Two Years of Copaxone Daily Injections and A Promise to My Inner Kid | SMart Choice Lifestyle

A bunch of orchids were lined up next to the window, while daylight was filling the room up. I had been waiting for this moment for almost 10 months now, and it was finally here! As I was sitting on the armchair in the neurologist’s office, the MS nurse was giving me basic training for starting Copaxone, a daily injectable drug for Multiple Sclerosis, aiming to slow down the disease progression and reduce the number of possible relapses that could in time cause disability.

I decided to start with my stomach area, to get used to the burn that I so much read about before. The nurse was the one who gave me my first dose that day. As she pressed the auto injector against my skin, I could feel my inner kid wanting me to run away, to stop this and get back to normal. There was no turning back. I was injecting my body with a new substance that promised to help me live well, but still my mind was in fear.

I now know that in that moment I got even more stuck in the “what if…?” scenario that started after the diagnosis.

At the press of a button, the auto injector fired inside my body and after a few seconds, my skin truly felt ON FIRE, as being stung by a bee. The excitement of that all being so new helped me feel like I got over what was the worst part. I felt pride for getting over my fear of needles and, heck! Realizing that I in fact did not have ANY needle phobia whatsoever. My panic was due to the negative emotions associated with having an injection.

And so, little by little, injection by injection, two years passed by. I religiously did each and every one of them, rotating seven areas across my body. Little did I know that with each one, my mind was pinning me down into anxiety. You would expect that after all that I said before and after getting used to the experience, my angst should have lessened, right? That’s what I thought too!

Fast forward to today. I did the 728th injection in my right arm. Special occasion, "special moments": as I pressed the button, the needle seemed to get stuck, but then resumed to injecting veeeeery slowly. It usually takes 10 seconds from start to finish and now it was like it was walking through a swamp. Either way, it was all ok. It all gets ok AFTER the injection. The anxiety comes BEFORE the whole deal.

Rationally, there’s nothing to fear: a 1.2 cm needle, thinner than a 0.5 mechanical pencil tip, no pain when the needle pierces the skin, only the afterwards bee-sting sensation, that usually lasts 5-10 minutes, depending on the day. But my mind has other ideas: it thinks that something devastating is going to happen to me, that I might get a terrible heart attack if I inject in a vein (note: there is a thing called IPIR, meaning you COULD get a heart-attack-feeling-sensation, lasting no more than 20-30 minutes, but nothing lethal!) and maaany, maaaany more things like that.

Unsolved anxiety does “cute” things like these to susceptible people. The brain is used to respond to an immediate threat, but in my case there is no such thing. There’s only the unpredictability of the illness itself and the feeling that I HAVE to live my life QUICKLY, before Multiple Sclerosis strikes again. All that internal turmoil topped with a daily injection that acts like a constant reminder, have me overflowing with anxiety and nervousness that have me living a rollercoaster life.

Effects of this “darling” situation? Hmmm, let me limit it to just three, the most relevant ones to my current lifestyle: emotional eating (trumps all the healthy choices I want to make on a daily basis), feeling overwhelmed by too many creative choices I want to pursue, although I love all my ideas dearly (one of them is SMart Choice Lifestyle itself, victim of my procrastination and emotional ups and downs - I’ve been neglecting it for 2-3 weeks now), losing self-confidence because I am too afraid of that tiny needle and for not ACTING upon all the plans I’ve strategized for the past three years since being diagnosed.

HERE'S TO NEW BEGINNINGS!

Being aware of all this gives way to a new start. No matter what life throws at me, I’ve been given a second chance that not many people get.

I promise my inner kid not to fail her again, for as long as I live! I’ll be present for her fears, loves and wants and not treat her with self-doubt, no matter how fearful she might get.

Copaxone or no Copaxone, I’ll heal this anxiety and resume living my life. The SMart Creative way… by the way ;) Keep you posted!

Until next time, have a wonderful day!

Denisa

Changing the Conversation on Mental Health | SMart Choice Lifestyle

Mental health is as important as physical health, there’s no doubt in that. Even more so when it seems like mental illness becomes more and more present in young people’s lives. Anxiety, depression and stress disorders have unfortunately become daily occurrences and people need help more than ever.

The easiest, quickest and it seems the more effective form of help is simply to talk about these issues. Starting a conversation about what’s bothering us at a mental level, creating a safe space for these conversations to happen, are the key-points that should interest us in 2017.

Up until now, mental health issues have been a taboo, especially among children and young people, thought to be individuals who possess excellent health all around. Mental illness was mostly associated with elderly people, who were known to have cognitive and emotional issues. That’s what keeping things under covers does to these kind of issues!

“Talking can help heal hidden challenges that we can’t deal with alone [...] two heads are better than one when dealing with a mental health problem” 
(HRH Duchess Catherine of Cambridge, #HeadsTogether campaign briefing, 17/01/2017)

In today’s world, life is so fast paced that it can leave each and every one of us with huge amounts of stress, leading up to anxiety and isolation. We live in an ever-expanding and interconnected society, but people feel more and more alone when dealing with close relationships. Even the ones they already have seem to deteriorate due to the lack of real, empathetic conversation that plagues our century.

Last week, I wrote HERE about how the love of people can save the world. Today I add more: the conversations we have about health and especially about mental health, can help all of us understand each other better and by that have more tolerance in this ever-judging world. Compassion comes from feeling the same as the other, and that can be achieved only if we know and understand what people are going through.

People living with Multiple Sclerosis are also affected by these issues, as an effect of either having the disease or of going through emotional hardship without any or major support / understanding. Here to, talking about emotions and negative thoughts with someone who will truly understand is crucial to well-being and living a better life, even with a chronic illness. Find out more about the topic in the article I wrote HERE.

Mental health needs to be talked about in a safe climate, where individuals feel comfortable with disclosing their problems. The conversation can start in the most familiar contexts we all have: with family, friends and colleagues. Opening up to the people we know and trust the most, helps with feeling supported and understood; it helps soothe the inner emotions or struggles we all have.

(image source - www.royal.uk) 

“It is no exaggeration to say that conversations – simple conversations – can be life-changing: in a workplace, in your kitchen at home, with a friend, family member or colleague.  And that’s what Catherine, Harry and I want to do – we want more people to be having those conversations.”

(HRH Duke of Cambridge, #HeadsTogether campaign briefing, 17/01/2017)

#HeadsTogether is the 2017 Virgin Money London Marathon Charity of the Year. “Over 500 people will be running for Heads Together, leading from the front (well perhaps not right at the front!), raising funds for the vital services provided by our Charity Partners. These runners will also be leading by example by starting conversations on mental health with their families, friends and colleagues.” (HRH Prince Harry, #HeadsTogether campaign briefing, 17/01/2017). The Virgin Money London Marathon will take place in April 2017, aiming “to end the stigma and change the conversation on mental health once and for all.”

(image source - Heads Together)

Find out more about the #HeadsTogether campaign briefing HERE.

Find out more about Heads Together HERE.

Become a supporter HERE.

Start the conversation on social media: use the #HeadsTogether hashtag (more HERE).

Mental health is an important part of the 2017 SMart Choice Lifestyle topics, as it is strongly tied with brain health and a healthy lifestyle overall. My focus, as a young person living with MS in Europe, is to start the conversation on issues that impact our health in more ways than one.

Until next time, have a wonderful day!

Denisa

Make The Right Choice for Your Broken Heart. Come and See! | SMart Choice Lifestyle

As I’m writing this, outside it’s freezing cold: -15 degrees C at just 11:30. Although if you just looked outside my window it will well be misleading, as the Sun is up and shining. But the frost is also biting! So, with that being said, we’re starting today’s article with me being all bundled up with my laptop sitting on my lap, inside my home-office.

A year ago, I gradually got the urge to look over my faith. I was born into a Christian Greek-Orthodox family, knew the general stuff, believed that God existed, but that was about it. This black book that my dad gifted me back in 2006, was staring at me from the shelf, and one day I picked it up. "Let's really see what these stories teach me!". But that was just the beginning. The best part of my life was yet to come.

I agree that life is a process and you need to come back to it over and over again. I know that things aren’t fixed and reality can change in the blink of an eye. Mine surely did on the day of my diagnosis! Most people choose a more spiritual life path when they’re faced with a crisis in their lives. When something happens to them, they need to cope and search for something outside of them that might help.

We’re all on a lookout for some kind of spiritual experience, something that will transcend us and hopefully transform us from the inside-out and get us out of this mindless living pattern. In today’s world, the ability to decide what type of spirituality we follow is made easy by the multitude of choices that are at our reach: meditation, mindfulness, yoga, retreats, and all that jazz. Our pick becomes part of our identity and for that needs to feel authentic to us. And although you might have heard me talk all about yoga, meditation and letting the energy flow, there came a point in my life when all that left me empty once again.

We live in a digital world, have all the social media networks, tons of friends and followers, all the things we can buy at our discretion, but we feel alone. Somehow not quite understood. The things we cherish most are those close bonds we get to have with the people we love.

Something is clearly missing from the picture and our lives can get pretty mechanical and without purpose. The gloomy picture I’m painting here has nothing to do with the nasty weather outside. It has more to do with that inside feeling we all have when nothing ever pleases us anymore.

Gathering material possessions won’t make us happy forever. The clutter we create by buying so much stuff is there to compensate for the lack, the void we feel within ourselves. Once we outgrow our passions, all that until yesterday we thought was exciting becomes today the most boring thing ever.

Little by little, we become robots, we imitate, we follow fashions, man-made role-models, watch TV shows, movies, go to concerts, go on vacations, to parties, to work, to a pub, to a birthday… And it’s exhausting. It damages both our bodies and our souls. The sad part is that not so many people are aware of this and most of them never do anything.

Most of us (especially in our 20’s and 30’s) are overwhelmed, our minds are racing and we have a gazillion things to do on our lists but nothing seems to make us truly happy or peaceful.

Through all this inner search, the only thing that was left standing were the prayers I learned when I was little and the need to somehow getting closer to God.

“As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

(Steve Jobs - Stanford Commencement Speech - 2005)

With the help of The Bible Project (@thebibleproject) reading plan and their digitally drawn video Bible stories, I dove deep. By December 24th 2016, I've finished reading it all, minus the so-called Apocryphal texts.

This year I'm continuing my journey by reading the entire Bible a second time, looking at how Jesus is being foreshadowed and God's love for us even when He punishes us. Also going in parallel with the Apocryphal chapters, for a 360 view on the topic.

The smartest choice I've made so far is to constantly search for Jesus in all there is around me. Being the curious person that I am, I even researched HIM in great detail. No regrets there! He is my daily companion in whatever I do, and definitely my biggest resource for all things personal or business.

Imagine having a best friend that will never leave or let you down, that will always tell the truth about who you are through your conscience and who although will sanction you for your mistakes, will always love you and care for you no matter what happens. Jesus is a personable God, one that you can establish a connection with. He never leaves us. We’re the ones who always leave Him. And that’s when all those bad things happen to us. All.The.Time!

Why search for inner peace in a form of energy or in a universal field, in a guided meditation? The world today is full of logical, scientific and factual data on spirituality, the power of the mind and so on. But brain anatomy and how to control brainwaves are a million miles away from our hearts. Faith speaks to the heart, but it only works if you choose to be humble and honestly admit your failures and mistakes.

I agree that each one of us has choices and free-will. Just come and see! Experience it for yourself. Make it intentional and explore. You first have to believe in order to have faith. Some connection needs to happen within you. Some distress, some suffering that knocks your world upside down and that nothing seems to heal you. Believe with all your heart and ask for help.

May you all have a wonderful year, guys! Let me know if you'd like to read more stories like this or are interested in details of my journey. God bless you, no matter your beliefs!

Until next time, have a wonderful day!

Denisa