Symptom Log: Day 15

• Footdrop (Foot drags along floor during walking)
  
• Paraesthesia (Partial numbness, tingling, buzzing and vibration sensations)
• Anaesthesia (Complete numbness/loss of sensation)
• Intention tremor (Shaking when performing fine movements)
• Dysmetria (Constant under- or overshooting limb movements)
• Frigidity (Inability to become sexually aroused)
• Depression
• Cognitive dysfunction (Short-term and long-term memory problems, forgetfulness, slow word recall)
• Mood swings, emotional lability
• Anxiety 
• Fatigue 
• Uhthoff's Symptom (Increase in severity of symptoms with heat)
  
• Sleeping Disorders
  
• Inappropriately cold body parts

The footdrop continues to drive me f'in crazy. That's the symptom that bothers me the most when it happens outside my house. It bothers me because I know that people judge others' mental capabilities by what their physical capabilities are. I will tolerate a lot of judgments by other people, but I would rather die than people think I'm mentally impaired.

The symptom that bothers me the most is the confusion that stems from my cognitive problems. It has really effected my realationship with Joe because he thinks I'm just being difficult and trying to start an argument and I'm just trying to figure out what's going on and where he's going or what he is doing.

The symptom that will be the end of my marriage is the sexual disfunction. This is worse than when I was on depo-provera. That drug, I am convinced, prevents pregnancy by ensuring that you have no desire to engage in sexual activity. MS, I am convinced, is a cruel universal joke that prevents people from having any enjoyment out of life that doesn't require vast amounts of street drugs.

The symptom that terrifies me the most is the one that hasn't happened yet. What if I wake up tomorrow and I'm blind? What if I wake up tomorrow and I can't walk, or my left side is completely paralized, or I can't feel my face, or all of the nerves in my chest and back are screaming in pain, or etc. etc. etc? The uncertainty is what is killing me. I can't commit. I can't make plans beyond 6 hours from now. I can't get excited about the future.

Now that I am 1/2 the way through this project I wonder if I even care anymore.

I have a couple of really well meaning friends who tell me to live in today and be positive and happy now and I have a couple of really well meaning friends who have sent me links to research findings and tell me that tomorrow is another day and I will rise up, embrace and accept the cure that will come.

To me both of those ideas are as absurd and unlikely as George W. Bush leaving Laura to get married in Iowa to Dick Cheney. They are mutually exclusive. There is no hope for today if all I've got to live for is something that might or might not happen 20 to 30 years from now. There's no point in wishing for a better tomorrow if I can somehow manage to lower my expectations for today and accept what I've got where I am.

Wednesday brings another round of "Are we expending the right amount of resources on Ms. K?" with the MS clinic social worker, with a drop in by the nurse, the PT coordinator and the pharmacologist. 

If there is a bigger waste of time than dealing with MS in a way that "they" want you to deal with it, I have yet to find it.