CHANGE...

     The “death bird” came to visit me this morning, quite early I might add.  The crow in the treetop began cawing loudly outside my window, waking me from an uneasy sleep.  The sun had not even begun to peek over the horizon at 4:00AM, when I slipped on a jacket and went outside to sit in my back yard and ponder this past week’s events.  My, what a week it has been…but then again, why didn’t I foresee this?

     The crow and I sat outside for nearly 45 minutes together…it did not move from its branch, sitting above me and guarding my stoic thoughts, as I sat feeling somewhat lifeless and self-absorbed.

     It has always been interesting to me how important symbology will surface if I just open my eyes and “see” the messages around me.  The crow has always been one of those powerful symbolisms since I was a child.  As a matter of fact, when my current relapse began in March of this year, I symbolically placed a black and white photo of a crow at my front door.  It felt as if “death” and transformation were occurring in my home and I needed to be reminded this was an “OK” thing…not literal death, of course, but the process of ideas about my health “dying”.  I think the crow was trying to bring me a similar message again today…I just have to figure out what THAT message means now.

     I spent most of yesterday afternoon and evening in the emergency room…one of the places I despise going even more than the thought of a colonoscopy.  My five day course of IV steroids did not and has not gone well.  I became quite ill in the days following my last dose on Thursday of last week (and still feel ill)…you may have read previous blog entries eluding to this.  By Sunday afternoon, I could not tolerate the discomfort any longer, so I bowed my head and went to the ER…I no longer could discern for myself what I needed or what was the “best” thing to do for my health…something I don’t admit easily.

     After 5 ½ hours of tests, fluids, medications, etc., I was finally released home, knowing no more of what was right or wrong with me than when I entered the ER doors.  Perhaps my symptoms are simply MS related, perhaps they are caused by sudden steroid withdrawal, perhaps I have an infection, etc.  These were all the various “options” the emergency room doctor gave me to ponder in my long wait.

     Extreme dizziness, nausea, headache, facial numbness, cramping and numbness in my calves, weakness in my left leg, nystagmus, an elevated WBC (thus the thought of infection somewhere), diarrhea, and severe fatigue…all symptoms that could be ANYTHING really and none of which would be considered life-threatening.  But all symptoms that are causing me to lose faith I will ever feel better again.

     The good doctor wanted to run more tests.  Irefused.  I’ve had enough “testing” done and enough “treatment” done to last a lifetime.  I have said this before and I’ll say it again, “It is not the Multiple Sclerosis I worry will kill me, but the treatment of it.”  I tend to believe that is what is happening to me now as my body and mind struggle to find a foothold of balance in this spinning cycle of MS.

     I think the crow was/is trying to tell me a very important message this morning about “letting go” and fear and transformation.  I have no control over this disease, it’s symptoms, the discomfort, the cause.  My pride, my health, my ideology and self-concept are experiencing a funeral of sorts and I am at a loss.  Perhaps if I cease my desperate clinging to what once was, I will not be so fatigued and feeling sickly.

     That’s quite strange…as I finished writing that last sentence I am aware I no longer hear the crow cawing outside…message received loud and clear.