Life By Kerri

    Have you ever thought of how strange it is that you can have a conversation without really saying anything? "Wait...what?" "I know, right?" "Dude!" "Mmmm-Hm." "For REAL." You could be talking about anything from a movie to a sale at your favorite department store to the second coming of Christ.  That really has nothing to do with the meat of this post, but I've been thinking about it, and after the title of this blog post.... Anyway. I digress... I was talking to my mother in law the other day, and we were talking about God answering prayer. Obviously there's yes or no, but... there is also my least favorite answer to prayer; it isn't no.  It's wait. Wait.  I STINK at waiting.  I'm a doer.  A fixer. A pull the trigger, fish or cut bait, Type A, get it done kind of girl.  So when God says, "Wait,"  I'm like, WHAT?  Might as well tell me stop requiring oxygen! My least two favor...

  My brother in law Dan had been married to my sister Deb for over 40 years. He worked so hard his whole life. He had major back issues, surgeries, and rods, pins, and a tremendous amount of pain. He also had arthritis.  On April 4th, Dan was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Yesterday, not even a month after his diagnosis, Dan passed away, and went to heaven.  Dan had just retired recently. He was a good husband, and father, and a terrific "Papa". He will be missed.  I have a completely different view of death than I used to. I used to be afraid of it. I thought dying was the most horrible thing that could happen to a person. Now I realize it's the most wonderful thing that could happen to a person! And no, I'm not kidding. Read on. My Dad died just over a year ago.  He had emphysema, he was legally blind, he couldn't walk very far without oxygen (which he was too stubborn to wear!)...I'm sure he had pain. He was not living his best life, to be sure. ...

  One of THE most frustrating things about having Myasthenia Gravis is the lack of knowledge on the part of medical personnel. Going to the ER in a myasthenic crisis (short of breath, overall weakness, can't swallow, choking on your own saliva, maybe really low oxygen, etc.), is truly taking your life into your own hands. Most ER docs know next to NOTHING about Myasthenia Gravis. I understand that doctors can't know everything about every disease out there, but then they should at least LISTEN to the patient when they present with something they are unfamiliar with. If you Google Myasthenia Gravis, you will most likely read that it does not have a cure, but with treatment, most myasthenics can have a fairly normal life. They are WRONG. Most sites will also say that you cannot die FROM MG. They are LYING. Two cases in point: I met a wonderful young mom on Facebook at possibly the worst time of her life. Her beautiful daughter, Safa, had just died from Myasthenia Gravis. The Mom,...

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball or 20. There are days when I'm just DONE.  (Please don't feel sorry for me...it's all good). Here are the main points of my battle for life from 1996 and following. * When I was 24, I had chronically infected tonsils removed. The doctor said they just disintegrated when he got a hold of them. I was sick ALL the time.  (In fact, I missed 38 days of my senior year of high school. The vice-principal apparently told my parents he wasn't going to let me graduate, even though I had a 3.7 grade average (even after missing all those days)! However, my father had a nice discussion with the principal, and I graduated.) * Six months after getting my tonsils out, I started experiencing double vision. It was July of 1996. I went to an eye muscle specialist, and she told me it was stress. That misdiagnosis ended up almost costing me my life. Double vision is the typical first symptom for a woman in her mid-twenties to present with Myasthenia Gra...

 In my last post, I shared a few of my ailments. Today I'm going to tell you about something else: my tush. Specifically, the piriformis (peer-i-form-us) muscle. This tiny little muscle lies over the sciatic nerve. When this muscle gets too tight, it presses on the sciatic nerve. If any of you have ever had sciatica, you understand what sciatic pain feels like. SO. I also have something called sacroilitis (say-kroe-il-e-I-tis). This is when you have pain in your sacroiliac joints, which are located where the spine and pelvis meet. So basically, I've got a bunch of big 'ol pains in the butt. 😖 Okay, so why the anatomy lesson? The piriformis muscle is a pear shaped muscle that is, on average, 1.9 cm in length. That's not quite an inch.  Little muscle. That tiny less than one inch muscle, when irritated or inflamed, can bring tears to my eyes when I get a zap . It's seriously like a lightning bolt has struck my bum. The pain can be excruciating. I may or may not have...