I started writing this update the day after I got the latest MRI results at the end of January and just couldn’t do it. I was having some big feels and just needed to let them be felt. Then I needed to not think about it while Shannon and I were preparing for our first time vending at a con. Now that the con is over I’ve had some time to settle with the new information.
The latest MRI results have been difficult to sit with. The MRI showed four new lesions; two on my brain and two on my spinal cord. So it wasn’t good news but it could have been worse news. It wasn’t until sitting with this news that I realized somewhere deep inside I must have been holding onto a tiny sliver of hope that this was all some big mistake and that whatever put me into the hospital in 2018 was some kind of weird fluke because of how my stomach dropped when I got the news about the new lesions. Though the news shouldn’t have been too surprising. The sensation weirdness was getting a bit stronger in my feet and lower legs, I have been unsteadier on my feet when I’m tired or very warm, and I’ve needed lots of rest.
I’m sure that it was said before during one of those first appointments but the doctor reminded me that the medication takes six months to be working at full capacity. So they are going to do another MRI in six months to “reset the baseline.” I’m not sure if that means he expects more lesions to pop up over the next six months but I’m afraid to ask. There is a bit of beating myself up over not starting this treatment sooner but there is no use in being angry at myself. Or upset. Or sad. But I’m feeling all of those things and beating myself up a bit. I wanted to Hulk smash everything breakable within reach when I was first sitting with this news. I wanted to sob, be held, and be told everything’s going to be ok. You know, one of those good old-fashioned meltdowns. There is life stress, family stress, and marriage stress. There are to-do lists that could fill a book. I don’t have the time or the energy for a meltdown right now, but I do need to find the time and energy to refine these raw emotions or there will be an explosion a little later down the road.
I looked up a feelings wheel when I was sorting through my emotions because I had trouble figuring out the emotions beyond those simple categories in the middle. I knew I had some angry, sad, and even a little fearful but when I looked at the bigger circles there are a few words in surprised and bad that rang true. While it helped me to identify some of the more complex feelings, I also noticed that there were ones I was feeling in the happy section too. I realized that there were layers of emotions going on because while I was feeling upset about the MRI results there were still things happening in my life that I was feeling good about. I think it was good for me to see that because it was a nice antidote to the way anxiety and depression can focus on the negative. It helped remind me that the sun is always still shining even when the clouds are out and you can’t see it.