Swank Diet Update / Fish Heads, fish heads, rolley polley fish heads....:

Back in October, the blog went though a "reboot", and my posting about the Swank Diet for MS patients. I'm at the 6 month mark, so it is appropriate that there are some pretty significant results to report:

In my January well visit, the following was noted:

• The nurse said "Wow" at my weight loss. My honest weight when I started the diet in earnest on October 22nd was about 225 pounds. At the physical I tipped in at 203 and I'm currently at around 195.
• My blood pressure was mid-range normal where before it was either marginal or low range of high.
• The blood work values were "fabulous" to use the words of my PCP. My cholesterol was high before but normal now. By the time we were done with the consultation part, he was more a fan of the diet that I am!
• The weight loss, lower cholesterol and blood pressure was all effortless and result of getting rid of most of the saturated fats in my diet.
• My stamina has improved. Although I'm still having the problem coming "on line" in the morning and having problems with fatigue and slurred speech (sometimes) in the afternoon, the problems are not as severe or long lasting. Last summer I was losing all ability to work in the afternoon 3 or 4 days each week and had 1 day a week that I was debilitated and unable to work at all. In the last month, I've had 3 days I couldn't work but we think there was a problem with the Avonex injection. My afternoon chronic fatigue is down to a couple of days a week and I'm most always able to either recover after a rest or get more work done in the evening
• With my fatigue lessening, I don't know what to do about the recommended "rest" periods that Swank and others recommend. Right now there are a majority of days I feel like I can push through the fatigue and force myself to a reasonable level of productivity. Unfortunately, I'm afraid to do this right now. The fatigue is cumulative (only so many spoons) and I'm afraid I'll end up losing full days of productivity. So at this point I'll either take my hour nap or do light writing work on a light notebook. I don't know if I've been milking the nap thing all along. It's too easy for me to fall down the reading or internet hole during the nap and not getting true rest when I need it. I'll keep struggling to find a balance.
• I still suffer from "fuzzy brain", "balogna back", the feeling of being in a compression chamber, ringing ears and vertigo but I can correlate it to major changes in the weather. As I write this the temperature is in the process of dropping 45 degrees through the afternoon and I can feel the symptoms coming on. The diet doesn't seem to be helping this directly but for the severity of the symptoms and their frequency decreasing. Same symptoms but only a couple of days each week and not 3-4.
• There may be a correlation between pain and white sugar intake. After a couple of weeks on the diet, you become aware that there aren't any constraints put on the amount of sweets you can eat as long as they are fat free. Technically, the diet can even be interpreted as setting patients up to become diabetics. I've been trying to watch my sugar intake but with varied success because I've always bolused sugar for depression / comfort / energy. In December I had i under control but slowly lost control. About a week ago when I was in the middle of a two day debilitation, I remembered that I'd consumed exactly double the amount of sugar I allowed myself. So I'm currently trying to replace the majority of white sugar in my diet with other things like Splenda and Steevia. This will be a battle, but will give you more to read when I have the results.

In general, I'd recommend using the Swank Diet if you have MS. I have a appointment with my neurologist next week and I'm sure he'll give it no credit other than for the benefits of healthier eating. My wife says she thinks its helping. I do too. I'm not fond of eating fish heads all the time but it seems to work. After 6 months, I no longer crave beef, although my wife made a pork loin a couple of weeks ago and I almost broke the diet to have some. I'm looking forward to being able to have beef and pork in small amounts when the year is up but I mostly don't crave or think about it day to day.

I hope this is helpful for someone out there wondering about results or researching the Swank Diet for the first time. It's worth a try. In my case it's helping but hasn't healed me (yet) but I'm happy with the results.

No entries here for a long time. Basically, things have been going really well - compared to how I've been feeling before. As I posted before, the combination of the Avonex, Vicodin and Adderall have given me the short-term relief and long term confidence so that I can start depending on a consistent level of mental acuity and physical stamina.

That"s not to say that I'm back to normal in terms of what I was capable of prior to my first exasperbation a year ago. The way things are right now, I have to split my performance into 2 parts - mental and physical to accurately describe how things are going right now.

The mental part is the most encouraging. I've found that I can now pretty much get through most days without problems. On a percentage scale I`m working at 80-90% of where I was originally and I can live with that. The issue is that now there`s consistency where before there wasn't any. Consistency means I can plan on getting a minimum done each day so I now have hope of building each day and can predict success at tasks and projects.

I still have problems with stress - when I'm stressed my mental capacity goes down, and I start to degrade physically. Physical degradation means back pain or chronic fatigue. I'm working on compsatory skills where I can handle stress better (a definite challenge). I've yet to push myself with programming / marketing / installation of the distubutable, but that's coming in the next couple of weeks. I've tested myself in prospect visits and networking events and they tire me because of the stress, but they don't exhaust me for the rest of the day, or drain me for the next day.

Physical stamina associated with physical activoty is another matter. I'm trying to be physically active but I find that I'm capable of only abouy 1/2 of what I could do prior to the first exasperbation. Its frustrating to me to say the least because I've had to give up the any idea of completeing large projects, which causes stress in and of itself. We need the kitchen cabinets replaced, some floors refinished, painting completed and numerous other things done in the house. I keep myself from starting them because I know I won't have the endurance to finish them and couldn't stand the thoughtof having to endlessly stare at my impotence when I'd look at something 1/2 done. Since we're not cash positive in the business, we can't afford to pay someone to do it. Any way I look at it, I see myself as a failure - and I get stressed out about it.

I've tried to "push through" this part of the disease, to no avail. the beer analagy definitely applies. I've worked hard at yard work as a test multiple times and I end up paying the next day for it in exhaustion and uncomfortable symptoms. I've had to put aside any thoughts of hobbies - haven't made a pen in over a year and Wifey's Valentine's Day box sits unfinished in the shed. Normal house maintenance and cutting the grass is enough to challenge my stamina. Since Razor has no interest, Chip is too small and Wifey can't be expected to pull the load I used to in the "routine maintainence" area, there's no hope of focusing what endurance I have on the big stuff. I'm trying to recalibrate my expectations for what I'll be able to accomplish but I'm still frustrated I have to say here though, that Chip is showing himself to be a tremendous blessing. He cheerfully helps by uncomplainingly doing what he can to help. If he can't help, he keeps me company in most cases so I can more easily cope with my need for frequent breaks and to work at a slower pace. And with me feeling better, I'm thinking about testing myself by remodeling the downstairs bathroom.

But again, for perspective, things are much better than before and the Adderall and Vicodin together are the reason. Before that medication regimin I was seriously thinking of having to file foe disability.

I was taking the Vicodin when I saw Dr. Freeman in late March, and he prescribed the Adderall on a whim - to help improve my ability to focus (although it takes away my tinitus and full head feeling too!) . Over the last month I've been noticing that the 20mg Adderall and the 10mg Vicodin have become less effective. On some days, I'd have "bleed through" back burning, fatigue, and / or lack of concentration. I was having to take 5mg extra of the Vicodin to deal with periodic excess pain. I was worring that the Vicodin resistance would build, and I would be dependent or more likely that it wouldn' be effective regardless of dose. I like being able to think and work, and I naturally want this med regimin to work for 8 to 10 years.

I had an appointment with Nora@ Freedman's P.A. last Wednesday, and we discussed my concerns. She recommended that I start on Neurotin, starting with 300 mg per day and working up to 1200. Its supposed to bridge the breakthrough pain in the near term so I don't have to take the extra 5 mg of Vicodin on bad days. So far it seems to be working. I've a bit pf back burning today but that's expected as I've only had 9 hours of sleep in the last 2 days. I'm taking at night as its supposed to make me drowsy. It doesn't, in typical ADD fashion. The common side effective of all these meds is constipation - yea!

So that's where I stand medically. On the business side there's good news and bad news too. From the good side, my big prospect is evaluating an electronic device and placed a provisional order for 10 more. If this all goes well and he replaces his existing devices, it should mean around 20k per year for 1.5 years or so. the bad news is that there's np guarantee I'll get it, the state sales tax may keep me from keeping it. If they move foreward, and if everything goes perfectly I dont't know how I'm going to arrange financing.

I've been working at a low level to build business locally, with modest success. The problem is that on hardware sales I don't have any purchasing power with minimal discounts. That and the sales tax make it virtually impossible to compete with the internet guys. I'll keep plugging though in the hopes of generating at least something locally.

The sales of the publishing product continue to lag vs. prior years, and with the economy and the nature of the product, I've reconciled myself to stagnant to declining sales. I continue to add content to the site, and traffic is up 20% over 6 months ago. I hired a developer to do the web portion of the distributable, but I haven't gotten far enough to actively market it yet and only have 1 more customer since I commited to this. From reading forums about the competition I know I have to invest around 10k to have a competitive product. AND hosting is going to be 50 per month. Ugh!

So I'm optomistic about my abilities and prospects, but intensely worried about money. I never planned on paying someone to write the web application, so that's an unplanned outlay. Wifey is just getting back to work after a month lag, but outlays are still moe than I'd like. Other than the single client, prospects are slim because I'll be lucky to break even between distributable sales and the travel and development costs. Botom line is that the financial model (thanks to tax refunds) still has us with enough savings for 32 months. I just need to do my best every day and trust God to handle the rest.

And I'm encouraged with my predictable, 85% percent capacity. I'm able to do things I haven't in a year. I was particualrly happy with my performance in a meeting with the client and manufacturer 2 weeks ago. I ran the meeting and had no trouble keeping my thoughts organized or the meeting moving. Huge Difference.


Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - Hot, clear and humid
Shaking - 3
Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 2
Fatigue - 3
Foggy Head - 3
Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 3
Spatial Orientation - 2
Gastro - 9D
Insomnia - 8
Eye Focus - s
Benedryl - 0

I haven't posted over the last 3 weeks, not because there haven't been any changes, but because things have been changing a lot here, and I'm concentrating on gauging what I'm capable of, and trying to push forward on things that will give me revenue so I can make the 33 months I have left. (wow, that was a run-on sentence if I ever read one!) I had an appointment with the neurolgist on the 31st of March, and we both decided to give this 8 weeks to see if I could effectively work or I needed to move toward applying for SSI. As a function of that appointment, he prescribed Aderall for my ADHD and told me to stay on the Vicadin, and take them consistently, once a day.

The first week or April was amazing. I felt like I was at 95% of what I used to be. You can't imagine the change....suddenly being able to think, to plan, to work, to lay out near, mid and long term business strategy. I felt like a totally different person, a person I hadn't known for almost a year. Physical stamina for being active and doing work around the house wasn't there, but I think that was more of a problem of not being able to do anything for almost a year. So it was a great week, came to a lot of conclusions, and got a fair amount of ancillary work done. I was confused about how the Adderall took away the physical manifestations of the MS. The back pain and full head was gone. I could concentrate. To the point where when I would quit at the end of the day, I felt pulled to go back to work..... I kept thinking that I felt good enough that I should be pushing forward. Maybe I wasted the time, but I resisted the temptation - I opted to spend time with the family and enjoy actually being "me" again.

The "perfect" feeling lasted about a week. Now, I'm drifting down again. Its most likely my system getting used to the Adderall, so there's some hope of adjusting it if it isn't effective any more. The first week I had insomnia, but now its gone. I continue to have some physical pain and stiffness, but for the most part the intellectual stuff is livable. Good thing, 'cause this week coming is the push week. I've concluded that stress is really a killer for me. There was a day this week where I was upset about something, and it killed my energy completely. So its one of my conclusions for moving on - minimze stress. Along those lines and reducing the overall stress was getting taxes done. Refund will be about 3x what I projected. The financial model now says that I'll make it to the end of the 3rd year, so the urgent need to generate near term revenue is reduced. Good thing too, as the SERPs for the publishing product site have fallen off a cliff for the terms that sell the product. No sales in the first 10 days of this month. Needs action, but that action one my conclusions. Here they are:

1) Instead of splitting my time in thirds between the distributable, local business, and web sites, I need to look at investing about $3k in contracting to program the distributable web site. That will free me to concentrate on local business and adding content to the main site (which I've been able to do over the last 10 days). I'll still need to spend some time on design, but the contractor I've identified can do this more efficiently than I can. The only issue is that she make the coding according to my conventions so I can maintain it. This is a big change.
2) Get the distributable done, and sell it. SELL IT! That is the best chance I have at near term revenue. The next cycle for sales is in the fall, and I have to be ready by June in order to be able to catch that business. Not sure of the pricing scale, or how much money I'll be able to make at it, but if I don't get it up and running all that time will be wasted. Got a lot of leads at this point, but can't work them as there's nothing I can show them from the seller standpoint - and that's the most important thing.
3) Get content on the main site. The content I put up in the second half of last year is driving more visitors, and the visitor stats are better than ever. Product sales are down, and I need revenue to cover the cell phone, memberships and other expenses. I'm torn right now about whether to link build for the product to get more sales, or just expand the content to drive more visitors - beacuse the increased visitors has given me 3 clients I should close in the next 30 days. Right now I'm concentrating on just getting the new product up, and putting up videos. That should enable me to drive more links. BUT, I really need to put up more reviews, get the store straightened out, and get more general links. I need a Yahoo Directory listing, but I don't have the money. And I still have the industry blog to start and work on.
4) Start cold calling and visiting local businesses. I started this a week ago, but didn't get too far. I need to design a program and stick with it. I waved off doing it this week because of the Easter holiday. I have to get into it big time on Tuesday and Thursday of next week. Got a client I may be able to close that will give us a year's revenue, but the odds of it happening are about 40%. Meeting with them Wednesday.

So that's it. Having some problems physically today, but about to go outside and do some work. We'll see how that goes, and what it does to my thinking processes and how I feel physically. I'm still pretty optomistic. Here's the tally for today:



Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and sunny

Shaking - 3

Neck Pain - 3
Upper Back Pain - 2

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 2

Tinitus - 0
Ears Full - 0
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 0

Gastro - 6 (hard)

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 2

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

Import things first.... at the race last night, we didn't win anything, but finished in the top 1/3 of the competitors. Unfortunately, there was another Mach 5 in the competition, and it was much more detailed that ours was. Had a driver, mirrors and a whole lot of other stuff. That one captured 2nd place in the design category, and he deserved it. He must have been working on it for a month. Speed wise, it was slightly faster than ours as well, and given the wheel base they must have put in a lot of work on the wheels and axles.

I'm happy with the showing, given that I haven't done this in such a long while. Chip was disappointed. At the end of the night, he got wild with the car and broke off the fins of the thing, whipping it along the floor. I tried not to be upset with him.

Appointment this morning with Theresa, the Physician's Assistant at the neurologist's. I was massively impressed with her. She did a full neuro assessment, and picked up tremors in my left arm. So it appears that the problem I experienced after spreading the grass seed was real, and not just a function of my arm being tired. We talked about the depression, and she told me that depression wasn't uncommon, but generally didn't show up until later in the Avonex treatment. When we discussed the dosage, she told me that I should have done a "ramp up". The conclusion was that because I did the full dosage from the start, I got the depression early. She told me to take a break this week, then start with 1/4 dose next week, increasing it by 1/4 each week until I get back to the full dose.

I'm really optomistic about this treatment. I've been feeling better, although today isn't very good for me. Problems with my eyes and fatigue. Really being lazy too with the business. But, I've set Monday, the 23rd as the kick-off date for the new work regimin, and been marking time this week because of the car. Making some progress with the distributable. Today should've been productive, but had the appointment with Theresa this morning, and now we're going to lunch with Bobby, the Fresh Air kid. I'll write more about that later as we're just about ready to walk out the door.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and sunny

Shaking - 5

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 5

Fatigue - 5
Foggy Head - 4

Tinitus - 5
Ears Full - 5
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 4

Gastro - 2

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

This is what I've been working on for the last week, and its finally done. Its a rendition of the SpeedRacer Mark 5 for a Pinewood Derby race tonight. It took about a week total to make, and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't think we'll win, but I wanted to give something to Chip that he'd be proud of when with his peers. To tell the truth, I was sick of it at the end, there was too much work for the time I allowed, and it got to be all consuming at the end. There is good news though. Look at the canopy. I tried a dozen times to make one, with no success. Used a couple of water bottles and plastic sheeting, and couldn't get it. I prayed for an hour, and promptly found a bottle (Fornsby Lemon Oil) that had the exact curvature that was required. God is good.

The last time I did this was with Razor, and that was 8 or so years ago. At the time, the internet wasn't as well developed as it is today with forums and information. In researching making a car, I found that the guys that are "into" it, are into it from the engineering side. CG, CM, Camber, Toe-In, Rail-Running are all topics I've been exposed to in this exercise. What ever happened to the kid's experience? Ah, and I'm guilty too, I did most of the fabrication on this one, pulling in Chip for the paint sanding and the wheel/axle prep. But I can't imagine that the kids associated with the posts I've been reading have a lot to do with the construction or tuning, its over my head as a software engineer. We'll take a break from this for a couple of months, then Chip and I will make a Mark 6, and he'll do most of it with me. I'll have the luxury of doing it as there will be no deadline. From what I read, this car won't win.. the wheelbase is too short, the distribution of weight isn't right between front and back and it pulls too much to one side. But its ours, and its done, and it looks really good.

Starting to feel pretty good physically, relatively speaking. I'm tired right now (2:30pm) and will rest for an hour after this post, but only because of the event tonight. Been getting through the days all this week with little problem. I've come up with a priority of work for the business - one third each of web site, distributable and local business. Target is Monday to start. Wifey is off work right now, so she's handling the homeschool stuff for me. I should be able to make progress over the next 30 days on the distributable. In the schedule, I'm going to take 1 day a week to drive around trying to get label business.

Why is Wifey off? Basically it comes down to the degradation of nursing care. She started on a new case and ended up doing all the work for them. When she pointed out problems, management told her that she was "controlling" and that she wasn't right for the agency! This after she said she wouldn't work the case any more because of the liability. She knew more than anyone working it, did more work than anyone (20% unpaid) and found things that were life threatening and overlooked by management and the folks that should have caught it. She's in a difficult place now, with only 1 major agency left in the area. Basically, her experiences have taught her to treat her job as a way to make money only....not as a vocation. We've both observed that something has changed in society....people aren't concientious anymore. They don't care.

Appointment tomorrow with the neuroligist, to see about depression meds. As I mentioned before, the Avonex is giving me an exquisite depression. The Doc offered anxiety meds before, so I thought I'd nip this problem in the bud and try something to see if it made me feel better. I'll let you know.


Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 60 and sunny

Shaking - 4

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 3

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 3

Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 4
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 2

Gastro - 2

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

Been working with Chip on Pinewood Derby stuff. Two weeks ago, we made a SuperBird. The body was OK, but just OK. Then we decided to make a replica of the SpeedRacer Mach 5. Yikes. We've got the body done, but its been a tremendous amount of work. I'm tired of it already. The race is on Wednesday night, and we still have the wheels and axles to prep, the detail to paint on the car, and the windshield to fashion and attach. It looks great, but I don't know if I'm going to sign up to do anything like this again. Looking on the web for information, it appears that some folks are really into it. They have a bunch of variables identified: center-of-gravity, center-of-mass, rail-riding, camber and the like. I can't imagine how you could get so technical with your son and have him understand it all. At this point, I'm going to be happy enough to get this car finished, wheeled and weighted and in the race. To make it, I'm going to have to spend some significant time on it over the next couple of days. Sigh. Chip is worth it though. Since we've started home schooling him, and I'm spending time with him, I'm starting to recognise just what a blessing he is. Now the key is going to be using our relationship to teach him. So that he can do some of the "handyman" stuff himself.

Since Friday, I've been experiencing some wierdness of symptoms. Friday, I felt reasonably well, but got deathly tired at the end of the day. Saturday, I got the Avonex dosage (and approached it with dread), but did OK through the day. Sunday, I worked all through the day on the Pinewood Car, again getting deathly tired at around 4:30. Around mid-day, I spread some grass seed. Shortly after, I had tremors in my left arm, the one where I held the 15lb bag. Ugh. Getting old is not very fun.

Bottom line is that I'm feeling marginally better, but still have the fatigue, ringing in the ears and head fullness. Its sort of like being "woozy" all the time. Yesterday, I substituded motrin for Vicodin, and it seemed to give me some relief. I'm going to try it each day this week and see if I can do without the pain meds.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 50 and rainy, the past 3 days

Shaking - 5

Neck Pain - 2
Upper Back Pain - 6

Fatigue - 6
Foggy Head - 5

Tinitus - 6
Ears Full - 6
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 4

Gastro - 5

Insomnia = 1

Eye Focus - 6

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - No

Benedryl last night - 2

Felt much better yesterday, but had already decided to get taxes and a client call done and that would be it for the week. Had the "gripping intestinal bug" that we've been passing around here for around 6 weeks. Wifey just finished it, and it was my turn. I got tired at the end of the day, but I made it through. Still working through a plan of action associated with what I should do. Honestly, I'm contented to finish the thought process and home school Chip as Wifey works. Financially, that doesn't work over the long term, but her working extends us at the current spending levels for 30-36 months.

The client call went OK, but I'm still only about 75-85% effective. Part of it is practice, but the other part of it is the MS. Having to watch my verbal presentation. Hearing wavering in my voice. Slipping into monologuing every once in a while. UGH. Given the performance yesterday I still doubt I have the energy or the capacity to build a local business. Probably, the only way to figure it out is to work 3 days a week at it and see what happens.

Still having problems with cognitive stuff. Head full, ears full. No problems with balance, but still not feeling sharp. I'm still getting over the shock that I might be disabled, that I might not be able to work and that is keeping me from commiting mentally and physically to any business prospects. Yesterday I started to come out of it a bit. Today, I'm back in the same place. The weather is turning to rain, and I'm seeing an increase in the symptoms. Overall, still better than before the IV, but not what I expected. And part of it is motivation. Another part is schedule, with me having major responsibilities with Chip the next couple of days.

So it is. I wish it were better news. Good news is that I have time. The bad news is that I don't have a lot of it.


Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 50 and overcase, rain tomorrow

Shaking - 4

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 5

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 6

Tinitus - 5
Ears Full - 6
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 3

Gastro - 7

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes (none yesterday)

Benedryl last night - 0

To bring things up to date.....

I had IV steroid treatments last week for 3 days - March 2nd, 3rd and 4th. I didn't feel that badly, but now that I'm 3 weeks in on the Avonex, I wanted to get to a base line and move from there. My thought was that if I could get to base line with the Avonex, using the steroids to push down the inflammation, I could guage the "best" that it could be, and I could predict whether in the long run I had a chance of being able to do things to make revenue come in.

Before the IV treatments, I was doing OK with work, but still had the fatigue toward the end of the day. BUT, there wasn't a lot of problems with full ears and full head and problems with comprehension. Because I didn't feel that badly, the steroid treatments really made me feel bad.... for the first time. And I still have the intense back pain, full ears and head.

And the Avonex gives you the ability to enjoy a near exquisite depression. The last couple of days have been really bad for me, making me come to grips with the reality of the situation. In fact, I may not be able to get a revenue stream up and running in the time I have left. If my work performance is going to be sustained at the level I've experienced over the last week, its time to give up and look at trying to get disability. Basically, I'm grappling with the fact that there may not be any thing that I can do. That I'm going to fail and that I'm just fooling myself thinking that I can build a business.

Granted, there are a lot of things wrong right now, but they're never as bad as they seem. Here's the thought process I've been going through the last 3 days or so....

1) Problems with the publishing product site - Its being delisted from Google for the primary keywords. I have no idea what's happening, other than the site is going off line every once in a while. I put a pinger on it this morning to try to figure it out. The bottom line is that google rankings are all over the place, and sales are consistently in the toilet. The product has a lot of potential, but the site itself needs work to get it ranked, and the product needs to be better described.

2) The Sales distributable requires more work, has less income potential and more competition than I originally thought. It really needs to be put on the internet, and the skill base required is a stretch for me. I have potential clients, but don't feel good enough to contact them, and don't know if I can handle the pressure to make milestones that new clients are going to require. I think that I over-stated the income potential. I know I under stated the competition - there's at least 1 guy out there that has everything that I'd put in the thing, and his price base is much less than I would like to charge.

3) I have no local business and doubt whether I'll have the level of energy required to build one. This is self-explainatory.

4) The web retailing portion of the business is a long way off, and I can't see how I'm going to be able to compete in that business again. I know the publishing product site has good bones, but I need to be adding content all the time. With how I've been feeling, I have doubts that I'll be able to get on a program where I add content every week. But I need to work on it continually over the next 3 years to be able to "make it" with revenue from that business when my waiting time is up.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. I haven't figured out finances lately because its too depressing to think about. Wifey is starting to kick in revenue, and that should give me 30 months from today, if I can "break even" on business expenses every month. Now, here's where the depression thing and not feeling good kick in.......

The nature of Multiple Sclerosis is unpredictability. For the last week, I've felt like I can't start, complete or work on anything. I know that's not true. I know I can accomplish SOMETHING. Today, I'm not as depressed, so I'm thinking its not as bad as I envisioned it yesterday. So today, I'm in the mode of hanging in there for another week to see how I feel. I've thought about an alternative plan though.....

1) File for disability (takes up to 2 years)
2) Shut down all aspects of the business (but I lose the health insurance)
3) Sell the car and maybe the house to get extension and complete the disability petition
4) Give up and act like an invalid for the rest of my life!

I don't like the alternative plan too much, but I have to start getting myself used to the idea. The major problem I'm having is that its been 9 months, and I'm not on a baseline that I can predict how I'll feel or what I can accomplish every day. Tomorrow, I'm going to start keeping a time clock again, and whittling at the work load to see if I can get something accomplished. In the near term it will be better than giving up.

I won't leave go of the alternate plan, but try to guage if its viable over the next 3 months, with a deadline of the end of June.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 70 and Sunny

Shaking - 6

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 8

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 7

Tinitus - 7
Ears Full - 7
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation -

Gastro - 9

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 5

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 0

Some problems with the user section of the distributable. First problem is that the printing is right-justified. I think there are around 5 users like that. Then there are 3-4 users who didn't get the data files put on the computer as part of the installation. I'm thinking that its a problem with the user or security settings, particularly in Vista. I need more information before I can change anything though.

On the road this morning, to the distributable installation. Basically, 800 miles away. I've got 2 hours left of the trip after all day yesterday in the car. Crummy hotel, but better to be frugal at this point. OK sleep last night, but had to take a benedryl. The heater in the room was either on or off (my choice), and it only took me an hour of freezing/roasting to figure out freezing was better. I feel OK this morning so far, but really its too early to tell.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 65 and sunny

Shaking - 6

Neck Pain - 2
Upper Back Pain - 1

Fatigue - 3
Foggy Head - 4

Tinitus - 6
Ears Full - 5
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 3

Gastro - 9 (consti/gass)

Insomnia = 7

Eye Focus - 3

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 1

I'm starting to get tired, and having trouble focusing on work. Mega back pain. Shaking is OK, but attention span, short term memory and organization suffering. Part of it is that I'm overwhelmed by the amount of stuff on my plate, and the inevitable decisions about what to commit to and what to put off. Fairly significant work remaining for the paid programming site visit next week. Yesterday I figured out that I'm going to have to do a re-write to get it to be a distributable.... so I use 1 database instead of 3. On top of that, I still have the problem with the off the shelf installation re-programming, and networking / prospecting activities that are pressing me. February revenue just isn't where it should be, and given the economy, I can't predict the amount of publishing product revenue. Naturally, I have to make investments (spend money) to move forward in many areas, and the stress of the financial picture makes the decisions that much harder.

Regardless of feeling tired, I have to make it for the next couple of weeks at least, and try to drive revenue. The Avonex thing may help or may not help, but its still 2 weeks off - another month before I get to the full theraputic dose. Basically, I have to manage things for the forseeable future with what I have, trying to drive forward. I've never done well with uncertainty, and the current situation and the MS symptoms make me want to just lie down and go to sleep for the day. I'm being driven instead of taking the bull by the horns and driving.

In years past, I could just expand the number of hours spent to get the work done. I don't have the stamina that I used to have. Basically, unless I pour beer all over and pull beer from tomorrow (see description below), there's nothing left at the end of the day. Factor in the focusing problems, and I'm back in the situation that I'm at my desk for 45 hours per week, but only getting 30 hours of work accomplished. Another factor is the inefficencies I'm working through while programming. Its been 4 years since I've done any significant programming, and there's a learning curve getting back to being competent. Its a humbling experience to say the least. In addition, are things that ABSOLUTELY have to get done that take up extra time and take me away from focusing on programming. Argh.

And, there seem to be the usual (but normally unusual) distractions. Razor is eating up our time finishing his Teen Court stuff. Wifey was going to go with me on the trip, but now can't as Razor has a rescheduled court date during the time of the trip. I was counting on her being there to back-stop me and pick the client's brain for the way their business sector works. I can do it, but she'd be more effective at it. Chip's school situation is getting out of control. No discipline by the leadership, and its degrading now to the point where the boys are whacking each other with no consequences. One boy knocked out the bully's tooth yesterday and Chip said "He probably needed to get a bad stick for that". Its time to pull him and home school, but we don't know how to make that work. Blueberry is stable, but on the last discussion I had with the Home, they wanted us to take her home more, insinuating that her behavioral problems were connected with that. Oh, and the Dashund isn't tolerating chemo well. We may be nearing the end. I can deal with all the other stuff, but I really can't handle another loss. Double-Argh!

Above, I spoke about Multiple Sclerosis and the "Beer Theory". As a "manly-man" I stumbled on this theory when researching the disease. Its funny as heck and you can read it here:

http://multiplesclerosissucks.com/beer.html

As a guy with "Woman's Disease" you can bet that there aren't a lot of resources out there that take the male perspective to Multiple Sclerosis. MulitpleSclerosisSucks.com has been a great comfort to me. The "beer theroy" isn't original however. Its based on the "Spoon Theory", associated with Lupus. You can read the original here:

http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/navigation/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf

I'll try to make the blog here more informative, and document more of the MS journey. Guys aren't like that though. We're used to the manly sport cliches: "Play Hurt", "Walk it off", "No Excuses", "Don't Whine", "Gut it Out", and my personal favorite "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." Multiple Sclerosis hits you at the core of your masculinity, taking away the physical and mental toughness component of your psychological make-up and replacing them with uncertainty and loss of control. Tough stuff to live with, especially as you have to reset your definition of what a decent quality of life is when you have the disease. But like the picture associated with this post says.....

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 35 and Cold, snow last night

Shaking - 4

Neck Pain - 0
Upper Back Pain - 6

Fatigue - 5
Foggy Head - 5

Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 5
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 5

Gastro - 7

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - Yes

Benedryl last night - 1

Change of format here, as I recognise that a lot of the search engine indexing relys on positional text. Not that I want this blog really ranked, just that I want the content to be pertinent to my Multiple Sclerosis journey as a log. The symptom log is a big part of that, but I also need to chronicle the journey itself as equally important. So, to bring things up to date....

The big news is the consult we had with Dr. Freedman on Friday. He took over an hour with me to understand what I was feeling, my view of the history, and to review the diagnostics to date. I was impressed with his empathy. At one point he said, "You've been feeling like crap for half a year." That said it all to me about how this relationship would go. At the end of the session, he discussed making anxiety meds available (I don't want them), he gave me a prescription for pain meds (for my uppoer back), and he prescribed Avonex. It will be a weekly shot, to delay exacerbations, and to reduce the inflammation. I guess the Avonex is very expensive (more on that later), and it takes a couple of weeks to get insurance approval, get the meds and have the instructional class by a visiting nurse. (talk about waste of resources... Wifey can do it. but there's a system you know - for payment!)

The formal diagnosis is a relief. Having a treatment plan is a relief. My big worry in this was further permanent neurolgic loss, and I feel that being on Avonex gives me half a shot of maintaining where I am, while dealing with the attacks or relapses. In general, I hate meds, but I hate the idea of having further losses more. BTW, the psyche/cognitive testing showed organizational problems, some memory problems and that I "was not overly crazy". I have to ask Dr. Jones to read a copy of it.

But knowing I have to maintain the medical insurance, lets move on to where we are in the business..... I bailed on the charity project. No time in the schedule between now and the event, and the guy I'm working with isn't taking it seriously. The paid programming project is going OK, but there are a lot of features left to code and only a few days left. I have to be on-site with them on Monday the 9th to set everything up. I think I'll only be there for 3 days so it shouldn't be so bad. The local software installation went well last Thursday, and I have to hard code the printing for him, with a tentative date of delivery of Thursday of this week. I don't koow if that will happen. Worked an old client for 3 hours yesterday, but no revenue. I think my take for January was around $2.7k. But I have the new computer, web hosting and other outstanding things to pay for this month. My gut tells me that it was a standard month's bleed.

Physically, it feels like I'm slipping a bit. Still battling back pain, fatigue, full head and tinitus. I'm thinking that the recent problems are at some level weather related. The temp and humidity have been swinging quite a bit. 45 and clear Saturday, 65 and clear Sunday, 50 and clear yesterday but 40 and damp this morning. The only thing I can do is keep pressing on...but I've reset my work goal to 45 horus per week only. I think that more than that wears me out for the next week.

So, for the first time, I'm optomistic about my future with MS. Hopefully, I'll get some benefit from the Avonex, and can continue to move forward on developing the business. The problems is that I have lots of ideas, but not enough stamina / energy.

Scale - 10 is worst
Weather - 40's and light rain

Shaking - 5

Neck Pain - 1
Upper Back Pain - 6

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 4

Tinitus - 3
Ears Full - 4
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 4

Gastro - 5

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 3

Sleep Kick - 0

Pain Meds - No

Scale - 10 is worst

Weather - Clear and cold, headed to the 50's

Shaking - 5

Neck Pain - 3
Upper Back Pain - 5

Fatigue - 4
Foggy Head - 5

Tinitus - 4
Ears Full - 5
Hand Numb - 0

Spatial Orientation - 6

Gastro - 9

Insomnia = 0

Eye Focus - 4

Sleep Kick - 0

Main problem is with stomach. Was sick last night and had to take imodium to get to sleep. I seem to feel OK right now. I have to get back to making 2 entries here today. Back pain is up, so is balance problems. Should be and interesting day.

Freeman this morning, then Demo of the paid programing project this afternoon. A lot of work to do there. That's my focus for today and the weekend, along with biz registrations and setting the foundation for marketing of the price leader product.

Wow. I knew I was behind on posting, but didn't realize how the days were flying. Been battling the Multiple Sclerosis, coming out of the attack that started on the 2nd and ending on the 11th. Finally getting back to feeling somewhat OK and getting back to work. Then there's the whole concept of being lost about what I was doing before the last attack, and how to pick up the pieces. Tremendously hard, but I'm starting to get it together now, and should be back in the game at 100% on Monday.

Since my last post, we had the IEP meeting for Blueberry. More of the same goofiness. "She's wonderful", "Behaviorally, this is expected with her disability", blahblahblah. My job at these meetings is to be engaged while not showing I'm enraged. The home manager and clinical supervisor from the home were there, lending more outrage as they tried to grandstand. The big news from the IEP meeting was that none of them have a clue about how to address her behaviors. The school mentioned doing a "behavioral assessment", but nothing was documented so it won't happen. The home is determined that Prozac is the answer to all problems. Funny, but the tight boundaries and "time-out" behavior mods that Wifey used here work just fine for her. We've told them and told them, but because we're not "trained professionals", our successes don't exist. And Blueberry suffers because its "inclusive" care by their definition - which means they're going to do whatever the hell they want. And don't disagree or you're the bad guy. Bah!!!

Honestly, I think the emotional rage I felt for the Home and IEP meetings (can you believe I was a Marine?) was the trigger for the latest attack. Not funny either, it knocked me down for around 10 days. On the bad side, I've got to make sure that I build some kind of mental vent for the emotion so I don't end up triggering another attack. The good news is that there won't be another meeting until December. So I should be able to make progress between now and then.

There's good news in all of this. Finally figured out how to configure the products in the store. The publishing product's sales are doing reasonably well. Stumbled onto a project that should be fairly easy to complete, should lead to some short term revenue and have the ability to branch out for distributable sales. Market is in the "used household articles" sector, so I think it has a chance of driving sales in the economy that's coming. Should be interesting.

Everything else is great. Been having trouble with ear wax. Wifey got me this torture chamber device that cleans them out. Tried it once - better than hitting your thumb with a hammer!

Oh, and Razor's moved from nagging about the Scooter to nagging about a laptop! Buy Buy Buy!!! Life here is never dull. More to follow.

One of the things that this blog can do for me is act as a place I can record my MS "attacks". That's what I'll choose to call them. Some of my symptoms will flare up, making my life miserable for a while. Like I've said in previous posts, the physical symptoms slow me down and bother me, but what really scares me is slipping into that mental mode I was in right before I was diagnosed - short attention span, loss of short-term memory and physical / mental exhaustion.

Went to the Skuz meeting on Friday. More of the same, with no resolution to anything. They were focused on getting the signature on the permission chit for changing Blueberry's meds to Prozac. I was focused on getting pipelines built from their side so there was information flow from them to us, using the argument that we couldn't sign the med permission unless we had the information they took to the doctor, and the writeup of what the doctor was recommending. Was mildly effective at it, but still haven't received anything. Anyway, the meeting was moderately stressful for me, and I crashed about 2 hours after I got home. Exhaustion, upper back pain. No energy at all. Spent the afternoon in the reclining chair. Funny, there was very little shakiness though.

I guess the "trigger" was the stress of the meeting. Didn't feel overly stressful though. I wasn't emotional in the meeting. I stayed on the "big arrow" stuff. However, I was dreading going. Had some concerns that I'd represent myself and Wifey to both our satisfaction.

Saturday started OK, but as the day wore on I felt the same symptoms. Usually, an "attack" lasts a max of 48 hours. Still feeling the same things today though. Again, back pain, loss of energy, very little shakiness. A bit of eye chatter in the morning. A new revelation came from looking at the light tube in the HP scanner. When I looked away the white light split into white, red and green. With perfectly spaced bars. Never experienced that before, even when the symptoms were at their height before the steroid treatment.

I'm a big believer in working with what I have though. The problem right now is figuring out whether what I have will be good enough. I figure I have a year today now to figure it out, then I have to start seriously think about filing for disability or trying to get a light duty job. From what I see in the economy, I'm thinking that it will probably be the former, as there won't be any jobs to be had.

So that's the update on my MS stuff. I'll try to mention it in a post when I see the current symptoms going away.

I'm at the point where I'm ready to put video content on the web. Yesterday evening I recorded a 20 second video, edited it in Windows Movie Maker, opened it in Flash MX, and played around with the settings to get the video window size, file size and resolution that I needed. Exported it to a .swf. Mid-morning today I pushed it to the web for a test. Worked great! Whoops, I forgot the buttons to control the playback.

Ah. I remember now. In January, I successfully put together a video that included (at least I think it included) play, pause and stop buttons using what I thought was Macromedia Flash MX. I had to find instructions from the web about how to put buttons on the video to get it to stop, pause and play. I made a prototype web page and showed it to Wifey. Confident in the fact that I found the answer, I set it aside for other things.

So today started looking for the file on my hard drives at around noon. Couldn't find one with control buttons. Then I started looking for a "how to" page on the web. Nothing. In the old video work folder, there were some Moyea FlashVideoMX files. No buttons on those either. I don't have the $60 full version, just the demo. I'm sure I didn't take the easy way out, cause I vaguely remember using Macromedia and the feeling of accomplishment satifying my "cheap bastard" mentality. BUT I CAN'T FIND THE FILES OR THE INSTRUCTIONS (primal scream)

Ok, ok. Calm down. Take a break. I'm also a "stubborn bastard", so I really don't want to let this go until I can declare victory. Get some cookies out of the pantry (I work at home) and regroup. Decide whether to push on or move to something else. I walk into the kitchen only to find see the water cooler bottle over-flowing into the sink. GEEZE-LOUISE!!! I think I started filling it around 12:30. Its now 2:30.

I do 15 minutes of acting like Clubber Lange in the last fight in Rocky 3. Rage, followed by confusion, followed by the recongition I'm beaten into submission. Much calmer now - I think eating the entire pack of cookies from the pantry helped.

I'm used to the frustrations of learning how to bend new technologies to do what I need them to. I'm even used to not being able to find what I need right away once I have a need for something I've done before. I either eventually find it, or I reproduce the research I did originally to get back to where I was before. I'm pretty patient. I was trained late in life as a half-way VB / VBA programmer. When something got lost or destroyed, my mentor used to say "Think how better it will be when you finish it the second time." She was right, but she was referring to both the finished product and the learning experience.

The problem I have now is that I can't separate "normal" from "MS related" when it comes to my work performance. I've always been tough on myself, rarely satisfied with an effort. The MS has affected my short-term memory pretty well, but I've compensated by leaning into daily manual hot lists to buttress my short-term memory. I use PDA lists for medium and long term things so I don't forget them and have to go through the thought process again. This situation has me wondering about long-term memory. It's been less than a year since I prototyped the web video. Am I having the same problem with long-term memory that I have with short-term? Would this situation happen to me 5 years ago? Am I'm going to have to re-learn stuff I used to know again, over and over? Blasted brain spots.

So here's the rest of the story. I just finished successfully putting up the video, and I have the process all documented and saved. From what I can figure out, I did use Moyea FlashVideoMX files for the prototype in January. I figured out that I never used Macromedia Flash MX, that I ran the same dry hole with it (too much effort to understand how to make it work). So tonight I ended up with Moyea, buying a copy for $60.00. The control buttons weren't embedded in the SWF but were part of FLV the former referenced. Problem solved.

But its now 10pm and I've spilled all my beer. Probably some of tomorrow's, too. But at least I can sleep tonight. Even if I did have to wimp out and spend money.

My wife says that I should try to isolate the triggers to my MS symptoms. A common denominator seems to be weather changes. The problem is that there are so many factors working together that its hard to isolate any 1 thing. That 1 thing could have been working in combination with many others to produce the symptoms.

The weather here changed from mid-70's and dry to 80 and fairly humid from Monday through Thursday. This morning it started raining and the temperature is dropping. Very shaky from the start of the day, my back between the shoulder blades seems like its on fire. Common symptoms for me when the disease stars line up. But again, you can't tell how everything else plays into the equation. Stress, sleep amount, physical activity, mental activity (all generally the day before) all seem to play a part. Problems is that I've had really good rainy days and really bad rainy days in the past. Couldn't sleep last night again but took benedryl early. Arghh!

Another problem with MS is that you can never figure out where to draw the line. Am I being lazy and just not pushing hard enough? Are the symptoms driving how productive I can be a maximum? Is how I'm performing indicative of normal mid-life slowing or because of MS symptoms? Is it affecting my cognitive ability today? (how do you measure that one???) I'd love to hear from other analytical types that are trying to deal with MS.