Blindsided by Reality

I started thinking about last week and how it's differed so much from the past two days.  Yesterday I had a normal day.  A bit tired....yes, but not really any more than an average person would have.  Today I feel pretty good too.  I even scrubbed my bathroom, which still took me an hour and I haven't touched the downstairs one, but maybe tomorrow :)  I think about how happy I am to have had these days and even though they still aren't normal compared to how I felt before MS, I felt normal.  What I'm trying to say is that I think I'm adjusting to my new normal of good days.  Even though the good days aren't the same as they were before, they are my new normal.  It's kinda like how an 80 year old adjusts to life and knows that they can't do the things they could when they were 20.  They adapt. 

Last week was tough.  Not just because I was recouping from the weekend before but it was hard to have reality hit you square in the face...especially when I had no idea it was coming.  After the weekend Monday had come and I was exhausted.  Here I was hanging onto hope that everything would be okay because I had made it through the long weekend of hockey with 4.5 hours of sleep the first night and 6 hours of sleep the next 2 nights.  Well I was wrong....it took me a week to recover.  Things are not the way they were.  That wasn't the worst of it though.  The thing that took me by surprise the most was when I went to the doctor and was filling out insurance papers for me.  The question came back asking when I would return back to work and he said NEVER. 

Never is a hard word to hear.  I mean that's what I was there for...I was there for him to fill out forms for Long Term Disability and we had already had the conversation that in all likelihood, based on my life and day to day struggles I couldn't go back to work.  Hearing it on the other hand at the age of 31 was really tough.  I'm not even sure if I've completely processed that yet. 

The last thing that happened was only 2 days ago.  Working at my son's hockey tournament I was at the silent auction table and was supposed to fill out peoples information on a piece of paper.  I had to have my friend who was helping me at the time fill them out for me.  However, she was gone for a couple minutes and I had no choice but to attempt it myself.  I managed to write out their information as I felt them staring at me, probably wondering what was wrong.  In order to write legible it took me about 30 seconds to write their name and phone number. 30 seconds may seem short but think about it.  Even pretend how long it takes you to write your name and number. 10 seconds tops??  That was my first experience of actually feeling like people noticed something was wrong with me, without knowing what the problem was.

It's a new week and we will see how long these good days last.  I think my record is 4 so it here goes for a couple more good days! :)