MS Flair Up

I haven’t done any updates on Cheri and her MS lately, mainly because she’s been ok with it.  If you know anything about MS, you can go a long time with no real problems and then symptoms hit for awhile, then go away.  These flair up’s can show up at any time and can last for long periods or short periods.  The only real symptom that she battles is the overheating anytime she does something but it isn’t a flair up because it really never goes away.  That’s something she has dealt with for years.  She also deals with weakness of muscles all the time to but she has learned her limits and (mostly) doesn’t push it.

A little late for Christmas

Until Thursday night.  As much as I would like to take credit for throwing out her back because it happened after sex, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.  Muscle spasm are also a big deal to MS patients.  And that is what she’s been dealing with since.  Since Thursday, she has barely been able to move.  She’s embarrassed by the fact that she has had to use her walker, cane and even her wheelchair just to get to the bathroom.  But I can tell you one thing, we are glad that we got those when we did because they have been a life savor for her this weekend.  She got the cane and walker through a MS site and qualified for them for free.  At the time, we were thinking she was years away from using them.  Guess not.  My mom purchased the wheelchair for her but we use that time to time now when we have to do a lot of walking so she’s no stranger to it.

Sort of like this, but without the basket band blue

She has compared the pain to labor pains if that tells you something.  She has even fallen and can’t get up (you know you read that in an old ladies voice) and has had a lot of crying.  Cheri deals with pain everyday of her life so if she is crying, she’s is in pain that the rest of us would just want death for relief.  And what made all this worse, after all the days off of work that I’ve had the last few weeks, it happens the day I have to go back.  So on Friday, she was home alone while dealing with all of this.  I wanted to leave work so bad but if I did, I lose all my holiday pay as well and we just couldn’t afford that.  So she took care of herself all day until I could get home.  She feels so weak right now but I know how strong she is.  I’m not sure how she did all this because when I got home and saw what she was going through, I felt horrible.  It literally took her 15 minutes to just get out of her recliner and over to the wheelchair so I could push her into the bathroom.

She called her doctor and he called her in some muscle relaxers which we are grateful that he trusts her enough to do that without seeing her.  It helps that his mother had MS so he’s got first hand experience with the disease.  I picked them up after multiple trips to Walgreen’s.  I went once, picked up all her meds, but apparently the one we really needed so I had to go back.  She has been on those for a little over a day now and is getting better.  She still has trouble getting up but she is moving better and walking better.  She is still using the walker because her legs give out on her while she’s walking but she’s definitely getting better.

One other thing that hasn’t gone away yet, is the extreme pain when she turns the wrong way.  Last night, she would out of the blue scream and smack me.  She thinks her body would just flinch a little bit just as she was drifting off and it would hurt like hell.  She still has the issue because she’ll be sitting in the recliner and all of the sudden scream out.  Usually scaring me as well.  But she is getting better.  We’ll see if tomorrow morning she can get out of bed without calling and waking up her daughter to come to her room and help her.  Because nobody wants to see a cranky teenager first thing in the morning.

As long as she continues to improve, she should be ok.  Hopefully by Wednesday.  I have Monday and Tuesday off so I’ll be able to take the kids to school but Wednesday is a different story.  Like I said, hopefully she’s better by Wednesday.