Falderol

MS accepts a blind date

I spent this morning on the phone with a Surfer Dude who apparently moonlights as a representative for the World’s Friendliest Drug Company. It’s a bit unreal, this detailed enrollment process that I have to go through for the privilege of giving myself daily jabs.

“So when were you diagnosed?” Surfer Dude asked.

 

“Well, Monday,” I said, trying to avoid any complete sentences that might be overheard by my cohort in the cubicle farm.

 

“Woah,” Dude replied. “So this is like totally new for you.”

 

“Yep,” I laughed. Must be some kind of defense mechanism, laughing, because I’ve been chuckling a lot these days at completely inappropriate topics.

 

We went through a host of topics that ran the gamut from the usual questions to the more surreal. Dude offered me several complementary programs from the WFDC; at one point, I felt like I was signing up for the world’s strangest dating service.

Guess my Master's of Science will be my second MS.

So there's that then.

The waiting game

So I don't have the attitude of Alright Tit, and I often lack Billygean's elegance, but I think both blogstars would agree: waiting is balls.

After the two hour MRI, which I'm still telling people about like it's some kind of long distance athletic accomplishment, one of my dear friends flew in from Seattle for a weekend diversion. We had a great time strolling downtown in the gorgeous summer weather, oogling the throngs coating the beaches, and eating so much that I'm still not hungry 24 hours after she left. For the most part, I forgot about the impending diagnosis (or the equally unnerving possibility of no diagnosis at all). Still, every time we passed someone in a wheelchair, I had to look away. As we rode the bus to dinner, a woman our age got on with a cane, and her partner stood like a shield in front of her as she took a seat in the crowded aisle. I wondered if she had MS, a thought I'd never had before when I saw a perfectly healthy looking young person carrying a cane.

Of course, there are morbid perks to the possibility of having a serious lifelong illness (god, I hate typing that phrase). It's much easier to justify the $30 dangling-to-my-ribcage necklace at Urban Outfitters: "Well, I have to look good now, and why shouldn't I?" I can eat my face off at the tapas bar: "Screw it. I might have MS: I'm ordering a second plate of potatoes with garlic aoli." I also don't abstain from beer, chocolate, ice cream, loads of pasta; since I'm sweating buckets at the gym these days, fearing I won't be able to work out like this in the future, I'm suddenly able to bump up my carb load by a factor of ten or so.

Two hours in the tube!

I think I've spent more time in the MRI machine this month than I will for the rest of my life (I hope??). My right arm increasingly resembles a permanent pincushion, with a series of half-healed spots where we've drawn blood and inserted IVs. I think it's offended that I keep choosing it, but the left arm veins are shite and appear to be shriveling further, perhaps because they sense danger.

This evening was the usual: check in at the front counter, leave SuperGeneticist to his post in the waiting room, change into surgical gown and pants designed to fit the Incredible Hulk, waddle around the waiting room hoping the pants don't fall down in front of other elderly patients who might be sensitive to bare-behinded obscenity. Pop some anti-anxiety medications to deal with Donut Claustrophobia, strap on an eye mask to avoid seeing the Iron Mask-knockoff they clamp over your face, and go to town with the crazed jackhammering MRI sounds.

Nightshade

The ups and downs of the medical diagnosis cycle astound me. One day we're on the deck with beers in hand, joking about how we're going to differentiate between the Craptastic MS (the disease) and the Fantastic MS (the grad school program); the next, I'm on the edge of my chair envisioning 20 years from now, with a guide dog and a wheelchair. There's no pretty way to say this: the waiting? It sucks.

Somehow, a diagnosis might be a relief. At least then, I can stop hoping it isn't one thing or fearing that it's another. I should know soon; I have a 90 minute MRI on Thursday to search for lesions in my spine. Yes, that will be a ball for a mild claustrophobe like me. I wonder if they can run an IV line of gin straight into my system? Or maybe just glue my eyes shut for an hour or two so I can't see the Donut of Doom encircling me. Anyway, 90 minute MRI plus 7 vials of blood (for obscure things like Lyme Disease, yay!) equals the prospect of an answer next Tuesday at my follow up appointment with neurology. 

Of course, part of me also wants to go back to that blissful time when I had no idea that my brain harbored a belladonna blossoming. I don't think of it that way most of the time -- it's more like, damn you, brain, knock it the eff off! -- but still. The idea that your body could house things that can hurt you, well, it's not easy to accept. I am healthy, damn it. I know I am. So why can't the rest of me go along with it?