Showing posts with label lesions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lesions. Show all posts

April 7, 2009

Median Cumulative Number of Gd-Enhancing Lesions


Was just reviewing the side effects of the Copaxone therapy I'm on to see if my stiff neck could be due to this (no surprise - it could be! As could my generalized state of weakness, my body pain, my depression - maybe...), and fell across this title and it made me laugh.
Gd is short for galadinium or something - the dye they make you sign your own death warrant for as they inject it - the active lesions in MS light up on the MRI when this dye runs through them. But it could also be short for god damned enhancing lesions, or just plain god enhancing lesions.
Perhaps all of them are true.
One of the interesting, challenging, and often wonderful things about MS is the weird emotional reality it gives you. Yes, there's the weepiness - but there also is the infectious and unstoppable laughter, the lift in mood when you discover that, yes, you can hold your head up today...the visual disturbances and vertigo and hearing wobblies that make you feel akin to an origami swan, set sail upon the winds.
Sometimes, it's a gift. Sometimes, just sometimes, the breeze across your face feels like a benediction, because this time you can feel it, a gentle touch that you thought you'd lost forever.
And depending on where those g-d enhancing lesions are, you may have lost your ability to deny these feelings, to overlie them with the sensibility of every day, to turn away from the breeze and file papers instead.
And sometimes, as with the gods in Terry Pratchett's wonderful Discworld, you just need to believe in these feelings to make them grow.

March 28, 2009

Oh what tangled webs we weave..


When first we start to believe....
Yesterday I felt great, super great,, body happier than it had been in ages. I actually didn't have any pressing complaints about its messages to me, I thought we had come to some sort of agreement. I exercised, but not too strenuously, just enough to get my body moving, and it felt good. I went for a walk.
And then bedtime hit - unspeakable pain. Writhing. I slept (haha) in my bed in all possible directions. No matter where I put my limbs, they were irritated, twitching, aching like toothaches all over my body. My feet spasmed, my legs jumped, my arms moved without my mentioning internally that it might be a good idea. My fingers played forgotten piano sonatas (from Stravinsky - some atonal something).
The only thing I can think is that some of the stretches I did yesterday aggravated a lesion in my spinal cord. I've always had problems with my neck, which is where the lesion is, and stretching my neck is not overly comfortable.
I've had a few nights like this. I lie there, too exhausted to get up, afraid of the pain that will scream through me when I try to stand (cos it does). After the first few agonizing steps, it's okay, but that first step is a doozie.
It is HORRIBLE. And now I'm afraid.