This post was supposed to be about my progress on strengthening my hips and core and working towards my running goal. I look like I might have to take a step back though.
These last two weeks have not gone to plan. My limping has gotten a little worse, people are commenting on it now. My foot is a different type of numb. It’s like my muscles are numb and I cannot seem to tense them when I want. It rather feels like my foot is just dangling at the bottom of my leg.
I have been completely wiped out. I go to bed early every night and still it doesn’t seem enough. After the school run in the morning, I could easily go right back to bed.
Last weekend I had some sort of stomach bug which I still don’t believe as the pain was so horrendous and I am still feeling randomly sick without being able to bring anything up. Time will tell with that one I guess.
The long and short of it: I think we may be dealing with another relapse. My therapy hasn’t kicked in yet and so this is quite feasible. I had an MRI over Easter so in a good way, I will probably find out if there are indeed new lesions or if this is just a flare.
This is my update. Now to the part that I actually need to write about.
It’s the question that I often ask myself when things are bad. It can be just a brief moment or I can spend all day mulling over it. And yes, it’s completely and utterly feeling sorry for myself. But this is a process I feel I need to go through. The question: WHY ME?
There are so many thoughts going through my head all the time. And as I mentioned before, most are positive. But not always. We can’t always be positive. It’s not possible and it’s not healthy. To deal with the c**p that life throws at us, we need to also be able to wallow.
The problem with MS is, that’s it’s so final and so uncertain.
There is no cure at the moment. Research is looking positive, there may be one in my lifetime but right now there is none. I’m stuck with it. Making this worse is the fact that nobody can tell me how mine will pan out. Will it stay this way, frustrating but manageable? Will it get worse? How worse? Will I need a wheelchair one day? Will I ever lose my sight? Will the numbness in my fingers ever go away? How will my husband cope? How will my son cope? Could my son ever get it? Will I need to give up work? How will our finances cope with that?
In a blink of an eye, my life changed, without warning and seemingly forever. Nobody in my family has it. Not even any of my close friends. So WHY ME? What did I do?
I go through stages of grief and anger. I grieve the former me, the stuff I took for granted, the decision not to have any more kids. I’m angry and resentful about the things I might never do again. So much time seemingly wasted. I rewind to what I could have done differently. I just want to wake up and it was all a bad dream.
I want to scream at people who complain about being tired, who worry about getting old or moan about some “temporary” ailment. They will get better! They will sleep and wake up feeling refreshed! They may get older than me! Of course, this has taught me, that they don’t always and I know, now more than ever, everyone fights their own battle and it may not be visible. I won’t judge people anymore for being slow. I’m the slow one now. But I can’t help that resentful thought popping into my head at the time, how they are moaning over nothing!
It’s bitterness that occupies my mind on bad days. It just moves in and makes itself comfy. I have to learn that stuff will pass. The bad day will have good bits and it can even turn into a good day in a flash. But when I’m in the mist, it’s so thick, I simply forget that it will probably lift.
I will post a note on my mirror to remind me: “This too shall pass”.
Thank you for reading. I feel better for writing it. And thank you all, you know who you are, for being so incredibly supportive.
Yes! It’s all part of the process! And I suppose we will go up and down all the time and these moments will come and go. Thanks for reading!
Yes! This! I had to bite my tongue when someone moaned about waking up with a numb arm. Try doing that for 18 months, I thought! But I didn’t say it because I was like them before all this.