Tag: Multiple sclerosis

chronic illness, life, mental health, MS, Quotes

Pain and anxiety

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I had another post scheduled for today, and then this happened…

My body has been happier for the last month or so than I remember it feeling for a few years now. My mom and I had a mostly wonderful outing to the theatre today(Saturday). We watched an incredible tribute to the phenomenal Leonard Cohen by Les Ballets Jazzs de Montreal.

Normally I print the tickets at home but for whatever reason I chose ‘pick up at box office’. We had to wait outside in the beautiful but freezing cold day (for Victoria standards – we’re wimps compared to most Canadians 😉), and by the time we got into the lobby, the MS monster was in full force.

Right or wrong, I resorted to a glass of wine which always calms the shakes and the nasty. Despite the plastic cup with a lid, I spilled all over my light purple pants. Nice. Of course, if I’d been wearing black it wouldn’t have happened. 🤣

Anyway, the following spilled out of me a few hours after I got home today. I wanted to share because I imagine it’s not an uncommon feeling. The pain’s bad enough but coupled with the anxiety of whether it’s signalling a relapse makes it almost unbearable.

I’m going to assume that when I wake in the morning, after this post is published, the monster will have retreated again and I will keep on keeping on. To all the warriors out there, I send you courage and positive vibes in the battle.

❤️ Amanda

The pain heaves my stomach and sparks my anxiety.

It’s like too much blood in my foot, pushing out against my skin.

The foot wants to fold in half too, a taco of toes.

I breathe out against the pain, hoping it’s that my shoes are too tight.

The pain gets worse lying in bed later, legs bare, unconstricted.

There’s a python in my leg, squeezing, squeezing until I can’t breathe.

I move the leg to dispel the pain but it follows me, hungry.

I reprimand the foot.

It’s the misfiring of neurons, it’s not really happening.

A futile attempt.

The pains roars louder.

I swallow the nausea, blink against the headache.

The pain runs up and down my leg, into my arm, my jaw, my shoulder, my back.

It’s everywhere.

Controlling my body and my mind, I’m lost in the misery.

Then the anxiety yells above the pain.

Is it happening?

Will I be down for the count?

Is it going to take me out for good this time?

I want to cry.

I want to hide.

I want out of this body.

I feel the grimace on my face and try to correct it with a smile.

A smile marinated in pain, a crone’s smile.

My face slackens, my mouth sliding down my chin.

The foot is sharing, pain travelling up my leg into my hip socket.

A live wire sizzling its anger from the inside.

My eyes squint, I swallow the lump of tears, blink away the moisture.

Crying won’t help, it makes the headache worse.

Lie still, lie still, breathe it away.

Shoulders tense, jaw clenched, abs contracted to hold it down.

Now the python’s in my arms too, too much blood in my whole body.

A burning tingle numbing my body and mounting my panic.

It circles my ribs.

They click together, compress my lungs.

I take a long, slow breath but my lungs won’t fill.

My tongue tingles.

I swallow the nausea again, the bile crawling up my throat.

The wrinkles deepen on my face, crevasses of pain.

The pain shoots down to my big toe, throbbing its nasty foulness.

The python circles my throat and I choke on my saliva, coughing and sputtering.

I hold my neck, coaxing the muscles to relax, the python to release its grip.

The panic screams but I have no time for that right now.

I need to breathe, to relax my body before I turn to stone.

But if I relax, the python will take over, squeezing me until I burst.

Nothing makes sense, the pain clouds reason.

No focus except stopping the python, controlling the panic.

The worry that it’s not here just for tonight.

That it wants to settle in for awhile.

Stopping my life again. Ocean, beach, waves, rocks, quote

You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.
chronic illness, life, MS, writing

Grant, the cabbie has the cure!

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I wake up slightly hungover and more than ready to get home. Strung out after four days facing my own anxiety and the fact that some women never leave high school, I need some serious solitude. I phone a cab and wait outside in the crisp morning air, dying for coffee.

The cab pulls up and the white-haired driver gets out. Red suspenders hold up dirty brown pants and a stained blue dress shirt stretches over an enormous belly. Sparkling blue eyes magnify curiosity behind enormous glasses.

“Where are you off to this fine morning, young lady?” He peeps at me in the rear view mirror and tips his grimy white baseball cap.

“Home to Victoria. I missed my bus yesterday so I was staying with a friend.” I’m taking shallow breaths because the air in the cab is custard thick with that sickly-sweet old man smell. It doesn’t feel right to open the window. I don’t know why.

“And what do you do in Victoria, young lady?”

“Well, I’m a teacher by trade but I don’t teach anymore. Now I’m a writer.” There, I said it without air quotes. Yay me!

“And why is it that you no longer teach, may I ask?”

“I have MS. I would love to —”

“I know how to cure that. It’s one of two things.”

Jesus. “Oh yeah?”

“Absolutely. It’s either a yeast overgrowth or a magnesium deficiency.”

Haven’t heard those before.

I try to stare out the window as he pontificates nonsensically but he keeps eyeballing me through the rear view.

He tells me he sells essential oils and I want to laugh, but I can barely breathe.

The longest ten-minute cab ride finally ends. He hands me a card with the words ‘wellness advocate’ under his name before he gets out to open the trunk.

He lets me get my own suitcase as he starts telling me about his prostate. Seriously. I finally cut him off and say I need coffee. He makes sure to tell me that he’s going to get coffee too, but in the car.

I’m sitting in Starbucks with my headphones on and see him drive by, glasses peering through the window. Several minutes later, I spot him in my peripheral vision. He’s come inside and he’s trying to get my attention. Oh for the love of all that’s holy.

Thank god for technology.

**********************************************************************************

This is an excerpt from a short story I wrote after the writing retreat I went to in September. This dude just may pop up in my fiction at some point – who needs to make characters up when these kinds of people show up in your life? I wish my powers of description could do him justice, he truly was something else. His card is still on our fridge – haha!

Just to be clear:

1) There is NO CURE for multiple sclerosis.

2) Warriors find it really annoying when people suggest they know how to fix us, if we just follow their latest fad. Most of us have tried many, many different therapies and medications. MS is a complex disease that affects every person in a different way on a different day. If you have something to suggest, I’m all ears – if it’s done with sensitivity and respect.

Do you have stories of people giving you the magic cure? I’d love to hear them!

Have a wonderful week!

❤️ Amanda

life, writing

Resting is not selfish

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I apologize to my followers for the glitch last night in sending out a blog post prematurely. Oops.

Anyway, my cup is feeling a bit empty and stained these days so I’m taking time to do things, and not do anything, in order to build up a few spoons and not end up in a relapse.

Below are some current pictures of our garden. When we bought our house nine years ago, the backyard was all sloped lawn. All the rocks, dirt, and driftwood you see were hauled in singlehandedly by my husband. Whether I sit in silent contemplation or take on some simple weeding, the garden is my sanctuary.

I’m off to my other piece of paradise, Willows Beach, also known as my office. It’s my favourite place to write, and my fiction has been stagnating at the bottom of my empty cup for the last few days so I’m hoping the words will flow today as I look out at Oak Bay Harbour and Marina.

Take time to do the things that recharge your spirit, and don’t allow those niggling feelings of guilt any space at all. She says to herself, over and over and over…

Have a wonderful week!

❤️ Amanda

life

Wild West Coast

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes
View of the beach emerging from the private trail from our campsite.
View of the beach emerging from the private trail from our campsite. Photo: M. Cockayne

I am so incredibly fortunate to live on Vancouver Island. As I said in my last post, I was off camping last week at Pachena Bay Campground which is on the west coast near Bamfield, BC. The drive is an adventure in itself, two and half hours on dusty, bumpy logging roads from Port Alberni. Every teeth-chattering, slow-going minute is worth it once you arrive, though.

As it turned out, the first day was the nicest weather we had so it wasn’t exactly the tropical vacation we hoped for. When you’re camping in a coastal temperate rainforest, you take your chances. Instead of sweltering in the heat wave the rest of the island and most of North America it seems, was suffering, we were in our layers of fleece, toques and rain jackets.  Like most MSers, I’d rather a bit of fog, wind and misty rain than having the carnival of symptoms start when my body temperature rises.

Fog descends into the trees, creeping in from off the ocean.
Change in the weather, the fog rolls in.
Fog obscuring the tops of trees at the edge of a sandy beach with driftwood.
Fog is a regular occurrence but often blows off later in the afternoon or early evening.

When the tide is out, the enormous beach triples in size, impossible to capture in a photo. One day, we walked far out along the beach exploring tide pools towards the beginning of The West Coast Trail. We were going to walk a bit of the trail until we got to some of the ladders, which we have done in the past. Almost there, I looked down and saw this:

Fresh bear tracks on a wet sand beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Would you turn around or take your chances? Photo: M.Cockayne

Fresh bear tracks leading down a wet beach on the west coast of Vancouver IslandThe beautiful patterns in the sand with the fresh bear tracks leading away made the moment magical. And sped up our pace on the way back! Photo: M. Cockayne

We knew we were in bear and cougar country but seeing fresh evidence that we were right on the heels of Baloo? Yes, we turned around and headed back towards the main beach. ☺️ (Photo credits to Miranda Cockayne as my dinosaur of an iPhone died.)

Four days and nights of living in the forest, sharing secrets and too many laughs with one of my longest (not oldest, see what I did there? 😉) and dearest friends, building fires on the beach, watching the ospreys and eagles diving into the ocean, unplugging from the world (for the most part, they have wifi at the main office now), and plugging into the inspiration I always feel when I remove myself from the manmade and reconnect with the natural world.

Old growth cedar trees, ferns, bridge, west coast trail

It’s even worth the week of recovery from not sleeping and just being out of my usual routine. No matter how careful I am about eating well and hydrating, I never sleep well when camping or away from my own bed, actually. Are other MSers and chronically ill people the same? Does a change in your routine inevitably exacerbate your symptoms?

One thing I will make sure we do next year, is go on a Kiixin Tour.

“Kiix̣in is the site of a 19th-century village and fortress that exhibits evidence of occupation dating to 1000 B.C.E. Today, it remains a sacred site to the present-day Huu-ay-aht First Nations.”

Thank you to the Huu-ay-aht First Nations for sharing your amazing piece of paradise!

Have a wonderful week everyone!

❤️ Amanda

Health

The journey to diagnosis: Why so long?

Amanda, walkamyelinmyshoes

I want to talk about the journey to ms diagnosis. For some, the trip is brutally short. Bam! They wake up and their whole left side is paralyzed, or they’re blind in one eye. Terrifying. No question that any person would head to the hospital, or at least the doctor and they would be taken seriously.

Usually, a trip to the ER would mean an MRI, possible lumbar puncture (sooo glad I avoided that!) and subsequent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Some get picky and call it CIS (clinically isolated syndrome) until the monster rears its ugly head again, hence the multiple in multiple sclerosis.

I suspect many people in this position start connecting the dots of other strange symptoms they’ve had for years, once the inciting incident of the diagnosis journey appears, with the exception of those diagnosed very young, of course. I can’t really speak to that though, because that was not my journey.

What about those who present with weird virus-y symptoms?

The first episode of fatigue, brain fog and vertigo when I was 22, had me sleeping in the back of my orange Westfalia on the streets of Puebla, Mexico, alone, peeing in the sink for three days. I figured it was a strange Mexican virus – thankfully not from Montezuma!

The second incident two years later, in Lagos, Portugal, I was stuck in a tent in a cinderblock wall campground, with stereos blaring on every side, peeing (sometimes unsuccessfully) in bottles, in front of my boyfriend. I knew then he was a keeper! 😊💕 Okay, bladder issues are certainly an ms symptom but enough about urine!

A couple of months before my first relapse. I sold the van to my brother. He never knew this story. Sorry dude! 😬

I had one more relapse the following year, during my final teaching practicum. The monster’s timing is exquisite. The doctors that I saw during these times, in the early 1990s, checked for parasites and infections because of the travelling link but when they found nothing, they shrugged and pushed me out the door.

Then, the monster slept. With the exception of some ear-splitting tinnitus when we lived in New Zealand which was ascribed to stress (believable as we were living on a student’s income halfway around the world with a newborn), I had no relapses for about 13 years.

After the birth of our third child and subsequently returning to work part-time, I started having these weird ‘blips’, that I again thought was a virus. Pretty soon, I realized it was hitting me every six months or so, knocking me out for longer each time.

There was no paralysis. No blindness. No alarming symptoms that justified an emergency room visit. Just an exhaustion that felt like the power of gravity had increased ten thousandfold, a weird bubbly feeling in my head and an all over body ache that made me feel like I’d been poisoned.

I saw so many doctors during this time, and every single one of them listened to my symptoms, frowned, shrugged and told me to stop working so hard. Or maybe I was depressed. Or it was just a virus. Or it was idiopathic. That last word, meaning ‘they just can’t figure it the hell out’ was said by a very tall, male doctor looming over me in his office, forcing me to crane my neck to look up at him. The subtext of his message was ‘get over it, lady’.

Two problems

I have two problems with this. First, the number one symptom of ms is fatigue, which was my number one symptom. Also, I live in Canada which has one of the highest rates of ms in the world (MS Society of Canada estimates 1 in 340 people), yet NOT ONE of the 15-20 doctors I saw ever mentioned it.

I don’t think this is solely an issue related to the difficulty of diagnosing multiple sclerosis because it is such a misunderstood, unpredictable, individual disease. It’s a women’s health issue generally. I have heard so many stories about women’s health concerns being dismissed or downplayed or worse, drugged by overworked, distracted doctors.

Why is this? Do doctors really think women have nothing better to do than come to their office to ‘whine’ about something that’s ‘all in their head’? I’ve gotten equally dismissive treatment from both men and women doctors, so it’s not a patriarchal problem. It’s as though those that enter the hallowed halls of physician-dom are doomed to condescend to women, believing they’re choosing to spend their lives pretending to feel like shit, just to get attention.

I never watched the Golden Girls, but this clip explains it brilliantly.

You go, Bea! I would like to go back and have it out with some of the doctors who made me feel ashamed and ridiculous for pursuing answers when I knew something was wrong.

Conclusion

I am sharing my personal diagnosis story today because awareness is still so lacking about this ugly disease, despite how common it is. When I was undiagnosed, I searched all over the internet for people sharing stories like mine and found very, very few. Also, I think women need to support each other in managing their health, and that starts with conversation.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing strange symptoms, don’t ignore them. Advocate for yourself, you know your body better than anyone else can. Don’t let doctors blow you off and don’t stop searching until you get the answers you need.

Doctors hate it when you use ‘Dr. Google’, and you do have to be really, really careful. But until we sort out a healthcare system where doctors aren’t working on an assembly line, it seems to be the most knowledgeable, and least condescending doctor around. No offence to any of the doctors out there with integrity, I just haven’t met any of you.

Do you have a crazy diagnosis story? Please share, I’d love to hear from you.

❤️ Amanda

By the way, it was a naturopath that finally listened to my story and first mentioned the words multiple sclerosis. I was finally diagnosed 23 years after my first relapse.