I tip into walls.

Not sometimes.  A lot.  I think I’m walking like an upright human and then, suddenly, the world exists on a steep angle.

I’ve gotten pretty good at handling it.  I watch where I walk, I scan the floors and look out for things I can grab for balance.  It becomes second nature when you have something as unreliable and fluctuating as MS.

Having an invisible illness is a tricky thing.  People make assumptions about you — or rather, you think people make assumptions about you. This is probably because you have so little control of what your body does on a regular basis and you have such heightened awareness, you are completely sure that all eyes on you are questioning your sanity.  Usually, they are not.

We all have a very high sense of self-importance.  We think what we are doing, what we are reading, what we are interested in is also the most interesting thing to other people.  This is what makes Instagram (or any social media outlet, for that matter) so appealing.  We can post about our lives as though every other person is waiting with baited breath to ‘read all about it.’

I’m painfully self-conscious about my MS.  About tipping into walls.  About walking like a drunk person.  About losing track of a conversation mid-sentence.  About choking on my own spit.  About peeing my pants.  I feel like I walk through life with neon signs alerting everyone around me to my myriad of flaws.  It takes a second to remind myself that other people have more interest (by far) in themselves than they have in any other person.  Sort of like myself.  I’m so caught up in keeping all the balls in the air that I don’t have time to notice what other people are doing/not doing/messing up.  Plus, I have a lot more patience for most other people than I have for myself.

Today my world is spinning.  Not figuratively.  Literally.  It’s the first time this has ever happened, so I’m finding it very frustrating and unbalancing.  I don’t like not having a list of things to try/do to solve a problem.  (You know the list.  LIke, for a headache you take aspirin, you use ice, you rub magnesium lotion on your neck, you put Vicks vapor rub behind your ears … you get the gist).  

I am hydrated.  I have eaten food (protein and complex carbs).  I have rested.  So far … nada.  I have sent a message to my GP through my medical portal (and have been alerted that since it is a non-emergency, I can expect to hear back within 2 business days.  If I am still dizzy in two business days, I won’t be waiting for a response from the portal, I can promise you that).

There’s a line in one of my favorite movies, A Few Good Men, when Tom Cruise says “And the hits just keep on coming.”

I think maybe, that is the theme of my life.

xox, g