Interview With A Kamikaze

I was recently contacted and asked for an interview by fellow MSer Meagan Freeman, who writes the excellent blog “Multiple Sclerosis, Motherhood, and Other Traumatic Experiences: The Life of a Nurse Practitioner With MS”. After checking out Meagan’s blog and making sure she wasn’t part of the vast government conspiracy intent on siphoning off my Cosmic MS Mojo for use in covert attempts to transform reptilian aliens into characters on the “Real Housewives” reality TV shows (you didn’t think those people were actual human beings, did you), I readily agreed.

Meagan asked me a series of eight questions, on topics ranging from what I may have learned from dealing with my disease (that La Paz is Bolivia’s third most populous city – oh, wait, on second thought I think I learned that from the CNN show “Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown”) to my opinion of stem cells (I think they're kind of cute, especially the ones with long whiskers).

I’ve taken the liberty of posting three of Meagan’s questions and my corresponding answers below. To read the full interview, you’ll have to hoof it on over to Meagan’s blog, by (clicking here). While you’re there, be sure to check out some of Meagan’s other essays. She’s a passionate, insightful writer who shares her, thoughts, feelings, and experiences dealing with the beast quite eloquently.

Thanks for your indulgence…


What motivates you on your “bad days,” and gives you the strength to carry on?

Sometimes nothing motivates me on bad days, and I accept that it's okay to listen to my body and do as close to nothing as possible if that's the way I'm feeling. I think it's very important for MS patients to realize this; discretion is the better part of valor, and some days it's okay to just allow yourself to be a person with a horrible disease who just flat-out doesn't feel good. Even on those days, though, it's important to do nothing to the best of your ability, if that makes any sense. If you're going to stay in bed and watch SpongeBob SquarePants all day, that's fine, but try to enjoy the heck out of watching SpongeBob SquarePants all day while you do it, rather than just succumbing to the fear and misery that can become part of life with multiple sclerosis, using SpongeBob as a backdrop while you wallow in the muck. It's okay to wallow every now and then, also, but don't get stuck in the muck, whatever you do.

On most days, though, what motivates me is the knowledge that this day is the only "this day" that I'm ever going to have, this minute is the only "this minute" that I'm ever going to have, and this second is the only "this second" that I'm ever going to experience. Time is everybody's most precious possession, and it gets more precious with each passing moment. Unfortunately, you don't get any rebates or refunds for time you spend miserable; there's no cosmic scorekeeper keeping track of the brownie points you might think you're earning while wrapped in self-righteous unhappiness. I think back on all the time I wasted when I was healthy, tied up in knots about things that ultimately turned out to be completely insignificant– and, boy, I went out of my way to find things to be miserable about – and realize just what a fool I was.

Not saying that you can somehow just sit around grinning like a blithering idiot and smile away your problems, but we do shape our own realities through the filter of our minds, and we can control our emotions, not the other way around. Pop culture often leads us to believe that it's our emotions that rule the day. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth, as your emotions are born of you, not you of them…

How has writing and blogging changed your daily life? Do you find writing therapeutic?

Writing the blog is definitely therapeutic, much more so than any of the MS therapies I've tried. I honestly never thought that more than a few dozen people, mostly friends and family, would ever read Wheelchair Kamikaze, and its success continues to astound me. Going back to one of your previous questions, researching items for the blog and answering email from readers is one of those things that motivates me on bad days. So, yeah, the blog has definitely impacted my daily life, in so many positive ways.

When I left work to go on disability, I wondered how I would fill my days. In all honesty, occupying my time turned out to not be that much of a problem; despite being relatively successful I never really liked working, and the freedom of no longer having to work was kind of exhilarating. I know this isn't the case for many people, but who I was and what I did for a living very rarely meshed as I built my career. The success of Wheelchair Kamikaze really makes me wish I had devoted more time to writing when I was younger, which may have led me to a more fulfilling career. Better late than never, though, as they say. I just wish that I had something a lot more pleasant to blog about, and that there weren't so many people who can identify with my subject matter.

Any advice you would have for those who are transitioning to using a wheelchair?

My best advice would be to just go for it. It took me way, way too long to finally get over myself and admit that I needed a wheelchair. By the time I did so, I was practically housebound, and the disease had definitely gotten the upper hand as far as my having any kind of independent social life was concerned. Believe me, there's a big difference between Armchair Kamikaze and Wheelchair Kamikaze. In the months immediately preceding my getting the mechanical monster, my ability to leave the apartment on my own had dwindled to almost nil. The day I got my wheelchair the world was once again open for business, so to speak, and suddenly I was able to fill my days with adventurous urban excursions around New York City.

I vividly remember the day my chair was delivered. After the wheelchair tech left, I sat across from the chair giving it the stink eye, having a hard time accepting the fact that this thing was now basically a part of my broken body. Then the 12-year-old boy that lies just below the surface took note of the fact that the thing has wheels, motors, and the joystick. I dragged myself over to the chair and sat down, and was soon whizzing around my living room, recklessly smashing into and upending coffee tables, sofas, and chairs.

That evening when my wife came home she insisted we go out for a "walk", a notion that had me horrified. Me, in public, in a wheelchair?!? Good heavens, no! With a bit of cajoling, my wife soon won out, and we were out on the streets of Manhattan, me with my backside firmly planted in a rolling electrical beast. I was certain that the attention of every pedestrian in the city would be riveted upon me, but instead nobody seemed to notice. Truth of the matter is, most people are so self-absorbed that they barely give any attention to anything outside of their own heads, and they could care less that some guy in a wheelchair is sharing the sidewalk. Gotta say, the moment I realized this was one of the few times I've ever been grateful that narcissism plays such a large role in human psychology.



To read the rest of the interview, please (click here) to go to Meagan’s blog. Thanks.

Bits and Pieces: a Smorgasbord of MS Info

A photograph of part of page 65, Woman's Home Companion, August, 1921, to get the 1921 Underwood logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(To those who receive these posts via e-mail, this post contains several videos, which can only be viewed on the Wheelchair Kamikaze website…)

Well, how often do you get to see the word smorgasbord in print these days? Seems when I was a kid, back in the 70s, you heard the word smorgasbord a lot more. But then again, maybe it was just my family, although I don't know why a working-class Jewish family in Queens would use the word smorgasbord all that much. So, I'll go back to my original premise and suppose that smorgasbord was used in everyday conversation more back in the decade of leisure suits and disco balls, neither of which are seen much these days, either.

Actually, there was a famous commercial back then for Underwood Deviled Ham that featured a child actor who looked like a living Cabbage Patch kid, Mason Reese (click here), saying that the stuff tasted like a "borgasmord", so that might explain my associating the 70s with smorgasbords. On a side note, I once saw a teenage Mason Reese in the Museum of Natural History, and thought he'd have made a better display than patron.

Anyway, for those unfamiliar with the word, a smorgasbord is nothing more than a buffet, Swedish style. I'm not a big fan of buffets, they seem somehow unsanitary and besides, I like being waited on. And now that I'm stuck in a wheelchair and have only one working arm and hand, doing the buffet thing would probably be all kinds of difficult, so I guess I no longer need to be concerned about buffets at all. See, every cloud has a silver lining.

Okay, enough mindless prattle, here's this month's buffet of MS and disability related info, so take what you will and try not to sneeze on the rest, as other people will be reading it after you.

♦ Starting out on the ever popular CCSVI front, several studies presented at this year's annual Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) conference demonstrated that CCSVI treatment appears to positively benefit a cohort of MS patients (click here). Like almost all studies of this type conducted thus far, these studies were done retrospectively, using patient reported outcomes, which are generally regarded as less accurate than more strict scientific research methodology. In any event, the reports generally fall in line with previously reported data, finding that the symptoms most likely to be beneficially impacted were "quality-of-life issues" such as fatigue, cognitive function, and heat sensitivity. While these tidbits are encouraging, there are more rigorous treatment trials underway, so hopefully we'll have some robust data to chew on sooner rather than later.

On the negative side, a study on mice (click here) who had their jugular veins ligated (read "snipped") found that they did not develop any nervous system dysfunction as a result of the damage to their jugulars. As mice don't ever really develop MS (the most widely used mouse model of MS isn't MS at all, but rather is an allergic reaction induced by researchers), I'm not sure how much weight to put behind these findings. I believe similar research is being done on marmosets, which kind of sucks because marmosets are really cute, but the results of marmoset research would be much more convincing.

The lead singer of the Divinyls, Christina Amphlett, has MS, and recently had CCSVI treatment (click here for video). She says that the treatment definitely benefited her, and I'm sure all of you who enjoyed her signature tune "I Touch Myself" back in the 90s will join me in wishing her well. Now, stop that or you'll go blind…

♦ Turning now to the wide world of MS drugs, it seems that the new oral drug Gilenya has taken it on the chin lately. The drug is now under review in several countries because of safety issues (click here), after a number of deaths due to cardiovascular side effects were suspected. Additionally, a patient on the drug recently developed PML (click here), although that patient had previously been on Tysabri, which somewhat clouds the picture. Since Gilenya is the first oral MS drug, its release was generally greeted warmly in the MS community, but the mechanism of the drug would appear to be somewhat troublesome. Gilenya traps T cells within the lymphatic system, thereby keeping them from patrolling anywhere in the body, which one would assume might have negative repercussions on the body's ability to fight infections and other maladies. As usual, it's a complicated picture, as Gilenya may have neuroprotective properties (click here), and such properties have long been one of the holy grails of MS research. Neuroprotection good, patient deaths bad.

In other drug news, a recent study provides evidence that the CRAB drugs don't do anything to slow MS disease progression, even though they do reduce MS relapses and white matter lesions (click here). The study spanned 10 years and looked at 262 patients. Another study showed that cannaboids (the good stuff in marijuana) inhibited disease progression in mice (click here), but, as I stated earlier, the mouse model of MS is really pretty terrible. Still, the case for medical marijuana only seems to be getting stronger, so smoke 'em if you got 'em…

♦ The Multiple Sclerosis Association of America (MSAA) does some terrific work, and has programs designed to help MS patients in financial need acquire safety and mobility equipment at little or no charge (click here). They have a similar program involving the distribution of cooling equipment (click here), which can be a godsend during the hot summer months for those of us bedeviled by heat sensitivity. If you are a US citizen struggling financially during these tough economic times, please don't be shy about taking advantage of these truly wonderful programs.

♦ Movement on Wheels (click here) is a social networking site designed specifically for wheelchair users. The site is very new, and doesn't yet have many members, but I think the idea is a great one and I wish Movement on Wheels much success. If you are a wheelchair or scooter user, I'd encourage you to check out the site and help it become a thriving community.

♦ For those interested in learning about buying wheelchair accessible vans, this site has a lot of valuable information (click here). I'm not endorsing the company that runs the site, but they have put together an impressive website chock-full of really good info, and knowledge is power.

♦ A company in Italy, Genny Mobility (click here), is marketing a wheelchair made from converted Segways. The chairs are not yet available in the US, and the website is strictly an Italian, but check out the videos to see just how cool this little beast is. Looks like riding around in one would be a hell of a lot of fun, and I appreciate the con mucho gusto attitude that the inventor/marketer displays in the videos. Here's a video of the inventor riding around with his very adorable dog, and please forgive me for subjecting you to "Who Let the Dogs Out", a tune that the world could have very easily lived without:



♦ In my never-ending quest to shine a spotlight on assholes, here are a couple of pieces about jackasses ripping off the disabled. The first (click here) involves a chap in England who seems to specialize in robbing the vulnerable, and the second (click here) details the theft of computers from a Georgia office of the NMSS. To the miscreants involved in these incidents, I wish a pox on you and all your ancestors.

Just to make up for the "Who Let the Dogs Out" thing up above, I'll leave you with a much more pleasurable listening experience. Although I don't understand a word of French (okay, maybe I understand a few words) I listen to a lot of French music. I got started on Jacques Brel (a Belgian, actually) a few years ago, and since then a wide variety of chanteurs and chanteuses have been finding their way into my ear holes. Here's one of my more recent discoveries, Emily Loizeau. The song even has a bit of English in it, expressing a sentiment I think we can all identify with:

Related articles

• Gilenya in Ireland... or not? (willeke73.wordpress.com)
• Safety of MS pill Gilenya reviewed after deaths (cbc.ca)
• The medical politics blocking CCSVI trials (macleans.ca)

Pants on the Ground, Wheelchair Style

I can't say I'm a fan of American Idol, as honestly, I've maybe watched 45 seconds of it through the years. I must admit, I'm not terribly fond of modern pop culture, and immensely prefer Lady Day to Lady Ga Ga. But even I have not been able to escape the charms of "Pants on the Ground" a little a cappella rap ditty that was performed by a 62-year-old gentleman during one of this year's American Idol auditions. Since it first aired a few weeks ago, the video clip of "Pants on the Ground" has gone viral, and I suspect that deep in the Amazonian forest, where pants haven't even been invented, there are tribal warriors chanting "Pants on the Ground" as they prepare for ritual battle. I've gotta admit, the little tune is kind of catchy...

Now, the irrepressible Mark E. Smith (the Mobility Superstar) and the folks from Pride Mobility have put together their own stellar video version of "Pants on the Ground". Pride Mobility, the manufacturer of fine mobility products, is the maker of the Wheelchair Kamikaze's own Quantum Rehab Q6000Z, the wheelchair part of Wheelchair Kamikaze. Mark E. Smith, when he's not busy being a junkyard dog gangsta rapper, serves as Pride Mobility's Consumer Research Manager, and runs the invaluable website Wheelchair Junkie , which in my humble opinion is the Web's best resource for information on all things wheelchair.

So now, strap yourselves in, pull your pants low, and get ready to groove to the Wheelchair Junkie's version of "Pants on the Ground"...