My last post left the story at the point of me taking some real time off work and receiving the brain scan results. I felt exhausted to the point where it was impossible to look at the computer screen or read a book, my vision was so blurred. During this time I started to experience new symptoms, like my eyes bouncing up and down and feeling like the room wouldn't keep still, random nausea that would send me running to the toilet to heave for ten minutes, buzzing in my legs which would last hours at a time and would also come and go intermittently, like there was someone holding a mobile telephone on vibrate against my left foot - but only near the outer toes! How strange!
It seemed like there was a new symptom every day; dry and stinging eyes, a dry mouth (I was always having to lick my lips), neuropathic sharp pain in my legs, the need to urinate constantly, and the newest - difficulty swallowing. I have had this for about the last three weeks but it has now left me with a throat infection - which I'm pretty sure has been due to a piece of food which I wasn't able to swallow properly getting stuck in my throat and causing infection. MS can cause weakness of the throat and mouth muscles.
On Saturday 28th September I went on holiday to Greece. Bear and I had paid over 1.5k for this holiday, during which we would attend one of my close friend's wedding, so even though we were very close to calling it off, we went away under the pretence that I would be doing no different than if I was at home. And the fact that it was All Inclusive meant that neither of us had to cook at all. Happy days! All in all I had mostly good days, although there were more moments of intermittent bad symptoms than I had suffered at any point earlier. For example, the buzzing in my legs was constant 24 hours a day, my vision was so bad that I couldn't read my book for the first three days of my holiday, my balance was poor and my friends noticed it when i walked towards the buffet, and my speech was constantly slurred making my ftriends ask whether I had hit the margaritas before midday!
It's incredibly difficult to be socialble when it's hard to hear and subsequently understand people, especially when they are talking over one another. When I'm having a bad day I find concentrating on even simple things difficult, like having a one-on-one conversation, but then put me in a situation where there are lots of people all talking at once and I just back away and I am quiet because I can't comprehend and respond fast enough to join in. It's daunting and exhausting all at the same time. This is why on the night of one of my closest friends wedding, at which I was a bridesmaid, I had to leave early. My mouth wouldn't form the words that my brain was delayed in creating, and I was so exhausted that it wasn't enjoyable for me or anyone else who was around me. What were my options? Sit there and outwardly appear hostile and difficult, refusing to take part in the entertainment because I'm "tired" - there becomes a point where people get fed up of you using that as a reason no matter how true it is - or to retire, even if it involves leaving people bereft because I'm not there to join in. At the end of the day, it is difficult for friends to watch a loved one act so unlike they usually do. Normally I'm the life and soul of the party but these days I'm the first to call it a night, mentally putting my pyjamas on, the milk bottles on the doorstep and climbing in to bed by 10pm.
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