Medication

Before MS, I rarely saw a doctor or took medication of any kind. In fact, it was telling about how bad I was feeling if I took so much as an Advil for a headache. Now, however, I've taken more medication in one year than I think I've taken my entire life.

That is one of the hardest things about having a chronic condition, the medication. You take it because you know that it's supposed to help, even if you can't see or feel the benefits; but at the same time its a constant reminder that you're sick even when you're not feeling bad.

Every time I reorder my Copaxone, which is the disease modifying drug, I'm asked if I ever stop taking it if I feel better. I always answer the same way, "No", but honestly the better I start to feel the harder it becomes to want to take the medication.

For one thing, it's an injection, there is absolutely nothing pleasant about having to stick a needle into yourself every day.

Secondly, the fricken shots hurt! I can give myself the injection fine, but the site reactions that occur right after the shot is administered can be downright painful. Not only that, if I don't do it just right I'm left with all kinds of bruises that last weeks at a time.

So yes, I do struggle to take my medication when I feel better, but I challenge anyone to fine someone who doesn't.

Try as I might to push MS to the back of my mind, and more often than not I'm successful, but every time I open a bottle of pills or prep myself for an injection, the reasons why make themselves known front and center in my mind.

Last year I said "screw it" and stopped taking everything, a few months later I was in the hospital. Was it because I stopped taking my meds? Or was it because I was over stressed, run down, and still reeling from the diagnosis?

The world may never know.

Apart of me, once again, wants to say "screw it what am I really gaining from all of this anyway?" I just want to lead a normal life that doesn't include having to shoot up every day or take enough medication to stock a pharmacy. The only thing that stops me from quitting the drugs is the memory of ending up in the hospital while they pushed this medication that made me feel like shit but was supposed to boost the good parts of my immune system that wasn't attacking my nerves.

I just can't see how it's possible to completely push the fact that I have MS to the back of my mind when I have a daily reminder that it's there.

Of all the aspects of this condition I've come to accept, the medication piece is still the hardest for me to completely come to terms with.

Hiking with MS

So, after my sojourn to Yellowstone the other week, I cannot go back to not doing active things because I’m tired, or I hurt, or anything like that; once you’ve spent an entire week camping and hiking you kinda lose the “I have MS” excuse for getting out of activities.

This is good, it means that now I’m home, I can’t revert back to the way things had been for the past year. 

That being said, I have a few thoughts on going hiking with MS:

1.  Know where you are going and the kind of trail you will be on.
2. With no exception; every rock, tree root, and divot in the trail WILL try to trip you.
3. The wildlife you were so eager to try and see will only come out while you are watching your feet for the aforementioned rock, root, and divot. The moment you look up, they mysteriously vanish.
4. Pick the right shoes. This goes way beyond the whole ‘shoe fetish’ issue; any real hiker will say the same thing. However with MS, the wrong shoes can mean the difference between being stiff the next day or completely unable to walk.
5. Don’t let the slightly chilly, overcast day fool you; the moment you hit that first steep incline, I don’t care if it’s snowing, you will get overheated.
6. It doesn’t matter how great your big, heavy, ultra professional digital camera is or how it takes fantastic, high resolution, pictures; after 7 miles it’s like carrying a 5 pound dumbbell on your shoulder. Next time, opt for the smaller, less professional, camera; it’s not like you’re going to actually get to see any wildlife staring at your feet.
7. Leave your mopey, whiney, preteen at home. There’s only room enough on the trail for one complainer and you called dibs.
8. Pick a trail that takes you uphill at the beginning of the hike. That way, as you head back, you’ll have gravity helping to propel you forward.
9. You’re not as spry as you used to be; just because your son was able to nimbly negotiate a mud bog without falling in doesn’t mean you can too.
10. When you get home, call dibs on the first hot bath/shower. Sure everyone else is tired, dirty and sore, but they weren’t the ones who mistakenly wore the wrong shoes or foolishly tried to follow their kid through the mud.
11. Finally, while soaking in the tub, and using up the hot water, mentally curse the trail guide you purchased the other day. There really needs to be a guide book that has a 'fat bastard section' rating trails based on how an out of shape, overweight, individual with MS would do on a hike.