Its time to share the news......

I want you to listen now as this is very important.

A few weeks ago, I had an appoint to spend an hour with an MS nurse at the Walton Centre in Liverpool. This was arranged by my MS psychologist as until this point, no one had sat me down and talked to me about MS in general. At this point, as I entered the room, I still did not have MS, I had no diagnosis.

A few minutes into our conversation, the MS nurse got around to discussing my own situation and I explained to her all the aches and pains that have made up the vast majority of my blog thus far. We talked about my first symptoms, my initial tests, moving from private to NHS and my ongoing evaluation.

She then told me I had MS.

You will find a post here from a good few months ago where I was told by my Psychologist that I had MS and I shot her down in flames for it. This time however, this lady was serious.

I asked to see my notes and she showed me a letter taken from over a year ago to my GP following my initial consultation at the Walton Centre confirming the diagnosis.

The weird thing was, during this consultation and on from there, no one told me I had been given a diagnosis. I was very much under the impression that if a diagnosis was coming, someone would sit you down and give it to you face to face.

Who am I to argue, its official, as far as science is concerned I have MS.

I was shocked, a little traumatised but ultimately, I now had a label and in a strange way, a weight was lifted. It doesn't mean that anything changes, it just confirms what has been thought for a long time. I have always had MS, you don't progress to MS as you grow older, its what I have and its what I have had and explains a lot about all that has happened to me.

So what do I do and where do I go and what is being done to halt the course of this? Well basically nothing. Nothing changes, I carry on, I go to the Walton Centre every few months, I tell my story to someone new and if I have symptoms that are serious enough for treatment then I get treatment. Its as simple as that really.

There are still things that I can do to help myself. Better diet, lose weight, more exercise and being content in mind, body and soul helps too.

Look on any MS forum and they all have the section about "What makes your condition worse than any other thing on the planet?" One word that keeps coming back is stress. This is a word that most people wont link to me but believe me, for a great many reasons, I feel a great deal of stress about this right now and while some of it is in my control, some of it is also out of my control so its an area where improvements could be made.

I always though this post would be longer, more profound and more explosive than it has turned out to be, but there you go. I have MS so lets get on with it.

Older and wiser!!! Well, sort of!!!

This weekend, myself and my good friend Nick Bartlett attended a 20th Anniversary re-union party for the Chesterfield High School class of 89.

When I first heard about this, I really didnt fancy it that much. I dont have the best memories of school and from what I can recall, it was mainly abuse for being either chunky, ginger, wearing NHS glasses and having a comedy name. So as you can appreciate, I was quite nervous about the whole thing. I would not have gone on my own so I put it to Nick a while ago and we made it our date!!!

In reality, we arrived and we had a great time. Everyone was so warm and friendly and geuinely interested in where you were and what you were doing. I plainly dont recall half of the people who were there but I took the time to approach these people, tell them I had no idea who they were and then systematically work through a load of questions to try and find common grounds!!! 9 out of 10 times it worked!!

It was a really good night but I made a pact with Nick to drink Guiness for the whole night and in the morning, I felt a little worse for wear!!! I was telling Nick about a host of things, all of which I had told him the night before and I had no recollection of the event!! So thats the last time I am doing that one!!!

I am quite pleased with myself about the reunion as school was a tricky time in my life for a number of reasons but on from the re-union, I think that over the years I have grown and matured a lot while retaining my mischevious side and I think that I can pretty much welcome most people from my past with a smile, a hug or a friendly handshake...perhaps some wierd demon has been exorcised!!!

Spinny & Dizzy

No, its not the name of my 2 new goldfish, its actually just another day living in this body!!!

A few times over recent weeks, I have had very slight feelings of vertigo but today I had 2 major vertigo attacks which both almost sent me onto my knees.

Firstly, I was trying to look at the underside of a control panel earlier so I was stood upright and arched over to look at it, my head disorientated as I returned upright and I had to concentrate for a moment or 2 to keep my bearings about me.

Then, about 20 minutes ago, I had to bend overt to get something out of the cupboard and a rush of blood to head left me feeling the same as previous.

I know that vertigo is a symptom associated with Neurological problems and I am sitting here feeling the same usual feeling of "is this just a passing phase or is it leading to something else?".

I haven't felt good the last few days, I have felt lethargic and tired and I had a very nasty headache last night so perhaps this is linked to that and whatever "that" is, hopefully its on its way out of me? I don't know.

I know I sound quite down a lot of the time about this but the progress of this is uncertain and its very easy to feel defeatist about it sometimes. Look at my face and I will smile for you and keep it all together, the blog was always meant to be the place where I could air my problems and I usually feel a lot better after getting things off my chest here. I just hope it works this time too.

I will keep the reader updated.....

There is never any good news.....

I haven't been at my best for the best part of the week, in fact I am harbouring a great sadness about things and feeling generally sorry for myself.

Last Friday, I went for my usual check up at the Walton Centre and as is usual, saw another Registrar who had no idea of my condition or where I had been, how long I had it or what had been done about it and I found out 2 things to upset me.

1. I had a relapse recently. I didn't consider at the time that I had experienced a relapse but based on the evidence, I must have had one. A few weeks ago I had a very light tingling in my left foot and although it was there, it didn't cause me any pain so I just left it. At the same time, I felt just a touch weaker in my left side but again ignored it as fatigue or the like. Anyway, it was a relapse and for that reason, I feel anxious that I am not immune to relapses. This is the first official relapse since all of this started so from that point of view, it shows that my original symptoms were not a "one off".
2. This is the more disturbing one. With regard to my numbness in my hands, there is nothing else to try. The last drug trial of Pregablin failed as it just caused anxiety which is worse than the numbness but what this means in reality is that there is no cure for my numb hands and basically, as far as I can see they will be with me until I die. In fact, they will probably be the reason I die!!!

On top of both of those thoughts, it was all delivered in a "matter of fact" fashion with no compassion towards how I might feel about it. It was served cold to me and I think more effort should be made towards us neuro nutters to either soften the blow or make sure that if you have to deal with a heartless registrar then you see a support worker immediately after.

I haven't felt so low about my condition for a long time and I am thankful that I am seeing the psychologist next week as at least they have some words of comfort to help.

If I ran things, no one would leave the Walton Centre feeling as empty as I did, in my work, even if I have bad news for someone, I will guarantee that I finish the conversation in a cheery manner but that is just me I suppose.

Disturbing news!!!

My word, I have found out some very shocking news this week about someone who I personally liked.

A while ago, Kerris and I started to go to the Fishermans Rest in Birkdale and sing a bit of Karaoke on a Saturday evening and since that time, the guy who ran it has held several regular spots at a few local pubs and Kerris in particular has become obsessed with Karaoke and will re-arrange pretty much anything to go and sing!!! As a side note, I haven't been for a while, Kerris has abandoned me in this and now that I was the one to get her out of her Karaoke shell, she has cast me aside to sing with others!!! But that's another story!!!

Anyway, so all is going well until we read in the Southport Visiter this week that he has been sacked from his job and is thinking of moving away from the area. This man is only a convicted sex offender and paedophile who spent 5 years in jail recently after being found guilty of messing with an 8 and a 13 year old.

He has been exposed now and will pack up his things and move on to another area where he will do the same again, get exposed and be run out of town once more.

If you don't instantly start to view someone like that in a different light then there is something wrong with you as a human and as I have thought about it my own viewpoint on the matter has changed.

First I was thinking that what he did was a monsterous act and he has served his time, possibly been rehabilitated and has as much right to earn a living as the rest of us. But now I think, what he did was monsterous, he should be punished and exposed wherever he goes and if he is naive enough to believe that you can do such a public job like Karaoke and not be recognised then you are an idiot.

You can sympathise with people who commit barbaric acts sometimes, not all murderers are evil people, some do it as revenge to someone they lost to another killer and some (rightly or wrongly) kill others who have performed evil tasks so with such acts, sympathy can sometimes be offered but anyone who decides to sexually molest any child under the age of consent, a child that could be yours or mine, deserves to spend the rest of their life paying for their crime every day until they die while the death penalty does not exist for it, more so, they should not be allowed outdoors again, they lost their right to that when they committed their crimes.

So as far as our local Karaoke bloke goes, I think he should run and keep on running and every time you settle, I hope there is someone there to recognise you and remind those around you about what a sick monster you really are.

I tried to rest, I did honest!!!

Well least night I tried to rest a little while Kerris and Jay occupied themselves in their own special ways.

I trawled through my music collection and selected 20 absolutely chilled tracks which included the likes of "Barbers Adagio For Strings", "Offshore (Chicane)" and "Fields Of Gold (Eva Cassidy)". All pretty chilled stuff I think you will agree and then I lay on the bed for the best part of any hour with my iPod immersed deeply in my ears (the ear plugs, not the iPod itself) and concentrated for an hour on nothing!!!

I didn't fall asleep, I just lay eyes closed and enjoyed the music without the need to occupy myself with any outside factors. I will be honest, when I was finished, I felt pretty damn good for doing it and even a little refreshed.

So all good hey? Well no. Kerris and I went to bed later and guess who could not settle. And then, guess who finally got out of bed at midnight for an hour so that he wasn't concentrating on a million and one reasons as to why he couldn't settle.

Finally, I last looked at the clock at 02.00 this morning and as usual, Jay appeared at 07.00 and woke us both. The difference being that Kerris has no problems getting back asleep and I do. In fact, once I wake in the morning, all I can do is concentrate on how numb or weird my hands feel after resting. So by 07.15, I am downstairs with Jay watching Rocky II on Sky movies!!!

I am prepared to not accept miracles but if resting in one way takes away rest in another then what is the benefit to me? However, I did enjoy my chilled session so I will do it some more until my night time body gets the message that there are 2 times in the day when I need to rest!!!

Selfless......

You would think that being described as selfless would be a good thing eh? You are the opposite of selfish and this would make most people think that you would be a good person to be around, especially in the event of a lottery win.

And if I were to pick 5 words to describe me, selfless would be in there alongside words like kind and reliable.

You see, I am selfless, I am every inch the selfless soul and when I read about what being selfless mean, so many boxes get ticked and to be fair, until now I thought selfless was a good thing.

That was until I started visiting the MS Psychologist........

I have issues, in fact, I have deep issues in how I go about living my life in light of my neurological problems and as previously mentioned, they are affecting the people around me so selflessly, I go to get the help I need to make the people around me feel less uncomfortable about me.

As we talked I thought I was painting this fantastic picture of Mike the Hero and I felt as though my good deeds, caring ways and constant "I'll do that" attitude would lead to a 2:1 in sanity. I was wrong, it didn't and I am far from it!!!

I want to explain this from 2 angles so hopefully you will bear with me on this. Firstly, selflessness is as bad a trait as it is good because as we all think of what the selfless man offers, it comes at a cost. The selfless man will forsake himself for the greater good. And that rings too true with me. Look at me. I am overweight, I don't dress well, I don't socialise well, I constantly miss out on things I want and put another ahead of me, I exhaust myself so that others can rest. Basically, put all of that together and you have a mess. I am a mess of a man.

Secondly, the selfless man is in a spiral, its like a drug, you feel good when you perform a selfless act but that is short lived so you perform another and another and so on until eventually, you are all selflessed out and you have no more to give because you have taken so much out from yourself that your reserves are all eaten up!!! So once you cross this threshold, you become desperate rather than selfless and your good intentions come across as misguided and overwhelming.

And in those 2 paragraphs ladies and gentlemen, you have a perfect description of me and my current state of mind.

So what is the answer? Well the answer is very simple because every single selfless person in life who was actually good at it, all had 1 thing in common...Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, Florence Nightingale etc, etc....they all took time out to be SELFISH every now and then. Of course they all ended up dead but that's another story.

So the current state of play is to encourage me to have "me" time and so that I can recharge and continue to be positively selfless without the destructive side of it creeping in.

That's all I want to say for the moment, I have books and leaflets to read so let me get on with it!!!

Aquilani

Just a few short entries tonight.

Yes, this is good news that we have signed a potential worldbeater on a 5 year deal but NO it is bad news that we have signed an injured player!!!

4-8 weeks before we see this guy in action!!!

Best news of the summer!!!

Lucas considers Anfield exit

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11669_5477760,00.html

I am so happy I could poo!!

MJ is not dead!!!

He is alive and well and has been spotted in Liverpool many times, this is the one that made me laugh the most!!!

Alonso

If we can get 30 million for Xabi Alonso then that is a great bit of business.

I dont hold Xabi in as high regard as some do, granted he is a great player and passer of the ball, but his lack of pace is sorely evident everytime that some races through the middle or if there is a ball to be chased.

I would also go as far as to say that if he had been sold 12 months ago as was reported to be the case this time last year, he would not have been missed either.

I dont think Liverpool would sell a player who courts such attention without another being lined up. If Inniesta turned up on Merseyside in a red shirt, I would probably go to church and thank the lord!!!

So while I am sorry to see Xabi go and I wish him all the best, its hardly a loss of Torres, Gerrard or Carragher proportions in my book. Xabi has taken part in some great games for Liverpool but I feel the quality of those around him make him look a lot better than he is so at Madrid, surrounded by Galacticos, he will fit in well.

Good luck Xabi, see you on the way to our next final.

Cyclic Grief?

This rather cryptic term what the MS Psychologist used to describe my current state of mind.

I went to the Walton Centre earlier this week and met with the MS Psychologist to begin to discuss my state of mind.

The session started like this -

MS Psychologist "Ok Michael, so you have MS"

Me "No I don't"

MS Psychologist (thinking to herself this is great, a straightforward case of denial) "Yes you do, its on your referral notes"

Me "No, I have myelitis, my notes are wrong".

MS Psychologist "Oh...."

After chatting for 10 minutes and clearing a few issues up and explaining how I feel and how I suffer from anxiety and mood swings, we got onto a better rapport.

Basically, she knows exactly what is wrong with me and I have to be honest, it makes sense. I am suffering from Cyclic Grief. You wont find much about it in Google but basically, in experiencing my problem, I have had a "loss" in my life. Loss of self confidence, loss of control, loss of hope for the future and so on.

As with any loss, just as in death if you like, there is a grieving period to get through before you finally accept your problems and deal with them.

I haven't accepted what has happened to me and this is for many reasons, I have always been told about my condition in matter of fact way and never been offered any support of closure in dealing with it so right now, I am at the "Anger & anxiety" stage of the grief process with no support mechanism to get me through it. Until now.....

I am reading through a publication that is meant to offer a few answers, I haven't found any as yet that slap me in the face but I have 2 sessions booked with the Psychologist in August to help me through this.

So I am happy that things are beginning to happen and I will of course report back as necessary!!

A Lovely Day for Kerris!!!

It was the grand occasion of my wife's birthday yesterday and for once in my life, I managed to surprise her!!

Kerris thought it was a regular trip to Liverpool for an afternoon of spending our hard earned savings, however, she did not know that secretly. I had arranged for her hairdresser to come on do her barnet, followed by a trip to Liverpool and a lovely lunch, followed by shopping, followed by booking into Malmaison hotel and an afternoon sleep, followed by a lovely meal at the Restaurant Bar & Grill, followed by a lovely sleep back at the hotel.

She seemed impressed and I am very happy I managed to keep the secret for it!!! She had a lovely time and I think lots of brownie points were earned too!!!

I hope it was a lovely birthday my love, lets see what we can do for you next year!!!

I felt at home!!!

We had a BBQ this weekend at my bosses house and the theme was "L" seen as though it was everyone from Lock-tec invited.

I chose Lederhosen and for once, I felt like I was really finding my roots!!! Kerris went as a very sexy Ladybug but her pics caused quite a stir on Facebook so out of respect, I wont publish them here!!!

Not a good feeling.....

Sometimes the blog can have a dark side, this is because I need it to think back to how things were when I look at it in the future. It is easy to put the happy and quirky stuff in but it does serve a serious purpose.

I was in tears earlier today. Its not easy seeing a grown man cry but I was so upset that I could not hold back. I had just ranted at Kerris about the behaviour of the kids and made it clear that I thought she was to blame.

This was completely unfair, and very untrue also, Kerris is the best mum to the kids and has a very laid back approach with them where I am more of a drill Sergeant when they get boisterous.

Anyway, I was wrong, I apologised and shortly afterwards broke down telling Kerris that I hated myself and I needed help.

Seeing the MS Psychologist next week will be the first step and today Kerris and I talked about my nature and how my neurological problems are affecting me in a way that nothing else has ever affected me before.

To briefly explain. A few years ago, I knew where I was, what I was doing, how I felt, how I would feel in six months and I had no fears for the future. I could handle that, it was clear and concise, life was either black or white.

Then, out of nowhere, I begin to have my neurological problems and things change. Scary words like MS are mentioned and suddenly life is full of uncertainty. At the moment, I feel like I don't know where I am or what I am doing or how indeed I will be in a few months, life is very unclear, its grey rather than black and white, I feel a lot of anger with myself for not coping well with it and worst of all, when it raises its ugly head I react to the people around me, the people who love me, in unpredictable ways. And then my anger turns to self hate and that's basically where the Psychologist will hopefully offer some support.

People will tell me, "why worry about what hasn't happened" and "live for the day" but mostly I tend to find that those people aren't suffering from a potentially life altering neurological condition.

Kerris hugged me, told me I was a good and helpful person and that she and the kids love me and after a while, I started feeling better.

Maybe I am expecting too many miracles next week but since this whole thing happened, I have had no support, well that's a lie, I have had the support of Kerris and my family, but I have had no professional support and I made a promise to Kerris that I would take it for all its worth and I will change. I don't say that likely, I want to change and I need to change and if it kills me doing so, at least I tried to change. There is no grey here, which is good for me, its black and white.

If you want help you have to fight for it!!!

I have several issues with the Walton Centre which is the place I visit every now and then so that I can review my symptoms and see how they are going etc.

Firstly and most importantly, you never see the same person twice. I am sure they do this on purpose as they have a thick file of notes and spend your 20 minute consultation treading over your history. For gods sake, adopt the personal banker attitude and get some familiarity going!!

Secondly, what you ask for rarely happens. I have just spent 15 minutes on the phone trying to progress a referral from my last visit to see an MS Psychologist. In the end, it appears that the referral was never taken any further and I am now being offered an appointment that really doesn't suit me but I will take it as I need to see this Messiah who has all the answers to the questions spinning in my head.

So next Tuesday at 3.45 I am booked into the Walton Centre Neuropsychology department to hopefully get advice on how to cope with how I feel. Kerris and I had a tiny chat about something like this today, it seems that 3-4 years ago my head was clear and I knew where I was going, how I was feeling and what I was going to do. Since then, all this has occurred which has shaken me to the core, spun my emotions and general wellbeing around at 100Mph and I am getting to the point where I really feel that I am doing no favours to those who love me.

So I hope this will be the first step to fighting back against it. I have said it before, I feel in limbo permanently and no support is being offered from a medical point of view naturally so you have to ask for it instead, then you have to chase it down and come next Tuesday, I will probably be sat in the hospital counselling myself. Lets wait and see!!!

Joy to the world!!!

Well here is some happy and exciting news for a change, well it is for me anyway.

Back in May, I weighed myself and was shocked to find myself over the 18st mark, this was disgraceful and I am ashamed of it as since a dropped a stone or two a couple of years ago following this picture in the local paper I have kept the weight off, its not ideal but it stayed off!!!

Anyway, so in May I went on a secret diet, I didn't want to tell anyone I was doing it, I would just gradually reduce my intake of food and see where it went. And so in accordance with the prophecy, the weight began to fall.

Now the only good thing about Kerris being away on holiday twice is that I have managed to do really well in those weeks, so much so that when she returned from Halkidiki a couple of weeks ago, I was excited to tell her that I was no longer in the 17st bracket and at the last weigh in, I was 16st 13lbs.

Then she went to Ibiza with the kids and this was a great chance to drop so more weight and subsequently on weighing myself on Saturday morning, I was down to 16st 8lbs which is the lightest I have been in over 10 years.

The next bit of good news was that I needed a new pair of jeans so I tried some on in ASDA while shopping today and they fitted beautifully, whats more, the waist was 36" which left me astonished!!! I actually dropped a size in jeans!!! Then I thought, well lets try a shirt and I got into an XL that fitted nicely too so I am overjoyed with myself!!! So much that I bought a cake!!!

So there we guys, the difference is now that I am enjoying this and getting on well with it so I will keep you posted on how it goes. Now how many more holidays can I get Kerris and the kids on before the summer ends!!!

It's not easy being me!!!

The last 2 days, I have been absolutely tired, lethargic and generally battered. I was in bed early last night and as soon as I have finished posting this, I will be in bed again!!!

The best explanation Kerris can come up with is "It's all catching up on you".

I am not sold on that. I am still young, relatively energetic and I have never been one to need a huge amount of early nights or rest to function. Some days I just wake up and I know from that moment that I am going to struggle through the day.

So another explanation that Kerris offers is "It's because you have a neurological condition".

So I dont know which way to turn on this. I hate the fact that this happens to me but it never usually lasts 2 days. If this is a sign of things to come then it wont take much of this to utterly depress me.

Maybe I am caught in the middle right now. I was lonely when Kerris was away, and now she is back but on her way off again and I dont really feel good about losing her for another week again. I think that all of that going on in my head could mentally exhaust me but if that is the case, its never happened to me before.

Perhaps I am working too hard, or maybe its the case that I am not working too hard but the everyday stress of dealing with what we put up with on a daily basis is starting to grind me down some.

Maybe I am frustrated with myself for a list of reasons as long as your arm and that is taking its toll in this way?

Whatever it is, I think sleep right now is the key and will continue to be so until this phase passess. I hate the way I feel right now and I dont want it to continue so please, when I wake in the morning, please let me feel a little more like Mike.

Farewell Thunder!!!

Kerris and I have just returned from a lovely night in Sheffield where we saw our favourite band Thunder for what may very be the last time.

This was the farewell tour, 20 years and out, and the concert was superb. We had great seats, front row on the balcony, and the band sounded fantastic.

I don't trust Thunder though. For me, there was something about the show that said to me....we will return!! Just as they did 5 years ago when the called it a day last time. The show was a standard Thunder gig, lots of clapping and singing and at the end, a quick mention that this was goodbye and exit stage left pretty quickly. I am sure we haven't seen the back of Thunder as a live act and that can only be a good thing!!!

For those who want to know what the fuss is about, watch the clips below from the show last night and behold one of the finest voices in rock. I cannot see this man hanging up his vocal chords just yet.

So thanks for the millions of gigs that I have attended Thunder, you have been fab and hopefully I can see you again real soon!!!

Owen

I just heard the news about our former boy wonder and the fact he chose to go to United shows that there is nothing more to this man than money. If you are in it for money then fine, but a lot of players are in it for the adulation and respect of the fans and I never thought that this Judas truly had that in his Liverpool career.

I havent had a good word to say about Owen since his last season at Liverpool. He ran his contract down to zero so that Liverpool, the club who made him European Player Of The Year, got 8 million out of what today would have been a Ronaldo-esque transfer sum.

Perhaps Owen is finally pulling on the right red shirt? Part of me sees this as a marriage of convenience, Owen is using it thinking of his transfer on from United and that sets him in a different league against being transferred out of Hull, Wigan or Stoke and on the other hand, Ferguson needs forwards and for 3 months of the season, Owen will do things for him.

Michael, I hope you are not on the team sheet when they visit Anfield because I cannot think of a worse player to make a worse move. It will be a cauldron of hatred. Mind you, I bet the £100.000.00 plus per week you get more than makes up for that eh?