Quick Update

So if it feels like a relapse, sounds like a relapse, and looks like a relapse... is it a relapse???

The fun part about MS is just how unpredictable it is. It's like one of those neat carnival games where sometimes you win the giant panda, and sometimes you lose all your marbles, I mean quarters, trying to win a prize, any prize at all.

Yeah, actually that's not so fun.

I am sort of dealing with this a little better now. It is such a roller coaster ride to go through all the stages of grief every couple of months with each new flair-up. There's nothing quite like being physically AND emotionally drained at the same time.

I totally lost it today on the way to the hospital for my daily steroid infusion (not to be confused with the new booster at Jamba Juice...). I got pulled over for a speeding violation, couldn't find my current insurance card, and when the cop incredulously asked me why I hadn't see him back there the whole mile and a half he'd been following me, well, the waterworks started.

He still gave me two tickets totaling $700.00! but he did soften up a bit to carefully explain how I could get most of it dropped. I was just praying he wouldn't tell me to get out of the car. With my staggering, gimpy walk, I'd probably have been arrested for drunk driving! Thank God for small mercies!

So hopefully these steroid treatments will kick in sometime soon, and I'll start moving a little better. At the rate I'm going, I'm going to need a pony and cart to get me around. Yay, though, because I've always wanted a pony!

Another Relapse?

So here I am after a week of feeling relatively back to normal, and I am starting the cycle all over again. I have spent the last four months feeling exhausted, gimpy and forgetful, not to mention frustrated and pissed off about it. Then I had a couple of weeks of feeling a little better each day and then, ta-da! A week of normal! I was actually starting to think about running again.

But then, two nights ago, I started having horrible vertigo. The next morning, I noticed I was fixating on the word pockasul. Ok, not really a real word, but Tater Tot's version of popcicle. I was chanting it over and over in my head. And I am running into things again, staggering a bit as I walk. My legs feel like they are getting heavy again.

And I am afraid.

If symptoms last more than 24 hours, they start calling it a relapse or a flair, or whatever shiny word you want to name it. Maybe it's just a fluke and I'll wake up in the morning and feel like bungy-jumping or training for a triathlon.

Or, maybe I'll wake up in the morning and not get out of bed. Maybe I'll forget what I am supposed to be doing, and maybe I'll start getting bruises from running into walls and furniture again. Maybe I'll pull my cane out of the corner and my handicap placard out of the glove box and put them on the front lines again.

As my dad always joked, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I know in my head that God is faithful, but my heart despairs. How often can I do this? What if it never stops, and just goes faster and faster until it's all I remember?

If this is truly turning into a flair, I will take time and adjust. As always. But until I do make that adjustment, until I am fine, I am not.