MS and Buying Christmas Presents

This is the third time I have tried to complete this blog. I lost the previous attempts including a three hour, 1200 word go yesterday. Frustrating? Yeah, I guess but standing back from the yesterday's three-hour debacle, I see it as a Christmas gift to me. It wasn't Hubpage's fault, it was my mistaken use of the format. Now I see my mistake and should not repeat it. Famous last words?

Not being able to walk effectively any more and certainly not able to wander the malls on foot, I take increasing solace in my electronics, which let me wander the Web and get Nifty Stuff for family members, Nuclear and Extended.

I am so fortunate. Secondary Progressive MS is some sort of a slow Death Sentence I hear but with me there is mitigation. I am a Physician, not practicing now but licensed, having been boarded for 20 years and still a Fellow of the College. Hey, pin a rose on me! The point is (outside of hubris) that though I see the Fall supposedly coming, it doesn't scare me. I have dealt with the disease in others and have seen the fear and relative ignorance in both patients and their providers. At this point I expect to be evicerated by my colleagues for daring to malign them but it is true. Since this blog is supposed to be about ways I've found to buy Christmas presents as a Handicapped Person, I better start.

Above, I was extolling the unseen advantages of my State. To Wit: I have legendary insomnia. What to do, What to do? Three o'Clock AM and the mind frenetically bouncing here and there,

Wandering vaguely all about, quite of her own Accord...

as the song goes. But here I am with a guaranteed two hours of Usable Time. Time to go Shopping! And I do. Like all Americans active on-line, I have an Amazon Account with a carefully collected Wish List and fingers ready to Hunt and Peck. Even though I would need an electric wheelchair and a version of Butler or Manservant to go to the stores, I now freely roam the offerings at Night, in the Dark, On my Back, with payment options set up and ready to go.

The only problem with Amazon is that you may get your Selections after Christmas, as happened to me, again, this year.

My brothers are hard to buy for. My older brother, a lawyer and tax expert in Portland, has read Everything and has an apparently eidetic memory. There is no point in getting him a book unless it has some interesting feature. I search and find a 1931 edition of one of the 'Captain Blood' series by Sabatini. I'm sure he's read it but yet it might catch his fancy. I buy it, arrange its shipping. It is 3 weeks before Christmas. I get an email two days ago. The gift will arrive 1/9/16. Shit.

My younger brother is a surgeon, a professor at OHSU and an aficionado of all sorts of stuff. I have sent him movies of Clutch Cargo, Fractured Fairy Tales, Gumby, the whole Supercar Omnibus, a subscription to National Enquirer (to take advantage of the important Bat Boy articles), a framed photo of him and me standing outside of the Mental Examination Office at Ellis Island looking Appropriate. I find a cherry 1954 copy of a Tom Swift Jr book showing his Space Liner. Perfect. I buy it, arrange prompt delivery. Two days ago I get an email from Amazon. The gift will arrive 1/9/16, Guaranteed. Shit.

Everything else is eatable or a flower arrangement or Chocolate, going by other routes. It will be there on time.

My gifts for son, daughter and wife are safely here and stored at the North Pole, my closet. Since they may read this, I will not Disclose Santa's Secrets. Merry Christmas!

When I was a young kid, Christmas was an industrial process aimed at getting me the niftiest stuff to ease my acquisitive need. When I found I had to Work for a living, this changed. I found I had two little Persons who trusted me to provide the Wonderful Morning Surprise they expected. I soon found, though, that their joy and happy cries made the day for me. That and Midnight Mass.