Have you been looking for me?

I didn’t mean to disappear.  I didn’t mean to go MIA. I didn’t mean to go silent and stop sharing my story.  In my defense, I didn’t REALLY AND COMPLETELY shut-up. I have continued to document my MMJ adventures over on my Instagram account – I have somewhat fallen in love with the ease with which I can post and even more so, I am enjoying returning to a bit of photography.  But really none of that is an excuse for having left all of you hanging for such a long time – and for that, I do apologize.

A shit ton has happened since we last hung out.  I lived through the three graduations we had this spring (two from high-school and one from college!)  I got married! My two boys and my “almost a cop” stepson lived with us which led to plenty of good times and laughs and the consumption of a shit ton of meat – by them, not me, because with this new “listening to my body thing” that I have been trying out – I am pretty much OFF meat – but I will leave that for another post.  I have been out hiking (longest one to date was 6 miles!) I have been fishing and camping and we have even done some more “serious” traveling – Shawn and I took my three kids to visit my folks on Martha’s Vineyard – a belated “honeymoon” of sorts.

Just like before – when I schlepped a granny-sized pillbox around with me, filled to the brim with the medications my doctors had prescribed, I have had my cannabis and my CBD with me every step of the way, because it is my MEDICINE and is allowing me to live life again.  In my mind, it is no different than the methadone prescription I had to personally pick up every thirty days. It is medicine and should be used and respected as such, but it should also be as widely available and accepted as more traditional methods of treating many illnesses and ailments.

So I bring and consume my cannabis and my CBD everywhere I go.  I take my joints and pipe on my daily walks (managed to stick to at least 3 miles most days – even on the super hot days!)  I had my bong with me on every fishing trip we went on. I hit my vape pen and consumed edibles while hiking and camping. I shipped and consumed a large number of joints at my parent’s house on the island. The relief from the chronic pain and the improvements to some of my cognitive issues have been game changers. I have gotten my life back and to be perfectly honest I am no longer willing to suffer through NOT being medicated. So I take it with me EVERYWHERE I go, and I tell as many people as I possibly can, that I have MS and that I use cannabis and CBD to manage my symptoms and am no longer on any pharmaceuticals  Hell, I won’t even take a damn Advil these days!:)

I walk EVERY day and thanks to my “handy-dandy” NordicTrack Desk – even on the days we head out on the boat for the day, I manage to get at least a few miles logged.  I have continued to get stronger and healthier. I am down 40 lbs and I am back to actually RECOGNIZING myself and my body! More importantly, I am back to LIKING myself and my body.

It was two years ago that  I made the decision to come off all of the prescription drugs I had been taking.  It was two years ago that I honestly didn’t know just how the fuck I was going to survive the pain.  I had no idea how I was going to continue living – because the pain was so all-consuming and complete that there was no room for anything other than just desperately trying to make it to the end of the day. Every night as I wrestled to try and drift off to sleep, the resounding thought pounding in my head was  “how the fuck am I going to do this again tomorrow????”

Beyond the fact that I had become a shell of the person that I have ALWAYS been, I had begun to hate myself,  my body and my life. I have always LOVED my body – not in the “OH YEAH, I’VE GOT A HOT BODY” type of way, but in the “my body is strong and fit and can handle whatever it encounters way.  I was an athlete and I grew up respecting my body for its abilities. So to find myself loathing the site of my silhouette in a store window and avoiding looking at myself in the mirror was not something I was well equipped to deal with.  A part of me that had ALWAYS been there – the conviction that my body could handle anything had slipped away and I hated myself for allowing that to happen.

So many amazing things have happened this summer.  I have learned a lot about myself, my body and my disease and I am filled with hope that it is only going to get better – which a far cry from where I was and what I believed just two years ago.  My belief in my body and it’s ability to be strong has been restored, which in turn has allowed me to stop all the negative talk that was going on in my mind as I sat on the couch and hated who I had become

Those of you that have followed my journey, that have read my blog over the past 5+ years know that my purpose in spewing all these words, in sharing my stories of DX, and what it has been like to raise kids, to go through a divorce, then do the online dating thing and eventually meet and marry the best guy ever (I MIGHT be a bit biased on this one) is to hopefully let others know that they are not alone – that they are NOT the only one to fall down in the middle of the grocery store and certainly not the only one to pee their pants in a public place.  

Somewhere in the past decade, I figured out knowing I am not alone is HUGE!  It makes me feel a little less batshit crazy! So I share stories of things that I have been through and things that have happened.  I have occasionally mentioned something that I have tried and liked (or didn’t like) but I have tended to stick to the stories.

Up until now, that is – because now I feel it’s my calling to try and educate other MSers about these amazing plants and their medicinal benefits!  I realize that it is not readily accessible OR legal for many depending on where you live and I may not have immediate solutions on how to get them but I still think there is value in simply telling other MSers that it can in fact help and it can, in fact, replace many/most of the pharmaceutical drugs that many of us are being prescribed to manage our symptoms and the side effects of those drugs.

I am not making a claim to be cured – I am not even making an assertion that my disease is any better.  I still have insane pain. I still have issues with my MS fog, my vision goes to shit numerous times throughout the day, bright lights make my head pound and sometimes my strong ass legs have just had enough and are done.  Some days it seems no amount of meditating will help clear my mind and bring the world back into focus BUT there are also many good times and days.. There are moments when my disease and what it does to me every minute of every day is NOT what I am thinking about every minute of every day, and that is HUGE!!!

Cannabis and CBD have given me the opportunity to begin to take the steps towards living a healthier life and for that, I will be forever grateful!!!

I have a lot more to share but am working on not OVER writing – keeping the posts shorter – so the task of writing them doesn’t seem so daunting.  I am also once again going to try and write MORE often – we shall see – but I am HERE – and I am doing so many exciting things – if you check out my IG page, you can get a glimpse or two of #Doug – our first clone and first attempt at growing my medicine ourselves.  

So with that, I will sign off – with the hopes of being back here a lot more often.  If nothing else, the past two years has taught me that I really can do anything I set my mind to – and so I will try and make changes that lead me back here more often because I really want to continue to share what I have learned about these amazing plants and continue to share our journey into learning how to grow my own medicine!