Comments, Messages and Feelings

I haven't been at this blogging business for very long but it's one of the few things in my life that I enjoy that is both free and contains no calories. I've been able to type out whatever I want and some of you STILL read it, no matter the topic.

I mean let's get real, who blogs about the Antiques Roadshow besides me?

I have to say that no matter how you got here: whether by annoying emails from me, linking from another blog, or my shameless self-promotion on Facebook, I thank you. I really, really do.

I like doing this so much and I STILL can't believe that people read what I have to say. I also have to say that I look forward to your comments on here and the emails and messages I get elsewhere about the blog. Keep them coming! Those comments and messages make me feel that this is truly a good thing, not just always for myself but also for others.

On here I can be sort of fearless, which is totally different from real life. I can expose myself (oops, maybe I should rewrite that) in a way that I don't normally. I can come here and kvetch or wax on (wax off) about any topic that I think is important or fun or interesting or whatever.

No one will grade me, chastise me, make me feel less than I am, or look down on me with pity. I escape from my shell and I can just be.

What a good feeling that is. Just being.

It's time for me to get ready to go back to work. I'm trying to gear up for that. It's unbelievably difficult this year.

The heat kills me and today was in the high 80s. Not to mention that I also run a daily temp of somewhere around 100.5 which also makes me feel rather icky. I walk slower, I can't lift things that I could a year ago, and I get caught up and lost in my own words when I speak at times. I need lots of sleep and have fatigue that sometimes doesn't go away even with medication. I have a difficult time focusing and concentrating on tasks.

The other day I had to work for work (surprised by that one, eh?) and we had to basically transfer a bunch of numbers from many different papers on to other papers next to names. Then someone came over and said, "Now do the same thing with this." More papers with more numbers. Then the same person came with other papers and had to explain what the newest set of numbers meant that I was to copy on to my list.

I felt like I was in a room with a cacophony of noise so unbearable that I wanted to cry.

There must have been about 35 people there doing the same thing: talking, passing papers around, finding the right names and numbers and transposing them to their master sheet. It wasn't a problem for anyone else. They could listen to the person speak and keep on working away. I had to stop and listen because I couldn't do both things at the same time. A few years ago, that would not have been a problem for me at all.

Now most tasks take much more focus and any distraction, any noise, any new task added on top of what I am doing can feel overwhelming to me. I was already behind and we had just started for the day. Scrappy little worker that I am, I was trying to keep up, speed up, write faster but it just wasn't happening.

A short while later, we received our big box of student folders that hold other important information that we read through and write down information from them on to our special sheets. Some boxes were on a chair, some were on the floor. By the time I finished the first three tasks we were supposed to do, everyone else had moved on to the folders.

They had picked up their box of folders and positioned them so they could peruse them. Some boxes were on the table now and others still nearby on chairs next to the table. My box, the box I can't lift anymore, is on another table maybe 40 feet away from the table we were working at.

I felt defeated again. I have used that word in various posts. It seems to be the most accurate word that expresses how I feel in these situations.

A stupid box made me want to cry.

I couldn't pick it up and bring it over to the table. There was nowhere to really put it anyway so I ended up working by myself in another area. I wasn't too far away, as I mentioned maybe 40 feet or so but it felt like a chasm. A deep one. A wide one. One I couldn't cross.

I sat there looking out at everyone else and felt different: weaker, slower, dumber, and most definitely not part of the group. I tried to do my new task and the good thing was that it was slightly quieter in this new location. The horrible thing is all the rest of it.

Sometimes I think people look at me and think I'm faking or exaggerating my issues. I rarely talk about my MS at work unless it's clear that I'm hooked up to an IV pole and having some problems.

I worked through two separate IV steroid treatments last school year hooked to an IV pole, one a five-day and the other a three-day affair. It wasn't fun or the ideal situation but I can't take all those days off from school. I use all or almost all of my sick and personal time up each year. I'm not talking about leaving early or coming back late from a beach vacation, either.

There are days when I am driving to work and I am so fatigued that I know I shouldn't be on the road. There are nights that I come home and immediately go to take a nap. Then I wake up and do more work at home until my bedtime. Sometimes I stay awake until nine but more often than not, I'm already asleep by then.

I am hoping that somehow in the next week or so I have left until we officially start school again, that some miracle will happen and I will feel rested and ready and eager to start a new year. I'm hoping that my Tysabri paperwork appointment will come soon followed by the Ty treatments once a month.

I am hoping to get some semblance of my life back and to find my smile which seems to have gone into hiding. If you happen to see it out there somewhere, please forward it to me. I need it, I really do.