Looks Can Be Deceiving...

Today I changed my Facebook profile picture to a pic I took on Friday. I was feeling good that day. I had on a cute outfit, I had on my short blonde wig, the sun was shining on my aviator sunglasses wearing face and I had on just the right shade of lipstick to make my teeth look like they were just professionally whitened. I was feeling good.

Friday evening I started feeling less great. My legs began to feel achy and I just wasn’t feeling like my Friday morning profile pic self. Riley was running at Botetourt and I wanted to be there so bad and I just couldn’t make it. I crashed that night and when I woke up the next morning, I was determined to make it to day two of the track meet. I got up and showered and my muscles were aching so bad and I was so weak that I could hardly make it from the bed to the bathroom and back. I was still determined to go to the track meet because I felt like I had let Riley down the day before. He qualified for regionals on Friday with an 11:14 time in the 2 mile, shaving 23 seconds off of his previous PR. I showered and put my bathrobe on and got back in bed. I was so weak that I wasn’t sure how I was going to do this. Kevin came in and told me that I needed to stay home and rest and that he and Natalie would go to the track meet and Riley would understand. I knew Riley would understand because he came in on Friday night and asked me how I was feeling and he told me if I wasn’t up to it, to stay home and rest on Saturday. He’s such a good kid and I’m so proud of him. I wanted to be there so bad—on both days. This has been one of those weekends that I have been really mad at cancer. I have tried to keep a good attitude the entire time and roll with the punches, but this weekend, I felt defeated. I stayed home on Saturday and I slept most of the day. I got up and got in the hot tub at one point because I thought it would make my muscles feel better (the hot water seems to help) and I almost fell asleep and then I had to figure out how to muster up enough energy and leg strength to get myself out of the hot tub and back in the house. It probably wasn’t the best idea for me to have even got in the hot tub when nobody was home yesterday, but I wanted to feel better. Along with the muscle pain and weakness, I did the hot and cold thing. That has been an ongoing cancer thing. I asked Dr. K about it last week and he said that is normal. One minute I am burning up and the next minute I am freezing. I go from a cami and shorts to full blown fleece mitten pajamas and fuzzy socks—and back and forth and back and forth. One minute I want hot chocolate and the next minute I want a popsicle. I was asleep most of the day until about 1 pm. My dad came down and sat with me for a couple of hours and Lord only knows what I said to him because I was kind of out of it! Ha! I know he was so worried about me. He just wants to be able to fix all of this and the parent in him feels really helpless when I am just laying on the sofa in pain. He wanted me to call the doctor, but I told him that the muscle pain was a side effect that I was warned about and I may just have to deal with it. Last night I decided to go lay down around 7 pm and the next thing I knew, I woke up and looked through the crack in the blinds and it was dark outside! It was 9pm! I didn’t mean to sleep that long! I woke up and wanted a lime Mister Misty from the Dairy Queen. Do they even make those anymore? Apparently I was transplanted back 20 years ago during that nap! I got up and asked Kevin to go to Whitey’s and get me a slushie and he thought I had lost my mind. I’m sure he would’ve gone if I would’ve pressed the issue, but I settled on a popsicle and called it a day. I slept all night minus the hot and cold thing and woke up feeling much better today. I am still pretty weak but I don’t have that horrible shooting muscle pain that I had yesterday.

So what’s the point of today’s blog?

Looks can be deceiving. I posted that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Facebook profile pic this morning and if you didn’t know I had been in bed for practically 24 hours straight, you wouldn’t have known. I look fine. For the last two days as I have been suffering from the muscle pain and weakness, I have had those with MS on my mind so very much. Yes cancer sucks, but hopefully after I endure three more chemo treatments and two surgeries, I will start to recover. I will get better. I had horrible muscle pain and weakness but it will get better. I will be able to be at the track meets next year—I will hopefully get increasingly better and stronger, not increasingly worse and weaker. I can’t even begin to tell you how frustrating it has been to want to get up and walk and to be unsure whether my legs are going to hold me or if they are going to buckle underneath me. My thoughts and prayers go out to those suffering with MS—how difficult and completely frustrating it must be to be living in a body that looks fine on the outside, but is far from fine on the inside. I wish no one had to endure MS and I hope and pray a cure will be found soon.

-lightningbug