Lots to say about this book. Its written by Neurologist Howard L. Weiner,
M.D., Director of the Partners MS Center at Brigham's and Women's Hospital in
Boston. This book is definatly intended for those that want a little more science
to an MS book than a person's anecdote of living with MS. The book goes into
Dr. Weiner's history with the disease from the days of no medical choices for
treatment to all the latest and greatest drugs of today. More interesting to
me were the stories of how all these drugs not only come to market, but are
"thought of" in the lab or clinic setting. The book is not too "sciencey" yet
the science is there in lamens terms. Most appreciated! I feel much better informed
about my disease. I learned what really would/will happen with MS drugs in my
body and when the day comes to choose a med to be on, I feel like I have a good
resource to go back to. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants
a bigger understanding of the science side of the disease. Well worth the read.
*(click the picture of the book and it'll take you right to Amazon for purchasing)
It's back!

2006-01-09 12:09:36

Yay! My blog is back! It randomly disappeared for the last 3 days and we have
no idea why. We phoned tech support and they said they would help to fix it
on Monday, and randomly they seemed to have figured what went wrong on their
end. Good :) I did a phone interview this morning with a local paper on the
podcast. He asked some great questions so I'm hoping the article turns out well.
Tod's having a Vancouver podcaster meetup in a week I believe, so maybe I'll
go to it and meet some other local podcasters. Saw a great posting on Carrie's
site this morning about guilty feelings around the disease. Well put. Oh, and
happy belated Carrie! On a fun note, the new kitties are growing up fast and
are soooo much fun to hang with :) They are so rambuctious! I love it. And their
little personalities are coming out big time.
Today is going to be one of those inside days. Its pouring rain in torrents
here on the wetcoast and the creek in our backyard has white water rapids! So,
the knitting continues :) I love days off like these.

Metal

2006-01-09 12:21:43

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. The last couple of days I've had a metalic taste whenever I drink water. I thought maybe it was our water in the water cooler, but we had lunch out the other day and their water had that flavour too. What the heck? I remember having that taste when I had the 6th and 7th nerve palsies... The numb tongue and flavour I had for a short time with the 7th nerve, but this time I only have the taste thing and not any collapse of my facial muscles. Weird.
Help me raise money for the Canadian MS Society!
2006-01-12 12:05:56

The sites are all set up for this year's walk for MS! If you don't have a choosen charity yet, please help me raise my goal of $2000.00 dollars! Click here to pledge me!
Has it really been a week?
2006-01-18 21:41:19

Wow. I haven't been on email or blogging or podcasting in a week! Cool. It's
nice to have a break sometimes. I guess I should spend some time catching on
on the hordes of emails I haven't replied to! I'm on holidays this week. I have
some vacation time to take prior to the end of march, so I'm at home doing nothing!
So far I've been knitting. Finished a baby blanket, two little hats for a friend
who just had twin boys, and now I'm starting a shawl for my mom. The list is
always endless when it comes to crafty stuff for me. I'm just glad it's the
rainy season and I don't have to do any gardening! The metal taste from a few
weeks back keeps coming and going. Strange stuff. But I don't have any other
weird symptoms so I'm guessing this is just some stupid anomaly that I can attribute
to MS. Whatever? Oh, speaking of rain. I think it rained for 26 or 27 days straight
here in Vancouver. Ha! I didn't notice until they started mentioning that we
could break some record. Now I feel like the real dreary rainy westcoast weather
has really come. I'm heading off to Calgary in two weeeks to visit friends.
Hopefully it's snowing there for a change of scenery! Hmm.. perhaps I should
start planning/researching the next podcast. If you have an idea of a topic
you want covered let me know! Oh, for those that live in Vancouver,
there's a podcasters' meetup
happening on Friday night that I'm going to. Come out and say hi! -
Podcasters meetup is cancelled. Tod's come down with a wicked virus... so he'll
stay home and not spread his germs! I have some competition!

2006-01-19 12:02:25

Help me kick Tods' butt in fundraising! He has way more readers than me! Click here to pledge me! And if your in the lower mainland and want to be a part of team Mandatory Rest Period, please join us! The more the better!
close up.JPG
2006-01-22 18:33:32

It started with a painting...
2006-01-22 18:37:51

Here's the painting I did to start off my week off. It's okay :) Some good, much to improve on, and yet still fun. The bad part about this week has been my back. I think my bad L5 disc is acting up again and I can't wait to get in for a massage. It just wrecks my ability to sleep and that doesn't do me well. I think I've been sleeping (or in bed as it may be) for at least 10 hours every night. I figure maybe 6 of those oare spent sleeping. Ugh. Tod's been awfully sick this last week. I must have given him the virus I caught just after Christmas and it kicked him off his feet just as well as it did me. Here's hoping this family is done with viruses for this year!
Eggs whites and Interferon-Beta-1a, who knew?
2006-01-23 00:03:01

This is an interesting article on what this company Viragen is doing. Egg whites that will have Interferon-Beta-1a. This is the kind of stuff i find interesting about science these days. There are so many drugs out there and you have to bet that many have uses no one has yet tested for. Who though, was ingeneous enough to think through this process of getting interferon-beta out of chickens instead of the very expensive ways currently being used? Love it.
Blockade Of Fat Hormone Helps Halt And Heal MS
2006-01-23 00:11:58

Blockade
Of Fat Hormone Helps Halt And Heal Multiple Sclerosis | Science Blog - and
will I lose weight at the same time as halting my MS? Inquiring minds want to
know...

Multiple Sclerosis Society of India

2006-01-23 00:21:22

I just stumbled over these
pictures posted on a users Flickr site. They have the description that they're
the Multiple Sclerosis Society of India. They are facinating to look at as I
could not have imagined that their clinic would look as different from mine
as it does. Wow.

Study's findings challenge impact of MS on males

2006-01-24 23:22:06

CBC British
Columbia - UBC study's findings challenge impact of MS on males Hey, and
this news coming right out of MY MS clinic! Yay! "The average age for using
a cane was 60 among women and 59 for men, the team reports in the Jan. 24 issue
of the journal Neurology. Women are more than twice as likely to develop MS
than men, but earlier studies suggested men become more disabled. But studies
of multiple sclerosis traditionally use the date of onset based on when a patient
first recalls symptoms, an approach that depends on how well a doctor takes
a medical history and the patient's recall. To try to overcome these problems,
the B.C. team used date of birth and clinical onset, reducing reliance on imprecise
dates of onset or diagnosis. "By using date of birth as an inception point,
we were able to challenge two fundamental concepts in MS, demonstrating that
male sex and older age at onset are not synonymous with a worse disease outcome,"
the researchers wrote. On average, those who were diagnosed in their 20s needed
a cane age at 55. This same level of disability was reached at age 71 for those
diagnosed at age 50 and up, the researchers reported." Interesting results.
And as a side note, this was funded by the MS Society that I'm trying to raise
money for more research! Pledge
me!! :)

Tysabri Recommendation meeting on March 7

2006-01-25 14:56:48

"A committee of the US Food & Drug Administration's meeting will
take place on March 7, and will then make a recommendation to the FDA. The
FDA had granted Tysabri priority review status, which means a decision is made
more quickly than usual."

Mom who helped M.S. son kill himself avoids jail

2006-01-27 11:38:34

A 60-year-old woman in Montreal who helped her adult son suffering from M.S.
commit suicide won't
be going to jail.Marielle Houle's son, Charles Fariala, a playwright and
former nurse at a Montreal chronic-care centre, was diagnosed with multiple
sclerosis in 2002 and believed the degenerative disease was advancing rapidly.
He decided to kill himself at age 36, using a method he found on the internet.
Fariala took a mixture of drugs. Houle then tied his hands, put a plastic bag
over his head and stayed with him until he died. A short time later, she turned
herself in to police. Marielle Houle was sentenced on Friday to three years'
probation, which means she will remain at large but must report regularly to
a probation officer.

Age at disability milestones

2006-01-30 21:04:41

Your age determines when disabilty can strike rather than by your initial
symptoms of the disease. Interesting
research. "This paper shows that prognosis in multiple sclerosis appears,
at least to some extent, as age-dependent and not substantially affected by
the initial course, be it exacerbating-remitting or progressive. Aside acute
focal recurrent inflammation and diffuse chronic neurodegeneration, accelerated
ageing-related mechanisms may operate in the central nervous system of multiple
sclerosis patients."

I knew we put carpet on the walls for a reason

2006-01-30 21:27:07

Originally uploaded by OnlineKim.