Time to put the Whine back in the Peanut Butter!

March 5, 2012 / 3 Comments

When this blog first started I intended to have an outlet for me to WHINE about being a caregiver for someone with Multiple Sclerosis. Now, it’s time to put this segment back in.  So Sunday’s will be a posts  will be about MS from a caregivers side. DH has had MS for 15 years.
First we start with the basics. What is MS……
Multiple Sclerosis is not contagious or hereditary. It’s not a mental illness. It is a disease of the central nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and nerves). Nerves have a protective coating around them called “myelin.” When someone has MS, this protective coating is chipped away exposing the nerve and preventing messages from the brain to pass along the nerve pathway in a normal fashion.
Common Symptoms include:

  • A “pins and needles” prickling sensation most often in your toes or fingers – like your foot or hand fell asleep
  • Numbness – again most often in your toes or fingers
  • Problems with speech and swallowing
  • Eye trouble – seeing double, blurry vision, or uncontrolled eye movements
  • Slight memory problems
  • Tremors in your arms, wrists, and hands – particularly when you try to pick something up or write
  • Loss of balance and poor coordination
  • Gait difficulties
  • Extreme weakness
  • Abnormal fatigue
  • Partial or complete paralysis
  • Bowel and bladder dysfunction
  • Sexual function problems

Thank you for Chums Web (Children’s Hope for Understanding MS) for great links and information!!

WOW, I know what you’re thinking with all those things going on for your husband and you have the nerve to complain??  Yup, that sounds ridiculously selfish of me to complain too.  I feel guilty every time I start to complain or write a whine-y post.  But, when someone you love has MS your life isn’t the same either.
I love DH with all my heart! He is my split apart. I wouldn’t trade him in for a million dollars….. (wait… yea… okay I won’t trade him in) But MS SUCKS!!!!!!!  Some day’s I want to scream!!  Stupid MS SUCKS ASS!!
When DH has a bad day, like numbness in his legs it effects walking.  So you stay home (a lot).
Abnormal fatigue….. means DH takes a nap, goes to bed at 4 in the afternoon.  So you are home and alone a lot.
Other things this list doesn’t include is bright lights hurt some MS patients eyes, so the house is dark.  I love sunshine!!  LOVEEEEEE it. Thrive on it!!  DH not even a little bit. The light hurts his eyes (then he gets cranky!!)  so we keep the shutters closed.  (I personally think DH may very well be Edwards brother!! You know… like Twilight Vampire!!??)
Heat!  Heat is a energy zapper. If it’s hot stay inside at home with the air conditioner blasting. (P.S. come to my house in the summer bring a jacket! I KID YOU NOT!!!)
Today was a double whammy!  Hot, beautiful sunny day. We had a birthday party for our grandson Eli.   Complete with bouncy house!! DH got up too early. Did too much and was completely mind numbingly exhausted by 2:00 and had to excuse himself to go to bed. PopPop didn’t get to enjoy cake or to watch Eli open presents. Once again MS SUCKS!!!!
I am thankful that if MS did have to make it’s way into our lives it waited until our kids were older. I can’t imagine how he would have coped with babies AND MS!!
DH had his first symptom (A numb big toe) while we were in Chicago watching our oldest daughter graduate from Navy Bootcamp. That was in 1997.  By the time daughter number 2 graduated Navy Bootcamp DH was in full blown MS overload!!
I’m starting to ramble on and on. So I’ll save more for next post.  Thanks for letting me WHINE!!

Updating My SEO Because Even the Internet Needs a Good Declutter

If you’ve been poking around peanutbutterandwhine.com lately and thought, “Huh, something feels different,” congratulations. Your instincts are sharp and possibly paranormal.

I’m deep in the process of updating my SEO. Not the glamorous kind of update where confetti falls and Google personally thanks me, but the gritty, behind-the-scenes kind where old posts get dusted off, links get refreshed, and keywords are gently coaxed into behaving better. Think less makeover montage, more haunted house cleanup.

While revisiting early posts, I discovered something unsettling. Many of the original photos and videos have completely vanished. Not broken links. Not corrupted files. Gone. Poof. Into the digital ether. This can only confirm one thing: peanutbutterandwhine.com is haunted.

There is no other explanation. Sure, it could be old hosting changes, platform migrations, or me being wildly optimistic about my organizational skills a decade ago. But let’s be honest. It’s ghosts. Internet ghosts. Possibly annoyed by my early font choices.

So here I am, updating old posts with new images, clearer formatting, better internal linking, and SEO-friendly structure so Google can finally understand what I’ve been yelling into the void all these years. I’m also making sure posts connect to each other logically, like linking back to my ongoing fun stuff such as the Monthly $50 Your Way Giveaway right here:
👉 https://peanutbutterandwhine.com

Internal links help readers stick around, help search engines crawl the site, and possibly appease the spirits living in my archives.

I’m also adding relevant external links to trustworthy sources, because Google appreciates good neighbors. For example, SEO best practices straight from the pros over at Moz:
👉 https://moz.com/learn/seo

The goal isn’t to rewrite history. It’s to make sure my content is still useful, readable, and visible in a world where the internet changes faster than my craft room fills up.

If you stumble across a refreshed post, missing photos, or suspiciously improved clarity, just know it’s intentional. And if something disappears again overnight… I’ll be lighting a sage bundle and updating my alt text.

Stay tuned. The ghosts are watching. 👻

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