Giggles are good for you!

An HeV18 update-Growing Stronger Together

 

Hi Friends

I hope everyone is enjoying the month of May.  It’s been a long time since I wrote to you.  May has been a bit crazy for me but not necessarily in a bad way.  It started with me resting up from another fabulous weekend in Chicago, courtesy of Janssen!

Here’s the awesome scoop.  Again this year I was invited to attend the fabulous HealtheVoices Conference.  The goal of this event is to invite patient advocates from various health communities together to learn, grow, share and have fun.

I’ve been fortunate to attend two years now and it never disappoints.   The weekend offers workshops on how to increase our reach and better advocate for patients all over the world, as well as the opportunity to meet and connect with one another.  There were 100 attendees and six of these fabulous people represented multiple sclerosis; Dave Bexfield, Cat Stappas, Teresa Wright- Johnson, Laura Kowalski, Jackie Zimmerman and yours truly.

Representatives from over thirty other health communities joined us and it was awesome!  These folks are beyond talented not only in advocacy but in other ways too as was shown in the open mic night.  It was a joy to witness.

One of the advocates I learned a great deal from was an advocate for Sarcoidosis, a condition I had never even heard of.  My great joy of the conference was meeting her, hearing her talk of how humor heals and receiving the honor of introducing her and her talk to the entire conference.  Give me a mic and you can’t shut me up!

Even cooler, you likely know this advocate already.  The speaker was the amazing actress, writer, and former MTV VJ Duff, aka Karen Duffy!  And yes, she is as cool as you’ve always thought! Her talk on Friday night was definitely a highlight.

I wanted to share with you, my friends, the speech?/words I was able to say before I was able introduce this classy and busy lady who speaks my language when she uses humor to help heal.

Check out my opening below.  Oh, and feel free to google the names above to learn more about these spectacular people or go to healthevoices.com for more information on the great weekend!

 

Giggles are Good for you!

After my multiple sclerosis diagnosis, it didn’t take long to realize that life with a chronic illness was going to be so insane, I would go insane if I didn’t learn to laugh at it.  I had MS in addition to anxiety, germ-a-phobia, OCD, and one of the thyroid conditions.   I always forget if its hyper or hypo but it’s the one where I can blame it for not losing weight.

Anyway, I didn’t need to add insanity to the mix.

And trust me, insanity was the right wording.  Immediately I learned I was going to have to give myself injections made from Chinese hamster ovary cells!  Seriously!  You can’t make this stuff up.  It’s right on the box.  How does that even happen?

What scientist was hanging out in his lab and thinking, “Hmmmm, we need something to slow down MS, what’s good?  Portuguese goldfish liver cells?  No…  Russian rabbit lung cells?  No…..  Bolivian garter snake kidney cells?   No…..  I got it, Chinese hamster ovary cells, that should do it!”

If that wasn’t crazy enough, my insurance copay was so outrageous it would’ve been cheaper to fly to China, steal some of their hamsters, smuggle them into the US and start breeding them for the good of the MS community!

Speaking of medicine and crazy, I’d had the same pharmacist for years, a nice elderly gentleman.  He filled my “prescription stimulant,” or what I like to call “legal speed,” without any concern.  But when it came to my prescription vitamin D he freaked out. He worried that the dosage was so high it was a fraud and refused to give me more than 2 pills at once.  It was just vitamin D.  The pills were shaped like the Flintstones for crying out loud.

On Monday he said, “Here’s Fred and Barney- I’ll give you Betty and Wilma on Wednesday.”

On Wednesday I thought we might have made some progress and so I said, “Um, Mr. Pharmacist, I seem to be doing ok with these, can you maybe throw in Pebbles too?”

“WHAT?  I told you I’m not comfortable giving you more than 2 at a time!  I’ll give you Pebbles on Friday when you get BamBam.  And don’t even THINK about asking for Dino- you get the dinosaur when I say you get the dinosaur?”

There was also the crazy way my illness was making me feel not only like an old lady, but like a little girl at the same time.  I understood the old lady part.  I had been feeling older than my years for a while.  It started in my 30’s when suddenly I could no longer go out with my friends, party all night, get 2 hours of alcohol infused sleep and still function at work the next day.  Oh, the horror.  10 years later I was diagnosed with MS so there you go.  But there were other things.  For example, everywhere I went I felt a draft.   And I liked my afternoon tea made just so.  And me, who loved kids suddenly started getting ornery around them.  These damn kids are cute but can’t they sit still for 10 minutes!

But suddenly feeling like a child came up when my dad was driving me to the neurologist.  We hit unexpected traffic.  My bladder started whining but I figured I could make it.  Then I realized I couldn’t.  What I thought was, “Sorry Dad, but with this traffic I don’t think I can wait to use the bathroom.”  But what I actually said was, “Daddy!  I have to go potty RIGHT NOW!  Really, Really BAD!”

Multiple sclerosis must have made my dad revert to his younger self as well because I swear he thought about just pulling over to the side of the expressway, opening the passenger side door and telling me to do my business outside the car.  Luckily, we were no longer in the 70’s and he wanted coffee, so he took an exit and found a McDonalds.

Maybe it’s silly, but when I can make fun of the crazy it makes me giggle.  Giggling cheers me up and I feel better.  There’s a ton of medical evidence that supports the fact that laughter releases endorphins that can help reduce pain, boost immunity, improve memory, strengthen the heart and lesson anxiety.   But more importantly than all of that, feeling better, even for just a bit, is a total win.  And on this vicious game of life with a chronic illness, I’m in it to win!

Note:  Janssen Pharmaceutical paid for my expenses to travel to and attend HealtheVoices18.  My reflections, words, and comments are not sponsored, however, and are my own.

Thank you Janssen- you rock!!!