Month: March 2024

MS reared its ugly head in 2008 when I experienced my first flare and almost fell off the treadmill I was on. It took several months and more flares to be officially diagnosed, but I didn’t worry about it, even though it was eventually categorized as primary progressive, because all I was experiencing at the time was a minor foot drop and didn’t have any physical limitations other than making sure I didn’t shuffle my feet.  

I presumed a day would come when walking would be impossible and I would be stuck in a wheelchair, but never dwelled on it because that is how I roll. I could have been catastrophizing the situation, so I put the blinders on and tried not to dwell on something that was so far away that it felt like the wheelchair and I existed on different planets. 

Fast forward sixteen years, and the wheelchair feels close. Really close. While I do not fall very often, I am always at risk, even when I am standing still, because my balance sucks and leaning too far forward or too far to one side will take me down. Walking any distance is difficult because the leg is as limp as an overcooked strand of spaghetti. The only reason I have maintained any kind of mobility is because my good leg has always been my anchor, supporting most of my body weight. 

The reason the wheelchair feels as close as it does is because I have sampled the bitter taste of struggling to walk at all these last few days, and the only good thing to come from this is I now know that if the wheelchair becomes a reality, I will welcome it because I will be tired of struggling.

I was disassembling patio furniture over the weekend. Instead of sitting on a chair while I was doing this, I chose not to because one was not close by, and I did not want to walk the distance to get it. Taking the lazy way out, I got down on my knees, “sitting” on the back of my legs, using my upper body and abdominal area to keep my balance. Without getting into the details, my reward was straining something in the hip of my good leg, although I did not realize it at the time. 

After I had rested for a while and rose from my chair to get a beverage, the pain was as immediate as it was shocking. The cane helped a little, but this was the closest I have ever been to not being able to walk at all. Every step hurt, and because I could not put much weight on my good leg, keeping my balance was comparable to trying to solve an algebraic equation. The more I tried to walk, the more it hurt, not only in the hip area but the knee as well, which made the leg want to buckle, and take me down with it. 

Historically, my bad leg constantly spasms and thrashes like a fish out of water, especially at night when I lay in bed, which is annoying as hell. But now, every time the hip in my good leg starts to throb, which also occurs mostly at night when I am laying down, something radiates down the leg, which causes it to thrash and spasm like my bad leg. The sensation is the same as what I feel most nights while I try to fall asleep. The odd thing is that while the good leg is acting up, the bad leg does not. I suppose I should be grateful that both legs are not twitching and thrashing simultaneously, but that is small consolation.

Almost a week has gone by and while the hip still hurts, it feels like it is slowly improving. Whether the thrashing of the good leg at night improves is still to be determined. What I do not know is whether any of this is MS-related. The thought that this could be part of a new progression that has expanded into a different limb is troubling. Fortunately, I am seeing my neurologist on Friday, assuming I can walk well enough to get there. 

I never thought of walking as something to look forward to or enjoy. Like breathing, I took it for granted, not appreciating the fact that it expanded my horizons and allowed me to experience things and create memories from those experiences. How I long for those days.