Stifling a yawn, I watch the movie credits scrolling up our TV screen. “That movie lasted about an hour too long. My head is throbbing, and I’m so tired,” I mumble to my husband, Jason. “The stress of Christmas and a whole week surrounded by family is catching up with me. I think my body is informing me in a not-too-subtle way that I did too much last week at my mom’s.”
“I could’ve told you that. Oh, wait I did multiple times, but you wouldn’t listen,” Jason sarcastically replies. “Why can’t you be content simply sitting on the couch and letting everyone come visit with you? You know your MS has cut your energy and tolerance.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” I mock, laughing and blowing him a kiss. “You know Christmas is the only time I get to see my whole family, so I have to take advantage of every minute. When I’m tied to the couch, they forget I’m there and I miss all the fun stuff. A little rest and I’ll be fine.”
Stepping away from my recliner, my left leg buckles underneath me and -Crack- my kneecap collides with our Brazilian Cherry hardwood floors, propelling my body forward like a ragdoll. Throwing my arms up—why won’t my left arm move?—my right hand catches me mere seconds before I faceplant. The sudden impact jolts my shoulder and neck, rattling my head and knocking off my glasses.
Toppling onto my right side, my head spins in disjointed confusion. What the hell just happened? Is this my MS? This attack came on so quickly.
Through the muffled ringing in my ears, I hear Jason yelling and see a bleary smudge grow larger as he races across the living room, “Nicky! Nicky!” He crouches next to me, gently placing my head on his knee. “Are you okay? Where are you hurt? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, still dazed. “I was fine when the movie started. Now, when I try to move, my left leg, the whole left side of my body for that matter, won’t work.”
“Where are you hurt?” he stresses again.
My voice quavers when I glance at his blurry face. “I’m not sure? I…I can’t really tell. I only sense an intensely prickling, deadweight on that side.”
Jason’s look of agonizing despair rips through my soul; a pain I undeniably feel. I pat around on the floor, find my glasses, and push myself upright with my right hand. Plastering an imitation of a reassuring smile over my anxiety, I attempt to calm him, “Don’t worry. I’ll be better after some sleep. I will need your assistance getting to bed, however. Now, help me up please.”
He dubiously stares at me awkwardly leaning against the coach, “You don’t look too steady. Are you certain you can walk? I think maybe you should sleep on the couch tonight to be safe. I’ll even stay in here and stretch out in the recliner.”
“How chivalrous of you, dear,” I say, struggling to sit up straight and look normal. “I’m fine. The bedroom is not that far. I'll be able to get there.”
As my mouth is reassuring him, my mind is clouded with doubt and worry. Hating to have Jason, or anybody, fret and hover over me, my stupid pride dictates I say everything is okay. I pray Jason won’t see the unease brewing in my eyes, and I’m able to somehow walk to the bed.
Wrapping his arms around me, Jason boosts me onto the edge of the couch. I place my right arm around his neck while he cinches my waist with his left. Clumsily hoisting me from the couch, we laboriously three-leg-zombie shuffle out of the living room towards the hallway. Step-hop-drag. Step-hop-drag.
With every hop, my torso slumps a little more on Jason’s supportive shoulder as my right leg increasingly becomes weaker, eventually refusing to straighten at all. By the time we reach the hall, I deem I’ve run miles—not merely hobble-hopped five feet. I’m dripping with sweat and assess an inferno is burning through my body. For Jason’s sake, though, I have to keep going.
“You should sit and rest for a minute, sweetheart,” Jason suggests, worry streaked across his brow.
“I’m okay. Just a few more feet.”
Nevertheless, on my next attempt, my wobbly right leg gives out. Crumpling towards the floor, I almost pull Jason down on top of me. Miraculously, he’s able to keep his footing as well as catch and lower me carefully to the ground. In spite of that, seconds before reaching the floor, my bladder fails and he inadvertently lays me in a puddle of warm pee.
“I’m so sorry,” I whimper. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
Burying his fingers in his hair, Jason stares worriedly down at me. “I don’t know what to do to help you. None of this makes sense. You need a steroid treatment or something, and I can’t get you to the hospital like this.” He takes a few paces then tells me he has to call an ambulance.
When the paramedics walk in rolling their gurney, part of me is relieved we have help whereas another part is mortified that I’m covered in my own filth. Things move so quickly after that. I’m not sure if things are blurring together or my disorientation is muddying the events. I’m loaded into the back of the ambulance and the slamming steel doors cut me off from Jason—he’s meeting me at the emergency room, hopefully with a change of clothes—leaving me isolated with my own swirling thoughts of dread.
This is serious. I’ve never had a relapse this severe before or affect this much of my body. How much of my brain has MS eaten now? I attempt to breathe but my discombobulated mind is suffocating me. How much, if any, function will I get back? How are Jason and I going to handle this? Don’t let me lose bladder function, please.
We finally arrive at the emergency room, and my freaked-out, muddleheadedness intensifies when I’m wheeled through the automated doors. Immediately, I’m smacked in the face by nose hair-singeing, harsh astringents. The chaotic noise of tirelessly jabbering patients, shrilly ringing phones, and incessantly beeping machines surrounds me, bombarding my already frayed constitution. I’m rolled into a thinly shrouded patient cubicle, transferred onto a plastic-mattressed exam bed, and left under blinding interrogation lights.
Lifting my right arm to cover my eyes, I realize my deodorant has also been overwhelmed with this evening’s events. My twenty-four hour odor protection has notably given up the fight and expired from exhaustion. Great, now I’m wet and smelly on both ends, I groan. Please let this nightmare end.
As if summoned, the curtain opens and a grandfatherly doctor and a newly minted nurse enter. She straps my arm into a cuff while the doctor mumblingly regurgitates my chart. “Hmmm…has a diagnosis of MS for nine years…started having severe weakness tonight and loss of bladder function…elevated blood pressure and temp when paramedics arrive most likely due to exertion. Sounds like a typical MS exacerbation.”
Wow, seriously? I inaudibly sigh, rolling my eyes behind closed eyelids. You jumped to that conclusion in record time, Doc.
Walking over to me, he attempts to run the neurologist's playbook- ‘don’t let me push your arms down’, ‘pull my arms towards you’, ‘now push your foot against my hand.’
“Pronounced weakness in all four extremities but more noticeable on the left,” he confidently announces.
Well no shit! Why do you think I’m here? I fume. Did you think I miraculously recovered in the ambulance?
Asked if I’ve had any recent illnesses, my answer is garbled by a thermometer, “Nufing,” I reply, spit bubbling from the corners of my mouth.
The nurse grabs the plastic stick when it beeps and shoves a white cotton swab down my throat. Turning, she informs the doctor I have a temperature of a hundred and one.
His response floors me and makes me want to check myself out as soon as Jason arrives. “Well, this room and these lights are quite warm. Take off the extra blanket, and she’ll cool down after the excitement is over.”
LEAVE, you bumbling, inconsiderate idiot, my head screams. I want you to leave me alone until you have something helpful to say. Jason, where are you?
The doctor rattles off an alphabet of desired tests before departing with the nurse. Unforgivingly, or maybe spitefully, the lights are left on. If the lights are so warm they’re giving me a fever, why the hell did you leave them on, you incompetent moron? I close my eyes to prevent retinal burns, but I’m too wound up to relax much else. My muscles won’t quit spasming, and my thoughts won’t stop winding.
The scraping of the metal curtain rings alerts me to Jason’s arrival.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I cry. “I want to go home.”
Wrapping me in a hug, he strokes my sweat-matted hair, “I know, honey. Have they told you anything yet?”
“Nope. The doctor read ‘MS’ and got tunnel vision.”
Right then, the nurse comes back and informs us my throat swab showed I have the flu. She seems almost shocked that MS isn’t the root cause of my symptoms.
“You're telling us, the flu instigated this whole thing, caused her fever, and exponentially aggravated her MS this bad?” A baffled Jason interrogates her.
“Yeah, I guess,” she shrugs, hanging my IV.
“I’ll get my feeling and function back when the flu is gone, right?” I naively conclude.
“Um…I have no idea. You’ll have to talk to your neurologist,” she says, quickly leaving the room.
Once again, my mind is in turmoil. Leaning over, Jason squeezes me tightly against him. “Everything will be okay.” Stepping back, he cocks his head to the side and gives me a perplexed look. “How’d you get the flu? We both had shots. Why didn’t I get it?”
“I’ve no clue where I caught the flu, but you were spared because you have an immune system.”
Dark clouds swoop in and change Jason’s demeanor. His forehead crinkles and his brows knit together in annoyance. “Didn’t your mom’s friend say she had the flu when she came over at Christmas? I saw her stand at the end of the couch where you were sitting and have a virus-spreading coughing fit.”
I ponder this for a moment before breaking into a giggle fit, “So you’re saying, I only caught the flu because I was sitting on the couch? Maybe being tied to one place, like the couch, isn’t such a good idea after all,” I comically rationalize, batting my lashes.
Thoroughly not amused, he taps my hand lovingly over the bed rail, “Yes dear, that’s exactly right.”
We both know the jest is my coping smokescreen. Grasping my hand, Jason voicelessly assures me we’re going to be okay. Our hands are vice-gripped together in obstinate camaraderie, preparing ourselves for my battle back.
Author: Katie Yusuf
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