Mouscapades with MS!

Hello folks.

Okay, so up until now I've been talking more about multiple sclerosis and less about life. That's about to change. You see I am house sitting for a little while, and I had an adventure the other night.

Now here's what happened. When I get here to the house and get all settled in my first night is usually a bit of a challenge just getting used to being in a new house. Each house and each area has it's own noises.  This time, my first night here was a little bit more of a challenge this time because, even though the sounds are different from my home, I can usually detect what the sounds are and they don't bother me. This time, what I heard sounded like a raccoon outside scratching at the house to try to get in through my closet. Now the room I sleep in is downstairs and the house is one of those houses where the the front door is at ground level and you go downstairs to the back door which is at ground level. At any rate the bedroom I use is downstairs and my window is at ground level but it is just above eye level when you're standing in the room. So my closet is kind of underground if you're thinking about where the ground would be outside. Anyway so I heard this scratching noise and I finally got up out of bed and I took my cane and I hit the wall up near the ceiling in the back of the closet. The scratching stopped and I went back to bed and easily to sleep.

Two nights later, I heard what sounded like scratching outside my window which is opposite the closet. Well, I waited for a while thinking again that it might be a raccoon or it might be one of the cats outside. There's one cat in particular, his name is Jack, who stays outside. Anyway sometimes in the evenings he will find the window that is next to whatever light you have on and he will thump on the window to get your attention.  This is his way of saying he wants food. Well after hearing this noise for little while I got up and I got my flashlight and looked outside the window. There was nothing there. So I went back to bed. The next thing I knew I heard more of this scratching sound and this time I was fairly certain that it was inside my room, although I couldn't tell whether it was near the window or under the bed. I turned on the light, and was just about ready to go look under the bed when I looked over near the window again, trying to locate the sound.  Now, under the window there is a table. On the table I had a big box with a bunch of stuff inside, and when I looked over to the window and that area again listening for the scratching, I happened to notice something move near the box. Well, I looked at the box and on the edge of the box a mouse had just come out of the box and was looking at me. I'm no stranger to mice. I have two cats we originally got in order to get rid of mice that had been in our house right after we moved in. Of course since that time, our cats have shown us so much love, they feel it necessary to bring prizes into the house for us. We have received live and dead mice, shrews, snakes, lizards, a frog, and believe it or not a few moles. Like I said, some have been alive and some have been dead. We've had to chase the live ones, sometimes with the cats’ help, sometimes just to entertain the cats!

At any rate, here was this mouse in someone else's house looking at me from across the room. It made its way out of the box, across the table, down a power cord, and onto another little table, where it stopped to look at me again. Making note that I was still watching it, it bounded off the little table onto the floor and scurried under my bed. This of course did not please me! I went about looking for something with which to capture the mouse as I am not one to kill critters, but just to relocate them. As I was trying to figure out what I might use, the little critter scurried from under my bed and back into the closet. This was both a good thing (i.e. the mouse was in the contained area) and a bit of a challenge (what do I do now?)

Being the "experienced mouse hunter" I have become, I began looking for things to block the mouse in with as well as something in which to trap the mouse. All the while, I had to keep at least one eye on the closet from where the mouse was keeping an eye on me. With the two of us watching each other he would continually dart back behind items in the closet and I was given enough time to empty a box and find something with which to block him in so he couldn't easily scurry back under my bed.

Now you have to imagine this going on around midnight. I had already been in bed, and the lights had already been turned off. Of course, the lights were all on for the mouse hunt! At any rate, I kept telling the mouse all I wanted to do was take him outside and believe it or not he actually got into the box and sat down after a little while. This surprised me greatly because most mice will either avoid the box like the plague, or they will continually run away from it because it smells like danger or something. This mouse seemed to recognize the box as a dangerous place to be and would continually avoid it wherever I put it. Finding him actually sitting in there was a relief. Of course I was not relieved enough to trust that he would stay there, so while I was trying to shut the top I was also shaking the box just enough to keep him off balance. As I quickly made my way to an outer door, I realized it was dark in the hallway and dark by the door and I wouldn't be able to see whether the mouse was getting out of the box or not. Of course I also had the box in both hands as I was kind of shaking it up and down and holding it closed (more or less) so I had to use the box in order to turn on some lights. I flipped on the light switches near the outer door, then quickly opened the door and tried to fling the mouse out of the box. It turned out I also flung the box out the door! It only went a couple of feet, and I didn't see the mouse, so I shut the door and went to get my flashlight. When I got back, I still couldn't see any mouse, so I went outside shutting the door behind me and checked the box to see if the mouse was still there. He was not.

Now this should have been the end of my story, but it was only the end of that mouse. As it turns out, no other mouse has appeared anywhere in the house but many mice have appeared in my dreams. This is where my MS comes in. You see, my night was disturbed, first by the mouse himself, and second by the dreams I had afterwards. I woke up around 4:30 in the morning and could not get back to sleep. I didn't think I had been disturbed by the mouse that much, but apparently jumping out of bed and the entire ordeal of the hunt had been enough to really mess with my body. I didn't feel very well the day before and getting up at 4:30 the morning after when one has immense fatigue is not exactly an ideal situation. I must admit I've told this story to several people and all of them have found it quite hilarious, and now I can certainly laugh about it, but I am still recovering from the screwy schedule my body has suffered these last few days. Napa that start around five in the evening and last until about nine at night cause difficulties with eating schedules and cat-dinner schedules! 

As my sleeping schedule and my fatigue start to even out again I find that more often than not, life affects the MS rather than the MS affecting life.  Isn't that the way it should be? I think so!