I'm sick, and I'm highly symptomatic. I'm constantly being reminded of all the reasons I hate having MS.
This past weekend, some little bug must have arrived in my system, unbeknownst to me. I wasn't feeling sick yet, but something was there. Because as I was walking home from Trent's house on Sunday, I began to feel as though BUGS were crawling all over my back. Quick, prickly little electrical sensations, shooting in every direction. I kept trying to rub or scratch them out, but it was just impossible. I felt lightheaded from time to time. It was frustrating, and disorienting. I was crying. It was the longest mile-walk home ever. But I walked it. I didn't turn back, I didn't call a cab, I didn't even wait for a bus.
The little sensations nagged at me throughout the day Sunday, but by evening I was learning to ignore them. Even after I saw a movie that brought back some horribly painful memories and put me in an emotional tailspin. Monday passed fairly uneventfully. I got some nice recognition at work. I thought, "hey, maybe this week is off to a good start!"
And then on Tuesday, the bugs REALLY arrived.
Whatever cold or flu strain had settled in my system decided to wake up on Tuesday, the biggest day of my year thus far. I had a major project alpha release happening at work. I was majorly stressed out. This has something to do with it, I'm sure. I've known for a while now that MS and stress go hand-in-hand. Well...
By 3:00 in the afternoon I could barely hold my head up. I must have been running a fever because I was going to the bathroom every 15 minutes or so to get paper towel to wipe the sweat off my face, just so I could keep up my "normal" appearance until the project went out the door at 4:00 on the UPS truck.
I didn't eat a thing all day. I just worked, worked, worked, until it was done. Once I saw that truck drive away, I was outtie. I went home, walked in the door, and collapsed in a pool of my own sweat. I sweated out the fever, all night long. I didn't even move. I was in so much pain -- every inch of my body hurt -- I couldn't even stand to move under the covers. I was hot, I was cold, but I just lay there.
Now, I woke up in the morning and I felt slightly better. I was thinking more clearly, at least. But I felt like a weighty cold was setting in. And then the worry began. Because the pieces of the puzzle started to fall together... Stress... Flu-like symptoms... MS symptoms flaring... It was like winter 2006 all over again.
People with MS cannot get stressed out. Of course we DO, but beyond a certain point, we can't. And I did. This lead to me catching something really nasty. Because when I get stressed (and this is just Dr. Lisa talking here), my brain goes, "Ooh... BUSY BUSY BUSY!!!" And my immune system goes, "Alright -- LUNCH!"
So I wound up with this killer flu, plus all my favorite MS symptoms. Because my immune system has been busy doing things it's not supposed to do. Like EATING MY BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD. Which caused my favorite MS symptom of all, on Thursday...
I started shitting myself.
It's so, so wonderful, to be 30 years old and to spontaneously shit yourself on the sidewalk outside your house at 7:30 in the morning. It gives you such glorious visions of your future. Gosh, I LOVE that little pea-sized lesion on my cervical spinal cord that screws up all my internal workings. It really has made me stop caring about SO much in this life.
My hair? FUCK IT.
My clothes? FUCK 'EM (they all have stains you-know-where, anyway).
My weight? WHATEVER!
What I'm doing Saturday night? FUCK IF I CARE!!!
And just to add a nice, extra helping of stress to my life yesterday, I went to the pharmacy and they tried to randomly charge me $2,465 for a monthly kit of my daily injections and $685 for a monthly refill of my "brain pills." They dropped a bombshell on me and told me that my neurologist (Kaiser San Francisco's Chief of Neurology) had left Kaiser without informing me. That I had been prescribed this stuff by a "non-provider."
Uh, mistake. But all I could do was shriek, throw my planner at the clerk, and burst into tears in the middle of the (very crowded) hospital pharmacy.
Wait -- another glorious vision of the future: I better never get laid off, and lose my health insurance...
So now it's Friday afternoon and I'm still exhaustingly sick, and I have all these other crazy MS symptoms going on. Because now I can't stop my immune system from doing the stupid shit it's doing to my brain. I can't turn it off there and make it go do what it's supposed to do. And let me tell you, when MS people get the flu, we don't get it like you do. You have a healthy immune system that makes even the easy shit easier.
You think you feel bad, but you could feel so much worse. Even if I wasn't stressed out right now, my body would still by confused about how to kill this asshole bug. Confused naturally, and confused thanks to all the (expensive!) drugs I take to intentionally confuse it.
Just because I have some bug, it's automatically harder to move. Like, harder to pick up my legs. Walking up the six shallow steps to my office is like the hardest thing I do all day, because it's in plain sight of everyone I work with. And I seriously doubt I can do it.
Just because I have a few germs, I might be sitting in a meeting making eye contact with you, and all of a sudden, my whole field of vision starts to shake. It makes me want to puke, but I just pretend like all's normal, and keep talking -- "YES, we can do this for 21k!"
Just because I'm sick, and I have MS I might be driving the carpool car and my feet start to burn so bad I feel like I can't keep them on the gas pedal any more. But I better -- because I could kill us if I don't!
We all have our crosses to bear. But this is why I feel sorry for myself right now. And why I won't now that I've written it.
Attitude -- back UP!!!
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