Tag: disability

chronic illness, MS

Not all hugs are loving: MS awareness

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

It starts with a stitch

A few deep breaths

Then you’re knitting my ribs together

With barbed wool

The front

Then the back

Swirling into my abs

Then my lower back

A corset of pain

The cat the cow

The cat the cow

Stretching every way for relief

Breathe

Distract

It’s just a physical thing

I hug myself hard

To try to get you to let go

Nothing helps

Just breathe

I’m writing this as I’m experiencing a common MS symptom, known as the ‘MS hug”. I’ve always been a hugger but this is not the kind of hug anybody wants to experience. When people refer to multiple sclerosis as a MonSter, it’s for good reason. It sneaks up and attacks when you’re at your weakest. I’ve been fighting the cold from hell, downgraded from the flu thanks to the infrared sauna.

So – stress. The worst enemy of anybody with a chronic illness. Hence, the MS hug and an increase of all the other symptoms that make me feel like Beetlejuice in that electrified way, minus the energy.

Good times.

Just breathe.

❤️ Amanda

Book recommendations, chronic illness, reading

Book Review: Cull by Tanvir Bush

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I’m always on the lookout for new authors that inspire me. This book appeared in my Bookbub offerings in February, and I was immediately interested, for obvious reasons. The title and the cover speak volumes. (see pic below)

It’s disturbing to hear so many stories about disabled people being further victimized by the attitudes and prejudices of the healthy. When the government jumps on board to legislate discrimination in the guise of rooting out the lazy, lying abusers of the system, the results are truly frightening.

Are there people that abuse the welfare system? Absolutely. Should all people who are already dealing with the challenges of chronic disability live in fear that they will be accused of ‘milking the system’? I won’t answer that, but we know that it happens all too often.

When I first had to give up teaching and go on disability, one person said how lucky I was and that I should go surfing. Um…okay? It’s ignorance, a blissful ignorance of not knowing what it feels like when your body betrays you and all the things you have taken for granted, are taken away. I wish everyone such ignorance.

For those living that reality, further victimization through government policies is very much part of the whole journey. I am fortunate in Canada to have been supported through the process but I hear horror stories from people in the States and the UK about fighting for benefits and not having enough money or proper insurance to afford medication or adequate healthcare.

We know the effects of stress on the human body, and on chronic illness in particular. I can’t imagine living in that kind of fear day in and day out. Tanvir Bush has taken this situation, and in a brilliant satire, given the power back to ‘the crips’. Her protagonist is blind, as is she, and she has the most amazing guide dog, Chris.

Her writing is exceptional, the way she describes the world from the dog’s point of view is brilliant, and overall this book highlights so many important facets of a world that is disturbingly similar to ours. You want to read this book! Amazon links below.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Website for Tanvir Bush and The Holey Vision Blog

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

❤️ Amanda

Poetry

FEAR

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

First of all, I have to acknowledge the overwhelming positive support I got for my last post from my various ms ‘families’. For an introvert that overanalyses every social interaction (yeah, I think they call that social anxiety 🤔 ), it took me a long time to put myself out in cyber world and open myself to potential criticism. Not that I expect rave reviews, constructive feedback is always welcome. But we all know that feeling of ‘what if everybody hates it?’ Right? Everybody feels that, right? 😉

Anyway, thank you to everybody who clicked and read and commented! I am astounded at the support and encouragement, and so grateful to be a member of such amazing, caring groups.

This is a poem I wrote when I was amping myself up to share my writing. Fear is another of those emotions, like guilt, that many of us try to ignore or fight against. There is a tendency to distract ourselves from the ‘negative’ emotions in life but when we face them head on they provide the counterbalance to the positive emotions we all strive for. You can’t have one without the other.

While fear is a universal emotion, it develops a particularly strong flavour when one receives a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Being told you have an incurable neurodegenerative disease, that nobody knows what causes it and there is no way to predict what damage will be inflicted on your body, introduces a whole new level of trepidation. Add to that the daily adventure of never knowing what symptoms might crop up to stop you or slow you down, and the accumulation of disabilities that strip away the identity you have built up over years or decades, and the fear can be paralysing.

I’m coming up on the third anniversary (that so does not seem the right word) of my diagnosis. Three years since I left the classroom. Three years coming to terms with my new normal, trying to heal and to carve a new identity for myself. I realize now that fear was the main thing holding me back from moving on to a new chapter. It’s still there, making my palms sweat as I type this, imagining putting out another piece of myself. But I will face the fear, because if there is one thing I have learned over the past three years, stagnating is not an option and pushing through the fear is the only way to get to the light.

❤️

FEAR

Creeping

Lurking

Hiding behind the mask

The mask of fine

It paralyses without acknowledgement

So ingrained we don’t even realize

The control it has

How powerless we are

Unless we face it

Under the bed

In the closet

The dark

Untried adventures

Nebulous

Heart racing

Skin crawling

Sweat dripping

Light on

Distract

All is fine

Everything is fine

Fine but stagnant

If you let it overpower

Stuck in your small world

Beating against the bars

The bars you hold onto

Justifying

Numbing

Distracting

Wilting

Fight for the light

The dark will always be there

Give it a nod

Let yourself feel it

Then

Move on past

Move into the light

So much brighter

Reflecting the dark

Dark loses power in the light

The light is stronger for the dark

ALC – 17/05/18

Poetry

Guilt

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I don’t consider myself a poet but some things, emotions particularly, seem more accessible when I let the words flow freely and simply. I wrote this poem about guilt last year. Guilt is an emotion I strenuously fought against but I encountered it full-force when I stopped working. Happily, a year later I’m more at peace with where my life is so the ugly parasite guilt doesn’t get me down as often anymore.

Guilt.

Useless and yet

So pervasive

Sitting waiting hoping

Wanting to move

To do

To work

Rational mind knows

It is what it is

You are where you are

Acceptance

Honour.

Sitting waiting hoping

Wanting to dance

To create

To educate

Body resists

Concrete in my bones

Static in my brain

Days doled out in

Cups of tea

Sitting waiting hoping

Wanting to accept

To be

To honour

And yet

Guilt.