The first thing I want to say is, the kindness we are shown by the people who are associated with the Cleveland Clinic & Mellen Center for MS is what keeps me going back. From the Research Coordinator to the nurses and doctors...Everyone.
I make my way through this situation with humor. It is what keeps me going most days. I make jokes about the holes in my brain and occasionally walking like a drunk woman. I play the "UH HUH, Let the Crippled Girl Do It" card with my two dear sisters as they are standing in line at the check out counter reading a magazine, while I (the crippled girl) am unloading the shopping cart onto the conveyor belt.
As I said to the Dancing-Neuro when she commented on me being in good spirits..."It is what it is". No amount of whining is going to make it go away. Of course, I am also fully aware that my emotions could change in a split second. I am also aware that my health could change in a split second. So for today, I choose to be happy that I can still type, I can still use a Rotozip power tool without killing anyone and I can still drive a car on my own. I look at each and every day when I can get up and breathe, walk, laugh, climb the stairs and ugghh, even cook dinner, as a gift. It could all be taken away in a heartbeat. Of course, that is true of any one's life. You could get up one day and be hit by a pumpkin falling off of an overpass and your life and the lives of those around you could be forever changed.
Being told you have a disease makes you feel like you have an expiration date. HMMMM, even milk usually lasts longer than the expiration date. I plan to laugh in the face of MS and do it my way!
Back to the visit to Cleveland...
The Dancing-Neuro got married. It was obvious by the blinding sparkle on her finger. It is a good thing she put on rubber gloves or my eyes would have just followed the pretty sparkle during the entire exam. I wish for her and her groom all the love and joy that my sweet hubby and I have shared for the past 27 years. It will help, if she shares her pumpkin bread with him, but that's another story altogether.
The setup was a bit different this time and I feel it went more smoothly. There was a new Research Coordinator (I liked her) and a new nurse who was very sweet (even though she seemed to think that paying me a lousy $20.00 was going to compensate for the stress of taking that math test. I think not! LOL). Both newbies had a great sense of humor which is totally a prerequisite for me to like you.
I still had to walk up and down the hall like a rat in a maze. (Who can possibly walk normally when you know someone is watching you?) I had to follow waving fingers, poke myself in the nose and try to tell the difference between my own internal vibration (a gift from the MS) and the vibration of a tuning fork pressed against my bare foot. That one was a little tough. I constantly have a low hum that runs under my surface. It is soft and low enough these days that most of the time, I can almost ignore it, unless someone has a vibrating tuning fork stuck against my foot. Then it is a little hard to ignore. I was once again reminded how bad my eyesight has become and tried to bribe my way out of the hot seat on that one. I really do need to make an appointment with a real eye doctor and stop wearing cheater glasses from Sam's Club! LOL
I played the peg-board game, which couldn't really hold my attention...pegs in, oh yeah...pegs out. Then I took the dreaded math test and I don't think I did terribly this time. I think I may have sort of mentally cheated, LOL. I figure, if my lesion-laced brain is smart enough to figure out a way to get results, then I am doing it! Hint to anyone else who has to take this test. Keep your eyes closed and just listen. I have difficulty with staying focused on something if there is any outside stimulation. Closing my eyes so that my brain wasn't getting any input from anything but the verbal cues from the audio tape made it easier to stay focused. I share that tip, because seriously...I feel like what better way to make an MS patient feel sorry for themselves than to remind us that we just aren't quite what we used to be upstairs. LOL Seriously...Can't the great minds come up with a better way to measure our brain function than to make us feel totally STUPID? Here, take this math test and here is the Prozac that you are going to need to get you through the depression of realizing that you can't hold on to a number in your brain for more than a split second!
(You didn't really think I would give away my mental cheating skills did you? I mean, I like you guys, but let's be honest...I want to be the winner. So..OK...There isn't really a winner, but as much as I sympathize with you guys, I am not giving away my super powers. I have had to work way too hard to get them back to be willing to give them away. I shared the closing your eyes tip. For today...That is all you get)
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