So this past few days, after my exams I kind of found my self on Pintrest and looking at stuff they had on Multiple Sclerosis. It was really interesting... here are some of the pics, its ok to laugh out loud, because I know I certainly did and then I have a story to tell you.
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| This actually happens.... |
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| Made me laugh |
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| Story of my life... school was an interesting challenge. |
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| This is one of my favorites!! |
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| Please don't think all of this happens to me. But it made me smile |
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| This is what your nerves look like compared to mine. |
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| I know I talked a bit about my vision going nuts when I exercise. This is what my vison is like when I do. See its off. |
Now for my story... its about spoons. Exciting right? Well found this way of describing autoimmune diseases like Lupus online the other day and it made so much sense, so I will do my best to adapt it the best I can. But this is how I would now describe to someone who asked me "What is it like to live with MS?"
Each day, people get up, get going to work, maybe eat breakfast in the morning and then are off for the day. They don't have to think twice about it. Most people are able to just go about their day thinking of their work, family, friends, their plans for the night or the weekend ahead of them. (If I was sitting with you right now I would grab a bunch of spoons) I would grab spoons and give them to you saying "You know how MS." You might look at me like I'm nuts, but I'm not (well not completely). But bear with me here... now you are holding a bundle of spoons, count them out for me-- you have 10. You might laugh a little bit not really knowing where I am going with this.. but it will be good I promise. Ok, you now have 12 spoons. Now tell me about your week and the things you have to get done, or your weekend plans.. tell me those; are you gonna go out with friends? Stay up late watching a movie? Are you going to go bowling or who knows.. think about it.. what do you do? Are you in school and have a huge midterm or final coming up? When are you going to study, when are you going to sleep, eat, socialize So give me a list of the things you are going to do. I don't just mean leaving the house and going out, I mean the little things too, like cooking, cleaning, exercise. Ok, so think about that list for a second.....
How many things came up in your head that you would do in a day? Ok, come back to me and now we will get to the spoons. Each spoon is a symbol of a task you can complete in a day. Not very much right? How fast did you run out of spoons? Now what do you do? Just give up on the day? But how are you able to complete the tasks you have to do... well I guess I could borrow a spoon from the next day. But then it wrecks that day and can quickly become a downward spiral. But for those who aren't 'sick' most people have unlimited spoons so they don't have to think quite so hard about it.
Interesting thought right? For me, during school and say midterm weeks my spoon collections seemed pretty limited. There was only so much I could do, and at a certain time my brain would actually just shut off from exhaustion--and at that point I would only have about 3 more spoons left. But I have an exam the next day, classes ended at 12, so I have 2 decent hours to study, but I need lunch that takes time, so then I have 1.5 hours. But the beginning of my week was brutal and I just need to rest. So I go home, eat, sleep, maybe go for a walk, try to study, and then go to bed at 8:00pm. OR I can borrow a spoon from the next day...sure, I'll take some caffeine and stay up later and study. However that wrecks the next day because now I have one less spoon for that day. I am now even more tired. I panicked all night about this test, I didn't sleep well and now I have to go write a test and I am kind of freaking out.
At times I find myself thinking about what I can do or counting my spoons in the afternoon on a Friday and friends are hanging out and want to go have a fire. But I do have think about my weekend and hte week after that because if I stay up late, and my body has now decided that no matter how late I stay up I get up by 7:00am. So I am going to have to borrow spoons from other days, and it might not be just one day, it could be a few days in a row.
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-Just a Girl
2 comments:
I think your spoon story is fantastic!
-Samuel
Thanks, yeah, I thought it was a good analogy. One that I will use for a long time for sure.
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