Living with M.S.

"Living with M.S. is sort of like training for a long race. The harder you try, and the longer you keep at it, the stronger you become.
Eventually, looking back, you may be amazed at the power you possessed, even when you had no idea it was within your reach." (Linda Ann Nickerson)

Monday

Yuckies - Facing MS symptoms from A to Z

Multiple sclerosis can give a person the yuckies.

It’s not just that icky metallic after-taste that comes with mid-exacerbation steroid treatments. It’s not the, um, unpleasant and potentially embarrassing personal and private problems that some MSers face. And it’s more than the queasy, woozy, bluesy feeling that goes along with the nearly ever-present vertigo of MS.



MS just feels yucky a lot of the time.

“Where does it hurt?” someone might ask. We may not have specific answers (although we may).

“Are you sick again?” another might query. “Maybe it’s the flu.” But it’s probably not influenza, allergies, food poisoning, or typhoid fever. It’s just life with MS, always running in the background.

The MS yuckies are not like depression or grief. They’re more like riding a tandem bicycle and pedaling hard, while the other person is simply sitting there like dead weight. Add a significant headwind, a light rain, a bit of midsummer humidity, three or four blaring radios (tuned to different stations), a pair of fogged-up glasses, a charley horse in one leg, a too-tight belt tucked up around the rib cage, and some stomach upset – now you’re beginning to get the picture.



And, unless the MS yuckies turn into a full-blown exacerbation, then they just feel like a reasonably difficult day with MS. Sure, some of us have days when we can keep up with fit folks. But we also have times that feel … well … yucky.

Maybe we’ll bounce back again tomorrow or the next day or next week.

Images:
Word cloud generated by Kicking MS to the Curb - All rights reserved
Series title graphic adapted from public domain artwork.



Feel free to follow on GooglePlus and Twitter. Please visit my Amazon author page as well.
You are invited to join the Kicking MS to the Curb

No comments:

Post a Comment