PLUMB OUT A LINE

I have been having issues with my shower stall. It's a cute little cubicle of porcelain tile on 5 sides and a glass door on the other. That's where the cuteness ends. Lately, when I shower the base has started to fill up with water to about an inch. This scares me some but the lip under the door is higher than that so I just keep an eye on it as I scrub. It didn't always do this and I know that something is not right. This morning I woke up to find crud and water in the bathtub which is in a room on the other side of a wall from the shower room. I took to a very old fashioned method to try to clear the clogged drain. After I removed the cover from the shower drain, a feat which involves great brain wracking on my part as I chant lefty loosy, righty tighty and finally transpose that into physical reality by realizing that if it doesn't budge when you turn it one way - TRY THE OTHER WAY! In goes 1 cup of baking soda, followed by 1 cup of vinegar. When the fizzling has subsided in goes 1 quart of boiling water. Eureka! The water in the bathtub in the other room disappeared, leaving only the crud behind. That episode was only a temporary fix and I shall probably have to resort to calling an actual plumber. It makes me sad though. Said plumber will probably recommend a whole new system to replace the 50 year old one that exists. I love that little shower stall for exactly that reason. It reminds me of when I was a little girl, the youngest member of the YMCA and a water ballerina. A champion ready to take on the world. The showers were just like that.

It was a pretty stressful work week. The other scheduler came in complaining that his face felt tingly and strange. His eye was looking larger than normal and he said that he was unable to close the lid. My first thought was that fateful day when my face did the same thing. OH NO, MS. He is forty something so I recommend a trip to emergency. I end up taking him. After a CT scan that shows no stroke and no brain tumor, which brought a huge sigh of relief from both of us, he is told that he has Bells Palsy. Of course he knows nothing of this, but I do, having been down the road of the tingly face and an MRI and the relief of knowing there is no imminent danger of death. The research that I did following my episode delved into that which is labeled Bells Palsy. Of course I didn't have that but I still have the tingly facial nerve. In fact pretty much the entire left side of my body has the tingly thing going on. My cohort gets told to take a couple of days off work and is given several prescriptions, one for prednisone and one to fight the infection of the facial nerve. So I am left alone to do the scheduling and the juggling that is required when any one calls in sick or other. Thus the stress on me but that's another story.

I remember reading about facial palsy and the possible connection between that and Herpes Zoster, aka shingles, aka the remnants of the chicken pox virus. Of course, I had chicken pox as a child. Hopefully most children do. This got me to thinking about MS and the attack of our little white blood cells on our own nervous systems. Could it be something as simple as this virus inhabiting our wiring forever more that is causing this self canabalistic attack. One has to get those little white blood cells to cross the blood brain barrier in order to effect this and in normal people this does not occur. The ability to slip through this gate is somewhat peculiar to persons with MS. How that happens brings me back to the subject of plumbing. When I was a little girl I did have problems with constipation. My Mom would tell me, don't strain, just relax. Heh, that doesn't work in a timely manner for most of us who have otherwise busy lives to get on with. So we push and strain and that does cause an incredible stress on the cerebellum area of the brain, as well as the bottom. So, eat as much fiber as you can stomach. Your bottom line will thank you with your ability to eliminate the waste. If your system is older, your plumber will thank-you too.