Maybe I'm Just Lazy: One Woman's Journey Through MS and Life: A Falling Out of Love Story with a Very Happy Ending

Friday, April 04, 2008

A Falling Out of Love Story with a Very Happy Ending

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful woman who met a handsome man. They fell in love and moved in together. After almost ten years of cohabitating happily-ish, they decided they wanted to have a baby together. Well, sort of. The woman decided and the man agreed. They got married at the town hall one weekend and a year later they had a beautiful little girl.

They both loved the little girl very much...but each other less and less. The beautiful woman was less worried about the man thinking she was beautiful and wished she could be accepted and respected just the way she was. She also realized that a handsome husband is not always the best husband.

The man and the woman didn't fall out of love on purpose and they did all kinds of stuff to try to get the love back and be kind to each other. But it was very hard. Sometimes they were not kind and they argued a lot...sometimes they even fought in front of the little girl they loved so much. The woman felt very sad about this but she remembered how much love she used to feel for the man. Then she looked at the little girl and thought about how she was born out of that love. So, she kept trying.

The woman pushed all those yucky feelings down and decided that the little girl needed a brother or sister. The man agreed and they had another baby--a beautiful little boy who arrived in the world too soon and too small. The Universe decided the little boy needed to grow and get strong because the mommy and the daddy and the little girl needed him to. And he did. The mommy and the daddy and the little girl loved the little boy very much. And, like Clifford the Big Red Dog, that love made the little boy grow big. There was a lot of smiling at things that the little boy did and things that the little girl said, but the mommy and the daddy did not smile at each other much anymore. Their love got smaller and smaller.

And, then, when the little boy was starting to walk, the mommy decided that she wanted to smile more and live with big love and that it wasn't good for the little boy and the little girl to see a sad mommy and a mad daddy all the time. And even though it made her feel really, really bad, she told the daddy that she didn't want them to live together anymore. So they broke up, the daddy moved out, and he became a single man again.

The mommy was still a mommy, though. The little boy and the little girl lived with her and she cared for them full time and had a full-time job. Then, the mommy and the daddy decided to get a divorce and, because the mommy felt so guilty about being the one to say she felt too sad to live together, she agreed to sell her house and find a new place to live with the little boy and the little girl. So, then, she had her full-time job, her full-time kids, and she had to keep the house very clean every day so people would want to buy it. It was very hard to get out of the house every day without leave chaos behind. The mommy knew that the little girl and the little boy were just being children and children are messy. Somtimes the mommy did silly things like throw dirty dishes in the garbage before an open house.

But, the mommy never, ever wished that the daddy was still there.

And, then, although there was no fairy godmother or magic wand, the mommy and the kids got happier and happier every day. The man just got madder and sadder. He loved his children very much and was happy that they were happy but he did not want the mommy to be happy. He did whatever he could do to squash her happiness even if it made the little girl and the little boy unhappy. But it didn't work! The mommy kept loving her children, growing, and living happily. She even fell in love again, and learned that she didn't have to listen when the daddy yelled at her and blamed her for stuff.

The moral of the story: Too bad blogs couldn't block ex-husbands from reading!

2 comments:

AnonymousApril 11, 2008 at 12:01 PM
Hi, I saw your link on DS, you should really focus on yourself and your health, not your ex, you are just wasting precious energy. If you are so "happy" and so in love, then why are you so bitter towards your ex? If he reads your blog and doesn't seem to leave any comments, how angry, mean or mad could he be? It seems like you are the one holding resentment and anger. Who could blame him for reading your blog, it's kinda like a car accident or a trainwreck, you don't want to look, but you can't help it. Focus on the positive.
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Julie M. BakerApril 11, 2008 at 12:18 PM
Thanks very much, Anonymous, for your comment. Part of how I focus on myself and my health is to express myself through this blog. Sometimes it's insightful and useful. Sometimes it's whiney and bitchy. I am what I am, said Popeye the Sailor man. And, since you only know what I tell you, I completely understand and accept your misperception. I am no angel. I am not perfect. I am just a woman with MS trying to figure it all out. Thanks for reading and commenting.
Lazy Julie
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MS is Lazy!

I just read this on an MS support group site and it made me feel better about feeling "lazy."

When the myelin covering on the nerves is lost/disappears/whatever it does, the nerves don't conduct brain messages nearly as effectively. It's kind of like the nerves have to find new pathways for the messages from the brain. So the messages are much slower in reaching their destination and it takes more energy, trying to find the right paths. This made a lot of sense to me and helped my not feel so 'lazy'.

The Spoon Story

I would love to give the proper attribution for this story but I have no idea where I found it! I think it may have been posted to an MS community site.

My best friend and I were in the diner, talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spent a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time. We never got serious about anything in particular and spent most of our time laughing.

As I went to take some of my medicine with a snack as I usually did, she watched me with an awkward kind of stare, instead of continuing the conversation. She then asked me out of the blue what it felt like to have MS and be sick. I was shocked not only because she asked the random question, but also because I assumed she knew all there was to know about MS. She came to doctors with me and she saw me walk with a cane. She had seen me cry in pain, what else was there to know? I started to ramble on about pills, and aches and pains, but she kept pursuing, and didn't seem satisfied with my answers. I was a little surprised as being my roommate in college and friend for years; I thought she already knew the medical definition of MS. Then she looked at me with a face every sick person knows well, the face of pure curiosity about something no one healthy can truly understand. She asked what it felt like, not physically, but what it felt like to be me, to be sick.

As I tried to gain my composure, I glanced around the table for help or guidance, or at least stall for time to think. I was trying to find the right words. How do I answer a question I never was able to answer for myself? How do I explain every detail of every day being effected, and give the emotions a sick person goes through with clarity.

I could have given up, cracked a joke like I usually do, and changed the subject, but I remember thinking if I don’t try to explain this, how could I ever expect her to understand. If I can’t explain this to my best friend, how could I explain my world to anyone else? I had to at least try.

At that moment, the spoon theory was born. I quickly grabbed every spoon on the table; hell I grabbed spoons off of the other tables. I looked at her in the eyes and said “Here you go, you have MS”. She looked at me slightly confused, as anyone would when they are being handed a bouquet of spoons. The cold metal spoons clanked in my hands, as I grouped them together and shoved them into her hands. I explained that the difference in being sick and being healthy is having to make choices or to consciously think about things when the rest of the world doesn’t have to. The healthy have the luxury of a life without choices, a gift most people take for granted. Most people start the day with unlimited amount of possibilities, and energy to do whatever they desire, especially young people. For the most part, they do not need to worry about the effects of their actions.

So for my explanation, I used spoons to convey this point. I wanted something for her to actually hold, for me to then take away, since most people who get sick feel a “loss” of a life they once knew. If I was in control of taking away the spoons, then she would know what it feels like to have someone or something else, in this case MS, being in control. She grabbed the spoons with excitement. She didn’t understand what I was doing, but she is always up for a good time, so I guess she thought I was cracking a joke of some kind like I usually do when talking about touchy topics. Little did she know how serious I would become?

I asked her to count her spoons. She asked why, and I explained that when you are healthy you expect to have a never-ending supply of "spoons". But when you have to now plan your day, you need to know exactly how many “spoons” you are starting with, which you wont know until you wake up. To answer your question we’ll start your day with twelve. It doesn’t guarantee that you might not lose some along the way, but at least it helps to know where you are starting. She counted out the12 spoons. She laughed and said she wanted more. I said no, and I knew right away that this little game would work, when she looked disappointed, and we hadn't even started yet. I’ve wanted more "spoons" for years and haven’t found a way yet to get more, why should she? I also told her to always be conscious of how many she had, and not to drop them because she can never forget she has MS. I asked her to list off the tasks of her day, including the most simple. As, she rattled off daily chores, or just fun things to do; I explained how each one would cost her a spoon. When she jumped right into getting ready for work as her first task of the morning, I cut her off and took away a spoon. I practically jumped down her throat. I said " No! You don’t just get up. You have to crack open your eyes, and then realize you are late. You didn’t sleep well the night before. You have to crawl out of bed, and then you have to make your self something to eat before you can do anything else, because if you don’t, you can't take your medicine, and if you don’t take your medicine you might as well give up all your spoons for today and tomorrow too." I quickly took away a spoon and she realized she hasn’t even gotten dressed yet. Showering cost her a spoon, just for washing her hair and shaving her legs. Reaching high and low that early in the morning could actually cost more than one spoon, but I figured I would give her a break; I didn’t want to scare her right away. Getting dressed was worth another spoon.

I stopped her and broke down every task to show her how every little detail needs to be thought about. You cannot simply just throw clothes on when you are sick. I explained that I have to see what clothes I can physically put on, if my hands hurt that day buttons are out of the question. If my shoulders and back hurt I wont be able to put on a bra. If my hair is falling out I need to spend more time to look presentable, and then you need to factor in another 5 minutes for feeling badly that it took you 2 hours to do all this. I think she was starting to understand when she theoretically didn’t even get to work, and she was left with 6 spoons.

I then explained to her that she needed to choose the rest of her day wisely, since when your “spoons” are gone, they are gone. Sometimes you can borrow against tomorrow’s "spoons", but just think how hard tomorrow will be with less "spoons". I also needed to explain that a person who is sick always lives with the looming thought that tomorrow may be the day that a virus comes, or a treatment reaction, or any number of things that could be very dangerous. So you do not want to run low on "spoons", because you never know when you truly will need them. I didn’t want to depress her, but I needed to be realistic, and unfortunately being prepared for the worst is part of a real day for me.

We went through the rest of the day, and she slowly learned that skipping lunch would cost her a spoon, as well as standing on a train, or even typing at her computer too long. She was forced to make choices and think about things differently. Hypothetically, she had to choose not to run errands, so that she could eat dinner that night. When we got to the end of her pretend day, she said she was hungry. I summarized that she had to eat dinner but she only had one spoon left. If she cooked, she wouldn’t have enough energy to clean the pots. If she went out for dinner, she might be too tired to drive home safely. Then I also explained, that I didn’t even bother to add into this game, that she was so dizzy, that cooking was probably out of the question anyway. So she decided to make soup, it was easy. I then said it is only 7pm, you have the rest of the night but maybe end up with one spoon, so you can do something fun, or clean your apartment, or do chores, but you can’t do it all.

I rarely see her emotional, so when I saw her upset I knew maybe I was getting through to her. I didn’t want my friend to be upset, but at the same time I was happy to think finally maybe someone understood me a little bit. She had tears in her eyes and asked quietly “How do you do it? Do you really do this everyday?” I explained that some days were worse then others; some days I have more spoons then most. But I can never make it go away and I can’t forget about it, I always have to think about it.

I handed her a spoon I had been holding in reserve. I said simply, “I have learned to live life with an extra spoon in my pocket, in reserve. You need to always be prepared” It’s hard, the hardest thing I ever had to learn is to slow down, and not do everything. I fight this to this day. I hate feeling left out, having to choose to stay home, or to not get things done that I want to.

I wanted her to feel that frustration. I wanted her to understand, that everything everyone else does comes so easy, but for me it is one hundred little jobs in one. I need to think about the weather, my temperature that day, and the whole day's plans before I can attack any one given thing. When other people can simply do things, I have to attack it and make a plan like I am strategizing a war. It is in that lifestyle, the difference between being sick and healthy. It is the beautiful ability to not think and just do. I miss that freedom. I miss never having to count "spoons."

After we were emotional and talked about this for a little while longer, I sensed she was sad. Maybe she finally understood. Maybe she realized that she never could truly and honestly say that she understands. But at least now she might not complain so much when I can't go out for dinner some nights, or when I never seem to make it to her house and she always has to drive to mine. I gave her a hug when we walked out of the diner. I had the one spoon in my hand and I said, “Don’t worry. I see this as a blessing. I have been forced to think about everything I do. Do you know how many spoons people waste everyday? I don’t have room for wasted time, or wasted “spoons” and I chose to spend this time with you.”

Ever since this night, I have used the spoon theory to explain my life to many people. In fact, my family and friends refer to spoons all the time. It has been a code word for what I can and cannot do. Once people understand the spoon theory they seem to understand me better, but I also think they live their life a little differently too. I think it isn’t just good for understanding MS, but anyone dealing with any disability or illness. Hopefully, they don’t take so much for granted or their life in general. I give a piece of myself, in every sense of the word when I do anything. It has become an inside joke. I have become famous for saying to people jokingly that they should feel special when I spend time with them, because they have one of my "spoons".

Maybe I'm Just Lazy: One Woman's Journey Through MS and Life

Friday, April 04, 2008

A Falling Out of Love Story with a Very Happy Ending

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Maybe I'm Just Lazy: One Woman's Journey Through MS and Life

Friday, April 04, 2008

A Falling Out of Love Story with a Very Happy Ending

2 comments:

Sharing is Nice

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Where are you?

MS Books and Related Titles

MS Blogs

The Facts of MS

Info About MS

Who Gets MS?

MS is Lazy!

Blog Archive

The Spoon Story