2. I go to the bathroom cabinet, open the door, reach in for the toothpaste, and then pick up my toothbrush from the Mickey toothbrush holder neat the sink. Paste on brush/ Brush teeth/ Spit/ Rinse! I then put the cap on the toothpaste, and stick said paste in the Mickey holder, and the toothbrush on the cabinet shelf.
3. My tongue sneaks out of my mouth now and then, dog - like, tries to lick my nose. As there is a bit more of a difference between where my mouth and a dogs mouth end and our respective noses begin, I merely appear odd. I am used to that. My wife has warned me that should I suddenly start panting and rolling on the grass, I will be taken to the vet. I figured "what the hey?", i mean, how much worse can it get? On the other hand, I know of no dogs with MS or are bipolar. They certainly don't come to support groups.
4. Of course, I realize that I had done a silly thing in the bathroom with the tooth brush and tooth paste. I open the cabinet door, remove the tooth brush and, after a few pulls on Mickey's head, get the toothpaste away from him. Paste on shelf, brush in Mickey's head. I close the cabinet door by opening it all the way until the hinges crack. Humph, I must be stronger than I thought. I leave the slightly unhinged bathroom cabinet door that way.
5. A weekly ritual is the assignment of pills to their daily boxes morning, afternoon, and then bedtime (the bedtime pill container used be the all day pill holder until I started to love mood stabilizers). This week I was going through the routine and when I was finished I saw a pile of white pills on the table. And I had no idea what they were. My wife suggested I take one to the pharmacy and ask them what it was. But a crack detective writer was on the case. Me. I compared the night pills against the day pills and noted the size, shape and color of each. Solution: take a picture of the pill and match it up with my doctors' list that has all the scripts on it. Why did I suddenly put the Prozac in the wrong place after doing it over and over for years.
6. It's not just occasionally when I walk into a room wondering why I am in there, it's nearly every time. You know, as a writer, its tough to realize that what you most enjoy doing, and sharing, can be manipulated by my own brain...as I become more Dory:
I normally do not wear ties when writing. It does not matter what I wear, unless I am with my wife and we are relaxing somewhere and she sees me scribbling away in my notebook. "Didn't need to come here if you were just going to write."
Sometimes in the middle of the night, I get up and sit at the kitchen table or in the den, and write to the early morning hours, sipping tea or coffee until I start to droop, and then back I go. Since I have no place else to be, it doesn't matter when I get up. The vibrant dreams (thanks anti-depressant) keep me terrified and amazed at the same time, so some of those writing times are giving what's is the MS unoccupied part my brain a break.
A couple of weeks back I know I got up at 3:00 AM. I have no idea what I did or thought, or how long I was where I was wherever was. Maybe I just stood still in the den. Of course, the hallucinations stand at the bedroom door to beckon me to return to Slumberland.
I'm writing a mystery novel and this thing in my head is the greatest mystery of all. Will it let me finish the book? Stay tuned.
