opening move.

i woke up at 4 am on June 19th of this year with the inability to move the left side of my body.

3 weeks in 2 hospitals, a course of IV steroids & physical therapy later, i was given the tenative diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.

2 months later, i am preparing to go back to my job at a pharmaceutical corporation, part time at first. i am there 4 days, Monday through Thursday, when i begin to feel sick again. numbness & fatigue were increasing down the right side of my body over the weekend. the following Monday i called in sick again, then & went to see the neurologist's nurse. she prescribed a IV steroid infusion to begin the next day. i didn't get that far.

4 am rolled around early that morning with the same paralysis & panic. the emergency room doctor started the steroids & sent me home; my friend called my parents & we gathered in my tiny living room. it was decided there would be no going back to work, the stress was an obvious catalyst. i can carry out my plan to return to school in January, we would address work when my symptoms had resolved 100%. no pushing it, no rush, just relax & heal.

so here i am.
this is me attempting to heal.
i have 3 lesions on the pareital lobe of my brain & an incidental cyst (that may or may not affect anything). my limbs have taken 5 weeks to slowly return to working order, save for my hands.
my hands shake & don't communicate sensations to my brain correctly. while they've significantly improved, writing is a chore & an embarrassment. folding laundry results in crooked piles of shirts too wide to fit in the drawer, & make-up application takes a sense of humor to endure. i can only feel extreme hot or cold on my palms with some delay.

the mind-bending dilemma begins here. (well....i suppose it's been hanging out since this all began.)
am i now an advocate? how do i address life as i knew it?
i've spent most of my days in my apartment since i first came home from the hospital. i am endlessly lucky to have a barrage of friends & a strong supportive family getting me through this. as i am scan the local city college course catalogue of pre-req's, i wonder if i was really happy with my job in biotech. did i like it well enough to commit my entire education to it?

i've decided it was the people i worked with that kept me from thoroughly enjoying my work, as well as the suffocating confines of the small department i specialize in. going back to school will open up some doors & raise the hypothetical ceiling, but the timeframe is just as daunting.

lying the hospital on a steroid drip, i had realized i hadn't done a thing on my mental list of 'things to do', the one who's real purpose is just to make me feel accomplished. the only thing holding me back from getting started?

myself. & all my procrastinating.

so while all this is frightening, fueling uncertainty & anxiety, i'm doing my best to squash all that down & meet the challenge head on. now for muddling through the waiting period until school starts & my hands come back to life......