Last updated on November 26, 2023
It has been a tough couple of weeks. I skipped a class last week because I could not speak well and was having a great deal of difficulty walking. My mind and body are not in agreement lately. With all that has been happening at the university, it was reasonable not to attend class with flapping arms and strange verbal outbursts.
I wish I understood myself and could control my arms, my legs, and my mouth!
This weekend I slipped down our basement stairs, fell into the walls more than once, and whacked my face against a bookcase in our bedroom. My internal sense of balance is definitely offline; whatever internal gyroscope most humans have is malfunctioning.
The verbalizations, usually grunts and shrieks from pain, are annoying. It is worse than an elderly man trying to stand up from a beanbag. I yelp in agony, randomly, without realizing it. Quite annoying. You would think I could bite my lip or something. It scares the cats.
The pain seems to result in something like the chills. I have been shivering in a perfectly warm house. I shake, sometimes violently. It makes it hard to type or even to hold a book to read. I will type a word or a sentence, shake and flap, and then type again. It is all very weird, I am sure.
Susan has been reading up on seizures and my mis-configured neural network. She thinks I have been having seizures because I am losing entire days from my memory. Apparently I went for a walk, or at least tried to, in the snow, wearing my pajamas, talking about walking to my favorite donut shop back in California.
Now, don’t get me wrong — it is a great donut shop. (Doughnut, to some.) I really miss the (oily) apple fritters and raised donut “cinnamon rolls” (Susan reminds me that a real cinnamon roll is not deep fried). Despite how wonderful the donuts are, it is unlikely I could walk to the shop from Minnesota. At least I would arrive thin enough to justify donuts, if I survived the trek!
I am fairly certain that Susan is right. Stress is triggering seizures and aggravating my other characteristics. I am in terrible shape, mentally and physically. My body needs a break, which it will not receive until summer, at the earliest.
People did not understand when I tried to tell them any more stress would have terrible consequences for me. I pleaded to avoid physical, face-to-face, meetings. People do not understand the physical pain caused by all the commotion this semester. I am in true, serious, physical distress.
It is probably not right of me, but I wish some of the people around me could experience what my mind and body are like. I wish they could understand, just for a day, what it is like to have a body beyond your control.
More than wishing others could experience my life… I would love to be able to speak and walk normally. To be normal, without the stuttering, stammering, and yelping. To be normal, without the stumbling, wobbling, and falling. Speaking and walking would be a pleasant return to normalcy.