Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22228 – 770:

Here’s the haps:

I’m not sure where I left off but Mrs. Herb is pretty much out of the proverbial woods for the time being. The last thing left is the information to be gleaned from the Holter Monitor but we aren’t expecting any trips back to the E.R. in the near future. Daughter, on the other hand, whose problems I mentioned back on 12/4/2020, and who had been in and out of the E.R. for unbearable pain all over, falling, numbness, tingling and burning in her extremities, and evilly-vicious bad headaches, was subjected to several MRIs (she’s claustrophobic and I don’t mean afraid of Santa), eye exams, and lastly, a Lumbar Puncture commonly called a Spinal Tap but not the Eighties Rockumentary kind but the kind where they stick a needle in your back and look at your spinal fluid and she has, after way, way too long, been diagnosed with MS. This last episode is a very severe exacerbation called a “flare-up.” She has been in the hospital for several days (finally) receiving treatment and will have to be moved to a rehab center. We are hoping and praying that she will be home for Christmas.

The disease causes the immune system to destroy the myelin sheath around the nerves. Your nerves carry electricity the way a copper wire does and the myelin sheath is like the rubber insulation around the wire. Short circuits in nerves mean pain and/or malfunction. Now the myelin can sort of grow back but it’s like when you find that bad spot in the extension cord that’s causing the circuit breaker to pop all the time and you use some black electrician’s tape to fix it. The tape is black tape. The electrician can be any color. The point is that it isn’t as good but it will work and quit shorting out for a while. I’ve fixed things that way and many times they worked for a very long time. If you have ever worked with older wiring you know it becomes brittle with age and sometimes the myelin sheath grows back in a similar way. Read the Seventies sci-fi book “Mutant 59 – The Plastic Eaters” and you have the idea.

I found this two-minute video on a site called The National Multiple Sclerosis Society. The video is a good, simple intro and the site appears to have a lot of info on it if you want to learn more about it.