Inflated air

Fortunately my pride doesn't get wounded as easily as my body.

To deal with the pain in my foot, I've been wearing my winter boots. It's been in the 80s and 90s this week. And I've been wearing my winter boots.

Today I started to think that maybe I was being a bit ridiculous. I mean, sure, if anything touches my foot I feel like someone has touched a raw nerve and there's an explosion of pain. That makes walking in my regular shoes excruciating -- who knew how much I curl my toes with every step while wearing shoes? And I can't be barefoot outside. But my winter boots were a perfect solution -- they're big enough on the inside that my feet don't actually touch anything. They're secure enough on my feet that I don't curl my toes at all. And they're wicked adorable because they're a pretty purple. Sure, they don't match the Bermuda shorts I was wearing today ... but who wears Bermuda shorts anymore anyhow?

But while the winter boots were a great solution, I was doubting their necessity. "This is all in your head anyhow," I said. And I meant psychologically, not in the form of actual lesions on my brain.

Sure that I was imagining myself into this curious situation, and not really putting much thought into what I was doing, I kicked an errant balloon the kids had left in the middle of the floor.

Flashes of black and then white. A lightning-like explosion. And before the scream could even escape my lips I had crumpled to the floor beside the less-injured-than-I balloon.

I really hope it snows tomorrow.

Pain

I should never have told him over the phone. And certainly not when he was rushing back to work.

"Oh, honey? By the way ... and I don't want you to worry about this at all because it's no big deal ... but I thought I should probably tell you since it's been a few days now ... anyhow, my point is ... it's back. I'm having symptoms again. It's really no big deal, but I don't think I should drive anymore. And I'm in a lot of pain. But we can talk about all of this later."

I can only imagine his anxiety for the rest of the day. What a terrible way to spring it. What an awful way to reveal.

"It's back." Such an inaccurate statement. It's not like MS ever goes away. He knows that. I know it, too. But he summed it up just right when he was able to sputter out a few sentences in reply.

"I guess I thought we'd beat it. I thought we were through with it. I thought ... I thought it didn't really apply anymore."

I did, too. I mean, there were always the annoying symptoms present. There was the perma-numb hands, the constant itch in my scalp. The blurry vision from time to time and the spin-spin-spinning dizziness. All of those were frequent visitors, if not permanent boarders. But none of them were scary anymore. None of them were new or unknown. And none of them were painful.

Pain. The scariest reality in my orbiting world. I don't fear what comes after death. I don't even fear the idea of death. But I am terrified it will hurt. My only impetus for living forever is to avoid the pain of transitioning from life to death.

This isn't death. It's life. And currently it's physically and constantly painful.

Until it isn't. Maybe the pain will go away. Or maybe I'll grow accustomed to it and it will become the next item on the list of annoyances, of daily deal-withs. Maybe once it's no longer new and unknown it will cease to be deemed painful.

Or maybe pain never stops hurting.