Just trippin’ with Rip van Winkle

I’m not klutzy. I have a doctor’s note for that.

Ask any MSer about tripping. Most of us have done more than our fair share of it.

Nope, I’m not talking about the whole medical marijuana legalization issue. This is all-out, stumble through space and fall on your face tripping.

Maybe you know the feeling.

There you are, strolling merrily along like everyone else, and suddenly you’re flat-out, staring at sky. Hey, it happens to MSers all the time.

Tripping is part of daily life with multiple sclerosis.

I can be a bit trippy, especially when the MS fatigue sets in. This is a tiredness of biblical proportions.

(Cue the nodding of heads here – among all MSers.)

And I’ve noticed some night blindness, since the MS MonSter came along. I eat plenty of carrots, which are supposed to help with night blindness – but not the MS variety.

So the stumbling can be something of a problem at night.

Here’s where things grow more perilous.

I’m not generally a follower of reincarnation, but I am pretty sure I married Rip van Winkle. You know the guy who slept for a long spell and missed a whole lot of life?

OK, you get the drift.

Anyway, this particular Rip (not his real name – duh!) tends to retire remarkably early most days, usually before dusk.

Later in the evening, after sending home all the drop-in teen guests that serendipitously seem to end up in our house, I’ll trudge into the darkness, waving my cell phone around to light my path as much as possible without rousing the sleeping one.

Ouch!

Last night, as so often happens, I bumped into the foot-board of the bed with a thud.

Rip sat up suddenly.

“Why do you keep crashing into the bed?” he barked.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“Can’t you watch where you are going?”

(Maybe he forgot – after all these years.)

“Well, let’s see. I have MS, which affects my balance, my walking gait, and my vision, and I am creeping around in the dark here.”

Rip grunted and went back to snoring.

Today, I have a palm-sized purplish bruise on one hip. It sort of matches the rail on the foot-board of the bed.

But that’s not the part that hurts the most.

Image/s:

Adapted from images

at ChristArt

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