Finally, A Post!

I know I've been woefully neglectful of my blog, and by extension, you all, and I do apologize. This flare has been making me (and in a different way, my family) miserable. The glare from the computer screen coupled with the wonky vision I'm having makes it extremely difficult to see what I'm writing. The constant headache, the pain in my wrists, forearms, and thumbs make it difficult to write at all. I still have the whole tuning fork action going on. Finally, the inability to do more than one thing at a time makes it challenging, to say the least. I can't even drink coffee while I'm writing because I forget it's there. Or, I'll take a sip of coffee, my brain goes into sleep mode, and the thought is gone. Vanished. Like I just now remembered something I was supposed to do on Friday.

My husband and I were talking yesterday about this flare, about what it's doing to me, and how it's affecting my thought process...it ain't pretty, this one. My husband has seen them all, and we both agree that this is the worst I've had. If I'm doing one thing, and someone interrupts me for basically any reason, I get very short-tempered. I absolutely have lost (hopefully temporarily) my multi-tasking skills. That sets off a whole avalanche of feelings, thoughts, and actions. Here's one scenario:

Me: Working on my blog or something that requires concentration

Someone: Has a question, needs something

Me: Fireworks!!!!!!!!!!

Me: Guilt over losing my temper, sadness at how little I can do at the moment, hating MS, looking for my coffee cup, frustration, anger at myself, anger at MS, getting another cup of coffee, ending up with 3 cups of varying degrees of warmth and fullness on my desk, taking ibuprofen for the pain even though it doesn't help, scrapping the blog entry, sometimes ending in tears. Then at some point taking the cups to the kitchen.

It takes me twice as long (or more) to write because of the vision issues alone. What I'm experiencing right now with this flare is a combination of blurred vision, double vision, and random chunks missing from my field of vision.

One positive, though, is that my sleep issues have resolved themselves for the time being. One night I took a Benadryl, and that seemed to help me get over the hurdle. On the other hand, I have been taking naps. I never liked taking naps, and I still don't. My mom always said it was such a waste of time, and I tend to agree with her. Sometimes, though, when you cannot possibly take one more step, or you don't have the energy to open your eyes after you blink, you need to surrender to the nap. Then try to push aside the guilt after you wake up. What? You don't feel guilty after napping? Email me to let me know your secret!

Oh yeah, I started to tell you that my husband and I were talking about this flare, and another thing we touched on was that he wishes that I'd conserve more of my energy. I tried to explain the best I could that when I feel good enough to do something, I have to do it then and there, because who knows when I'll feel like doing it again. It's not like I can put my unused energy in an account and draw from it when I need it, though that would be extremely helpful, don't you think?

I understand what he means, though. He knows I'm struggling, and I know I'm struggling, so maybe I should just chill until this flare runs its course. But what if this flare is just a worsening of symptoms? What if I don't get back to where I was? I still need to do some things. So I push on, I don't give up, but I do stop when I really have to. I promise.

I'm just sooooooooooooo tired...