Original Posting: 01/02/2016

I told my husband that I had spent months wondering if the symptoms I had been experiencing were the result of a continuing MS attack or if they were just resultant from the previous damage that had been done. After taking my hands off the steering wheel a little by enjoying a few nibbles, noshes, and num-nums during various holiday parties I had attended and staying up later than usual filled with Yuletide-cheer, my body decided to give me the answer.

It began by walking into walls last Tuesday. I couldn’t clear a doorway, and my right shoulder kept bearing the brunt of my missteps. My favorite smack-of-the-week occurred when I was leaving our living room and walked straight into the wall rather than into my teal-colored, Egyptian-themed kitchen.

“Shit.”

I remembered that I had walked into a few door jambs on July 31, before waking up with stroke-esque speech patterns on August 1. Sure enough, Wednesday morning greeted me with the wrong words tumbling out of my mouth and an inability to read aloud with out blending a few words in each sentence. That night, the left side of my body went numb and tingly from scalp to pinky-toe.

I chose to think of it as a flare-up rather than an attack because I am an English teacher and words are important, damn it. They mean something to me. Words create my reality. The meaning of my life. So, I choose not to think of this as an attack.

The word attack brings connotations of an enemy or stranger invading, a winner and a loser, with damage to both sides. A battle. I am not at war with my body, and I will not heal if I think of her as my enemy. I will no longer treat her as such. A flare-up, on the other hand, brings to mind an ignition, a spark, a flame, that can be soothed, quelled, and transformed. She needs to be soothed, not attacked.

This time, none of my symptoms have been as severe as the August 1 incident. I am already improving my speech errors, and the numbness in my left side did not stay. I have learned that sleep has been the biggest factor. For most of my life, I ran on 6 hours a night, and now I need 8+ or else. I have also learned that it is okay to take my hands off the steering wheel for a little bit. I have a lifetime of driving MS ahead of me.