Symptom Log: Day 17

So. Freakin'. Exhausted. I fell asleep before 11 PM last night, woke up at 9:30 AM.

I can now barely keep my eyes open. This happened yesterday around this time, and I spent from 8:30 PM until whenever I fell asleep dozing in and out of consciousness.

My social worker cancelled our appointment today. The MS Society's newly diagnosed workshop has been postponed until further notice.

I've gotta go. This is making it worse.

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.

Symptom Log: Day 13

• 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 
• Sleeping Disorders
  
• Inappropriately cold body parts

You'll notice that this list is shorter. The footdrop, neuralgia and ataxia have been gone for the past two days.

I refuse to get hopeful about this, because as I've reported... it could all be different tomorrow.

A Digression

This is my husband, Joe.

Today is his birthday.

If it weren't for him, I would be dead. If I had been on my own when I was diagnosed I would've killed myself, because I wouldn't have been able to survive alone. That's a lot of pressure to put on another human being.

I certainly wouldn't want to be the reason someone is still alive. Though, he's been a super hero before. He gave his mom a kidney just a month before he moved to Canada and just two months before he married me. All he needs is a cape and some tights.

For someone who's as pessimistic as he is, he's been positive and reassuring in so many ways. I fight him so much on his points sometimes I'm convinced that I don't deserve his love and support.

Sure, he's learned to tune out my incessant nattering on about subjects he has no interest in. He can barely contain the urge to yell at me when I'm confused and it's frustrating him. But he does.

He has been there for me in thousands of little and big ways over the past 3.5 years and I can only hope that I haven't been the biggest mistake he's ever made. I try every day to live up to his example.

He's not perfect, but he's the best thing that ever happened to me.

Happy Birthday, Joey. You mean more to me than I could ever hope to explain.

I love you.

Symptom Log: Day 11

• Footdrop (Foot drags along floor during walking)
• Paraesthesia (Partial numbness, tingling, buzzing and vibration sensations)
• Anaesthesia (Complete numbness/loss of sensation)
• Neuralgia, Neuropathic and Neurogenic pain (Pain without apparent cause, burning, itching and electrical shock sensations)
  
• Ataxia (Loss of coordination)
• 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

Footdrop is back and it managed to take my entire left side with it this afternoon. I was trying desperately to get home as quickly as I could because I just can't stand to have anyone see me when I physically start to droop. I can't even be failing around Joe, because he doesn't need this shit.

I am trying desperately to get physically better so that I can start looking for a job in May, but every day it feels like one step forward, 18 to 20 steps back. I've called gyms looking for trainers because I can't do exercise by myself. I've called yoga studios in the neighbourhood and they won't help me because they don't understand my illness. One woman said that MS is just blockages in my chakras. She won't allow me to be physically coddled, because they don't support people not working out their karma.

Fucking dirty hippies. Why, East Van, why?

I am so emotionally and physically wrung out I can't do any more. I'm literally hunched over my keyboard like I'm melting.

This shit is bullshit. I give up. I just give the fuck up.