Been Running Fast and Free....

Where have I been? I must have been trying to forget about MS. Can't do that, though...go figure.

I'm okay. I am feeling good. I am trying to beat the feeling of MS by eating better and exercising. We're having a Biggest Loser Competition at work and, not expecting to win, I joined up. Really, I am not heavy, but I saw it as incentive to get on an exercise plan and firm up the middle. You see, I have this incline bench, kinda like the one that Chuck Norris pedals, but different. So, I hauled it out of my "Everything Room" and dusted it off. I knew if I left it in there, I wouldn't keep using it regularly. So, I plopped right in the middle of my living room and there it sits and calls to me every time I walk by. "Hello, Paul! Don't trip over me... why don't you stop and knock off a few curls, big boy!" it calls to me. Here it is almost midnight, and I'm sitting here sweating, typing, telling stories about my talking incline bench right after a workout.

Well, my strategy is working. I have been going at it for a good 8 weeks now. Now, I'll give you the straight scoop about my weight. Nothing to be ashamed about. Before I started, I weighed myself and I was 217 lbs. Now, this is before the Biggest Loser Competition started. I wasn't happy with that weight, so somehow I subconsciously lost 5 lbs before we started! So, I put myself at a pretty good disadvantage right at the start, because I only have so much weight I can lose. Did, I say I wasn't really serious about winning? To summarize, Week 1, I was 212.2. That's my official starting weight. This is Week 8 and I'm 205. That is a modest loss, certainly not award winning. But, if I could have held my 217 lb weight for Week 1, then we would be talking. The good news is I like it! I like the feeling of losing some stuff around the middle and I like the feeling that I am stronger at the same time. And, keep in mind, I'm 6'-3", so I'm almost getting hunky, if that is possible for me!

Okay, I'm alive, I'm okay, and I'm not as bad on the eyes as I used to be. I think I'll keep this up. I have lot's of reasons why, which I will write more about in the near future, now that I have found my blog again....wink!

Is there anything fun about changing health plans? NO!

Okay, let's cut right to the chase. I will leave out the names to protect the guilty. In December of last year, I received a notice from the insurance company that runs my company health plan. I received that notice BEFORE they notified my company! Seems they wanted to stop doing business in the state of Texas, which in itself is pretty astounding because Texas is probably weathering this international economic storm as well as any state. So, the powers that be at my company scrambled to find a replacement insurance health plan and they did quite well and come January 1, I was on a new health plan. I opted for the savings health plan, which has me donating each month toward a balance which is used toward my deductible when I require health services or a prescription. Sound familiar? Okay. So, in December we had an orientation meeting with the insurer and I discovered that Betaseron is not one of the prescription pharmaceuticals covered on the "approved list." So, I brought that up to the rep after the meeting and I was told not to worry, that she would look into it. About three weeks later, I still hadn't heard, so I make the call. She calls back a couple days later and guess what? Betaseron is approved and all I have to do is contact the mail order pharmacy to get the paperwork done. Let me give you the brief and almost unbelievable rundown on Betaseron. Betaseron is free! Normally it is no more than $50 per month, but effective last September, due to the economy, BetaPlus declared that Betaseron would be NO COST! As I just described it, would you say you understand what I am saying? Do I need to say anymore than that? Betaseron is no cost. That's right. You got it. Well, it wasn't so easy for the insurance company to understand. At first, I received a call from my doctor office and they said the the insurance company had denied the prescription for Betaseron. I say that's impossible because I did all the footwork up front. Well, a phone call to my insurance company rep was the next step. She said, no, you weren't denied. That's impossible. I give everyone each other's phone numbers; the insurance company, the pharmacy, the doctors office, and BetaPlus and I tell them to figure it out and call me when it is. Two weeks later, my insurance company rep calls and says, "I have good news, You are cleared for takeoff. And, the cost is $2,500 deductible and $50 per month!" I said, "No. Betaseron is no cost to me." She said, "No, your plan says $2,500/$50." So, I get my HR assistant involved and she says, "They're right. I can't help you." I said, "I know what's right and that isn't it. Thanks anyways." So the head HR person comes to my office. I give her the story and she says she understands that Betaseron is supposed to be no cost and she will try to help. I thanked her, because I was busy at work and didn't have time. By the end of the week, she emailed me with the message that she made no headway but she is working on it. After a couple sleepless nights on the weekend I figured out what I had to do. It was obvious to me that the insurance company was not hearing the message that BetaPlus said that Betaseron is no cost. I had to do something to kick the insurance company into gear. I had to hurt the insurance company where it hurt the most. Monday morning I called the insurance company rep and told her that in one hour I would be canceling my participation in the company health plan and I would contract for the Betaseron with BetaPlus myself, because as I had been telling her, with insurance or without insurance, the cost of Betaseron is $0. Well, that was the last thing she wanted to hear, because you know, the insurance business is not a money losing business. My company pays a lot every month for me to be a member of that health plan. I pay a little, but the lion's share is paid by my company. Within 30 minutes, my insurance company rep called with the news. "I don't know how it happened, but BetaPlus has agreed to pay for the deductible and your monthly cost is $0!" I just thanked her, but I hung up the phone knowing that they had never called BetaPlus until just now. Can I blame them? I don't. I realize that the people who work at the insurance company have processed many thousands, maybe millions of clients and they had no perception of anyone getting their prescription filled for $0. They had probably fielded so many calls from people thinking that the plan they signed up for wasn't supposed to work like that and they had no idea it would cost that much. There answer was always the same. "That's the plan you signed up for." A prescription for $0? That was totally out of the box thinking for them. So, they didn't even try until they were forced to, by my threat to cancel them. So, yes, I laughed after it was all said and done, but it was not a laugh that indicated that this was fun. It was a laugh that I was right and because I was persistent, it all turned out the way I had been telling everyone. They just weren't listening.

Is MS really MS?

I am not so sure anymore. Since I was diagnosed, I have looked into it. No matter how hard I try, I have never been able to trust doctors completely and realizing from the beginning that they really didn't know what caused MS, doubt set in upon me on the medication that was being prescribed. Recently, my doubt has grown even more. Perhaps I am the last MS diagnosed person to find out about Dr Zamboni and his findings. Perhaps not. Anyways, from how I understand it, MS is merely a symptom of something that isn't really a immune condition at all. What we are all subject to is a vascular condition where the blood flow from your brain and spine is constricted due to narrower than normal veins. That causes iron to collect there and allows the blood-brain barrier to be permeated and that is what causes the brain and spine lesions. Yes, maybe your legs feel numbness, but do they also feel heavy? Is your stamina down? Does it all make sense to you? It does to me. I want to know what is being done in this country to get this going? Dr Zamboni has pioneered a procedure similar to angioplasty where he expands the diameter of the veins. He has had incredible success. However, his success has been in Italy. I would like to know if there are doctors in this country who are going to Italy to learn what Dr Zamboni is doing.

"SUFFER" from MS?

Is my MS so bad that I suffer from it? It has held me back at times. It has weighed on my psyche. Fatigue, heat, loss of balance, wonky eyes, tingling, moments in the restroom...those are all symptoms that I have. I prefer to think that I am learning to almost block them out. Sure, I stop every now and then and take inventory to see how I'm doing. But, for the last year, the symptoms have not worsened, and I have proven that I am still able to function in my business world. If people don't already know, and I don't tell them, they would not know that I have MS.

I know we all deal with our MS differently. I know our MS is different from individual to individual. Our support group's are all different. I live with my dog and no other family members. My nearest family is over 900 miles away. How do I do it, I ask myself sometimes. I am not debilitated, but knowing I have a disease that can be debilitating can have an emotional effect; which again, we all deal with in our own personal and individual way.

Lately, I have spent more time trying to do the things I want to do, whether I feel fatigued or not. I do them and I concentrate on overcoming the physical and emotional fatigue that I feel; mind over MS, I call it! I give myself a personal pat on the back for doing it and I feel joy and accomplishment. It takes pushing. Having the idea to do something is easy. Planning to do it, still easy. The last step; actually going through the front door out into the world to do whatever you have planned, that is the biggest hurdle for me. Over the last year, there have been many events I have planned for, only to stop at my front door when the time came. It was easy for me to blame it on the physical fatigue of MS, but really, it was the failure of my mind to win that battle.

I guess, I am writing this because I have been out reading other people's blogs and I read where someone said, "I suffer from MS." And, part of me wanted to disagree with that statement. But, I don't know that person. I don't know how bad it is for him. I don't know what kind of support he has. And, THAT is why I was out reading his blog. I need to go back and read more, and I will. Right now though, I am here writing and I want to finish. I started out writing this blog entry to say that we shouldn't be "suffering" from MS! The more I thought about it, the more I wrote, the more I knew that YES!, I "suffer" from MS. My life suffers. I let MS get the best of me. It is hard to not let it. I wish all my blog entries could be about how I beat my MS! But, that isn't true. There are many times it gets the best of me. I will have my victories, though. And, I guarantee I will be here sharing them when I get one! MIND OVER MS! I'm not ready to give up...

Well, this was a Saturday morning rambler...