Well, I don't have a whole lot to write about this evening but I figured I should post something.

My holiday was fairly laid-back and quiet. Every year, the family gathers to celebrate the fourth and my mom's birthday. My mother wanted fried chicken and potato salad, so I volunteered to make my new favorite potato salad. This potato salad, people, is fantastic. It's another triumph from the folks over at Epicurious, one of my favorite recipe sites. I've made it four or five times now and I just enjoy the heck out of it every time. Plus, who knew that pickling cucumbers was such fun!?

That being said, the damn salad is labor and time-intensive. And on Monday, when it was hotter than Jabba the Hut's butt-crack in the house, I was peeling boiled potatoes and chopping and mixing and stirring potato salad. Damn near killed myself and all for a salad! Seriously, after I had mixed the salad all up and it was resting peacefully in the fridge, I flopped on the couch and thought I might never get up again. Classic case of me DOING. TOO. MUCH.

Fortunately, the salad and I made it to my grandma's yesterday and everyone - even my uncle who hates onions - gobbled it right up. Secretly, part of me was hoping no one would like it so I could take the left-overs home, but even with that little bit of self-serving attitude I was happy to have made and brought the salad and that everyone seemed to like it. Grandma's fried chicken and baked beans were fantastic and my aunt Laura's brown sugar angel food cake was to die for.

Really a nice way to spend my fourth of July. And, even nicer, the whole day was low-key enough that I felt pretty good (read: not miserably fatigued) and was even able to make it to an AA meeting in the evening!

I woke up this morning still feeling pretty good, but by noon or so I was feeling nauseated and beginning to get the fatigued feeling back again. This just underscores the need for me to continue to take things easy and not push myself too much. It's just that I'm anxious to get back to working a regular schedule and to get back into my regular routine of walking Rennie at lunchtime. We're both starting to get a little pudgy.

I'm discovering that I'm not a very good sick person.

Over the weekend, I picked up my first box of Avonex, the "disease-modifying drug" the doctor prescribed. Before I can take it, I have to go meet with the nurse and get trained on how to give myself a shot into a muscle. I'm hoping to meet with the nurse this week but I've had trouble getting ahold of her so the exact date is still "tbd."

I'm not all that thrilled about giving myself an injection, but I figure that if this stuff is going to help me live a more productive, normal life for a longer period of time I can deal with poking myself once a week. The real concern right now is the side effects. Apparently the drug causes "flu-like symptoms" for a day or two after each injection. That's apparently something that wears off over time, so I'm hopeful that this stuff will work for me, but who the heck knows.

The other thing I've been doing a lot of lately is reading and research. I ordered a couple books from Amazon.com about MS and I've been digging around the web looking for well-written blogs and websites on the subject. One of the books I picked up discusses an MS-specific diet, called "The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book," which looks like it could be good for helping maintain health and control symptoms. We shall see, though. More on this as soon as I have a chance to read through it!

Still trying to stay as positive as possible, though this gets harder the more I read about the progression of the disease... Knowledge is power, or so they say; may as well learn as much as I can so I know what I'm dealing with, I guess... Ugh. It's just hard hard hard.