Life is weird and I’m ok with that. I think so anyway….
I have a habit of not wanting to say things are bad. It’s a good habit to have but not always a helpful one.
It’s not like I deny that things are happening it’s that I don’t want to bother people with things.
I think sometimes I’m doing great! I’m stable and then my body decides that it doesn’t like that and I trip and fall and leave a bruise for two weeks that’s concerning and then I remember that my body is getting worse.
My disease is progressive and it will always be getting worse one way or another I will become worse.
and that this is hard to handle. I think back to almost ten years ago right before my nose surgery to clean my Sinus and remove a bone that wasn’t suppose to be there. I think about how confused and unsure of how or why my body was so weird.
But how after the surgery I knew things were never gonna get better. I know my body was gonna kill me.
As the years have gone on I’ve slowly seen the progression of my diseases become worse. Small things like eye sight getting worse or Small things like not being able to orally eat much. It seems to lose at least one or two foods every now and then to come down to only really being able to eat bites.
Somethings have gotten easy but also harder. I use to need my wheelchair every time we went out. For a few reasons ones mainly because I use the wheelchair for one of the big reasons because I had so many seizures that I was falling every time I had one causing more problems than ever like once being on the pavement in a Target parking lot and your parents not being able to get you up and into the car and having to have a stranger who just asked if we needed help! help your dad get you in the car.
The seizures have lessened because of my VNS which is my Vagus nerve stimulator. Which is a small device that is wrapped around my vagus nerve in my neck/chest on goes to my heart then other goes to my brain.
The device is like a pace marker for your brain. It goes off on this small pulse every 90 seconds. It has a pulse that goes off that’s higher whenever I put my magnet on my VNS.
Now the highest plus goes off whenever it feels a seizure of some kind happen inside my brain/heart and that one goes off for a normal person (well normal person who has seizures and happens to have a VNS) is around 20 to 40 times and that’s a bad number to them.
Mine goes off over 200 times every day. So without the VNS I’d most likely be having over 200 seizures a day. So yes my VNS is something I love and am beyond grateful for!
I know that the seizures, the diseases that have been slowly killing me. will never go away. And that they will get worse.
But I don’t have to use the wheelchair as much now. I can walk more. But I don’t go out as often. Partly because when I do it’s an event and I can’t do much the next few days…
I don’t have to use my epipen as much as I use to but I don’t do as much as I use to. And I’m able to get my IV Benadryl like I should be there are times when we have trouble getting it but it happens less often then if use to. But I don’t eat as many foods or eat food orally as much. At All.
All my nutrients come from my feeding tube.
My body has issues with getting sugar from my feeding tube. I got to hear the best thing I’ve ever heard a doctor say “your gonna need to try and eat more sugar and salt orally as much as you can!”
I was like I will make that sacrifice! So hard to do. But ok doctor I will eat ice cream every day!
Do I miss eating normal foods orally? Yes. Of course I do. But now it doesn’t seem like a big deal to not eat them.
It has just became something normal. I can go to a restaurant sit and not eat and I don’t even give a second thought about it!
I don’t think I’m better then I was. I’m just learned to be better at handling it.
I get hurt more often then I use to. By that I mean I fall more my hands do this thing which is considered a seizure which I didn’t know for a good while but my hands do this thing of dropping something my hand will just stay in the same position a few seconds afterwards. Now the most annoying thing my hands do is randomly throwing something. That one gets my last nerve like hand what are you doing?!!???
My joints go out of place a lot making me randomly fall. This past summer I got burned by an iron twice while doing crafts. The first one was a first degree burn the second was a second degree burn funnily enough.
I am constantly covered in bruises and things. I had to have two teeth surgically removed in September. because of how deeply my tooth was in the jaw bone
The top tooth on the opposite side of my mouth was a wisdom tooth and I broke it during a seizure an over a year ago. They had to cut into mg sinus cavity to get it out of my cheek bone I don’t understand how mh body even works
I’m saying all this to say it’s the weird things that happen randomly that’s what makes it hard.
It has gotten easier to remember to take my meds, to carry my backpack doesn’t seem hard now. It’s been basically a part of me
Don’t mind being home watching tv, baking, doing crafts, like making bows or crocheting.
I can do everything I’m supposed to. Everything the doctors tell me to do. And I know that I will get worse. My diseases will progress no matter what I do.
I will lose friends to diseases. Having friends who understand your health is always helpful but turns hurtful because you know they have the same or similar outcome as you do.
But as the years go on that progression doesn’t seem as scary. Doesn’t feel as hard to handle. The thing you learn is it’s ok to be ok with getting worse. It’s a good thing to learn your limits. Your life is hard but you don’t have to be fearful.
Getting my feeding tube changed out which happens every 6-10 months doesn’t seem scary anymore it’s more like just going to have a conversation with the people in radiology.
Getting Hickman drsssing changed every Friday at the Rabb clinic (infusion center here where I live) doesn’t seem like a big deal it’s basically me going to visit the nurses and front desk people. The guy who drives the little trolley type thing that picks people up in the parking lot to take them to the front of the hospital. I see and talk to them all.
It becomes less of a problem to be able to do these things. It becomes scarier but that fear you now know how to handle. You learn to be ok to calm yourself when everything is going wrong.
You learn to be ok.
It gets worse but you handle it better.
Because believe it or not everything can be worse and you can still find a way to be like Pollyanna finding the fabulous in the worse is the best thing to do.
I trust God. I can handle this because I have the Lord and He makes me stronger.
Shayweasel is worse but handling it better
And that worse is some of the most amazing things have happened out of it. It’s the best kind of worse I could ever ask for and I’m blessed to have it.