night I had to journal about it after cutting some more bits from magazines.  So I cut out loads of pairs of legs and used Golden matte gel medium to stick them down.  Then I used a stencil and sharpies to write the word 'LEGS' and just spilled the rest of it.  It really helped to take my mind off the pain!!

Jo was here for a cuppa one day last week and we had a look at the Clarks shoe shop website sale.  She was looking for boots with higher heels than I can manage but I spotted these little beauties and, of course, I had to buy them!  Would have been rude not too!!  They're the original desert boot design with retro animal print suede.  The suede has a texture like real animal skin and is just FAB-U-LOUS!!!

I can't wear my Dr Martens boots anymore as they are too heavy for my poor legs to cope with, but these little babies will do just fine instead of the Docs!!!

Yumminess and journaling

I ordered some yarn from Flamboyance Yarns last week as Carrie has offered to knit me a scarf.  I needed to get some 4ply or sock yarn for the scarf.  When Carrie tweeted that Flamboyance had 20% off all yarn for one day only I rang her and we chose the yarn.

The one in the right of the picture is for my scarf and the one on the left is fibre for spinning.  Carrie has a spinning wheel and I'm gonna try and do it myself and is I can't manage, Carrie will do it for me.  This is gonna be fun!!!

Aren't the colours just yummy!!

As I've not been feeling too well I've ordered loads of crafty books and have a little bit of mojo reappear!!  My spasms have all but stopped now, but I'm still so tired so I've done a little bit of journaling to cheer myself up.  I still can't sit at my craft table for too long so I've pretty much done these pages in fits and starts.  But that's the beauty of journaling - you don't need to do it all in one go!

This first page is my first attempt at layers.  I originally wrote a letter to Martha (my gorgeous cat who died in May last year) and it made me so sad each time I saw it that I wanted to cover it up.  So I started with a couple of layers of gesso, followed by some watered down yellow and ultramarine Golden paint.  Once that way dry, I used torn book pages and used gel medium to stick them down.  Then I used white acrylic paint to make marks over the pages with bottle caps, credit card edges, the lid from a large Malteser tube and a texture stamps that I found in the kiddies section of an craft store.  I'm really pleased with the result.

The next page is something that just popped into my head one day when I was walking (carefully) downstairs.  I'm really pleased at the way it turned out.  I used music paper behind Darth Vader as I can't look at that picture and not here his music from Star Wars!!!