This week, with all the chaos of working, testing and wondering… I surprisingly had a good MS day.  If there is such a thing, that is.  I think it was early in the week, I was walking well and didn’t need my cane, my pain level was not horrible, I was completing sentences, even thoughts….  for a brief moment I questioned myself and my decision.  Please realize when I say brief, I mean brief.  I have officially taken longer to write about the moment then to actually experience it.  I honestly think it was my fear. The fear of the dreaded jugular catheter, the chemo, the picc line (I thank Jen for that fear as I can vividly remember her getting an X-ray because she swore she felt it in her heart- thanks bestie), the recovery and yes, the fear of how ugly my misshaped head is going to be (I feel all sorts of lines under my hair… I really wonder if they used tongs on me when I was delivered).  Today, I KNOW I made the right decision.  I can honestly say it has been one of the worst  MS days for me.  I know it’s because of this cough, but I am almost thankful.  It in a way let’s me go into mobilization with guns blazing.  Go ahead MS…. Have at it because you are about to go down!!!  With all that, there is one huge unanswered question… how can you not remember if they used tongs mom???

Anyway,  I have an untold story that must be told!   My excellent adventure to Target!   Oh, before I began, The doctors office confirmed cough and all I am a go for chemo Monday.

Last night my spacticity was so bad, I  went to get a massage.  Anyone who knows me, knows that there is no relaxing while I am awake.  I am constantly thinking about something…. More often many things.   I get a brilliant idea.  I am going to take a cab and go to Target and have one last horah by myself before I am unable to do anything by myself.   I know, I’m so wild.  I had a few odds and ends to get and I had every intention of staying in as much as possible today and tomorrow.   So as I am getting my massage I am compiling a list of things I need.  A new swifter because we used my hospital swifter in the hotel, a toothbrush I can use in the hospital Monday and leave there, anything that requires me to use the cart escalator…, really important things.  Before I knew it my massage was over and it was time to go.  I hop in a cab and head to Target AT RUSH HOUR. I get there after like a million hours and remember my mother saying she wanted a sweatshirt from the Gap.  I run in the Gap buy the sweatshirt and I’m thinking..  Look at me.  No cane… All about town. I am bad a$&!   I go into Target and for a moment I think that the downtown Chicago Target has turned into Grand Central Station at 8AM on a Monday.  I kid you not…. There was an insane amount of people there.  I think, I am a NYer. I can do this. The hell with MS sensory overload.  I own this!  Then, like in one of those slow motion tv moments,   I imagine every person in there and all the germs they are carrying.  Who is sneezing, who is blowing their nose, who is coughing (oh yeah, that’s me).  Every one of the five million people in Target are going to prevent me from getting chemo on Monday.   Something snaps me out of it… and by something I mean 4-5 people that almost trampled me.  I quickly pull it together and go into defense mode.  Now I know you are all on the edge of your seats wondering how I could possibly defend myself…. I’m going to tell you how.  I open my purse grab my handy travel size Lysol and spray my cart down!   Oh yeah!   Whose bad!  I shop as fast as I possibly can, which is why I was probably not thinking… Hey Colleen, you have to carry this stuff.  I follow the nice lady who tells me there is no wait on register 2. I unload my cart… I reload my cart when I realize there is nobody on aisle 2 because the register is broken.  I unload my cart again on register 3. I smile as the cashier looks at me wondering who the freak applying hand sanitizer is.  I pay for my items and then, right then it hits me.  Oh no,I have to carry all this stuff. No worries… I am bad a$&,  I’m going to hop in a cab at 6:30 on a Thursaday. No one else will have this idea.  So I head out the revolving door.  This alone with MS is a task as my balance and coordination are not stellar.  I cross the street so I am heading in the correct direction of the hotel.. Because I am a NYer and that is how you do it .  I look around and see about 30 cabs… All filled.  I move around quite a bit until I find the best location and I lift my hand to hail that cab.. Only I can’t because I am holding 7 Target bags and a swifter. Ok, I consider dropping them all, crawling into the fetal position and going to sleep on the sidewalk but I think twice about it because it is about 2 degrees and my gloves are still in the Gap bag where I shoved them.  Then like a breath of fresh air I see a cab with it’s light on.  It shifts lanes.  It is coming for me.  I reposition the bags and get ready when a tall blonde woman comes out of nowhere and steals my cab.  It hurt.  It really hurt.  I suck it up and about 10 minutes later I see another cab.  I look around for my competition… It’s all clear.  No one else is waiting for a cab.  The cab pulls up right next to me and i open the door and get in.  Before i can shut the door a woman that I’m pretty sure I gave $5.00 to like an hour before comes at the door and starts yelling at me in what I now believe is pig Latin.  The door isn’t shut and the cab driver pulls up enough for me to safely close the door…  He asks me where I am going in a fabulous Jamaican accent that makes me forget for a second that it is 2 degrees out and I was just verbally assaulted in a language I’m pretty sure isn’t legit.  I tell him and he goes, “oh no… Well, we will try”.  What?  There is no trying here .  I made an enormously stupid decision while getting a massage  and I need to fix it by crawling into bed.  He goes on to tell me there is a huge protest between us and the hotel and he is not sure if he can even get there.   CHALLANGE ACCEPTED!  I whip out my phone and tell him which way to go to get me as close as possible to the hotel.  We are like Bonnie and a Jamaican Clyde, my cabbie and I.  What an adventure. I text my dad and tell him to get ready.  If I can’t make it back, by God my Swiffer will.  By God’s grace he somehow gets me to the hotel door.  Then another  man who I’m pretty sure gave me five bucks a couple hours before whips open my door and grabs my bags (thanks again Dad)l. I generously tip my partner in crime and nearly fall out of the cab.  I did it, I was home (temporary home anyway).  

Now that I think about it… That’s probably why my MS  is so bad today. 

Xoxo

Colleen