Last time, on bethybrightanddark.com, we found our heroine in some distress.

After a two month flush without meds, and the long awaited first dose of the new goo (aka Ocrevus), Bethybright was getting darker by the day. Body parts had stopped working as they should work. Pain was a constant companion. There’d been shaky legs, heavy legs and legs that didn’t really work like legs. There was some serious relapsing going on up in there at a terrible time for our heroine.

After another round of high-dose prednisone, with a face the size of the man on the moon, our heroine had one of the single worst days of her professional career on a day that should have been one of her best.

Poor Bethybright. She found herself dangling at the end of a very thin, very frayed rope and about to give up and let go (into bed, but that sentence felt more dramatic without that part).

In her anguish and professional shame, late at night while she lay in bed, Bethybright penned a lengthy email to The Great and Powerful Scott begging him for direction.

Dear TGS:

How could I keep getting worse? Was something terribly wrong? Did I need more steroids but what about my poor face and the fact that they didn’t really work last week? Is it time for me to give in and get a cane? See, calling on friends to walk you from the parking garage to your office and back again is somewhat impractical even when you have fantastic friends. Did I need a fallback plan until this new goo, which I’m starting to lose faith in, starts to kick in? I can’t just stay home until I can walk again, right? HELP ME TGS! HELP!

Signed,

BethyDesperatelyDark and Getting Darker

I waited for two days. Nothing. I called and left an irritated message. Nothing. I uttered the unspeakable words to my precious (aka Cheryl my therapist), “I feel like I need to start thinking about a new doctor.” And we both blanched and shook our heads violently, no, anything but that. Once you get to The Great Scott you don’t break up with HIM. You just don’t. It’s because of him that I got to be one of the first patients to get the new goo. He’s the man. He’s one of two men, really, but the other one is at UMPC and I can’t go there in-network, so TGS is the only man for me if I don’t want to go bankrupt. I knew I wasn’t ready to walk away. I began to hate him for it.

Three days later he called me. THREE DAYS.

“Maribeth, it’s Dr. Scott. Well, Maribeth, you fell off my to-do list last night and you are probably very irritated with me. I’m about to leave for a three week vacation, it’s a bit hectic here, but I want to get you settled before I leave. Please call Lisa in my office, she can talk you through some options. I apologize for my tardy response.”

He called me at like 9am, of course I missed the damn call. I was neck deep in conference calls at that time. But at my first break, I called Lisa and Lisa wins the prize for the most helpful member of the TGS team of not-so-great support staff. She was wonderful actually.

He gave me some options. He offered more steroids (I took a hard pass…not worth it, not even close to worth it). He said he’s gotten some anecdotal feedback that some patients who’ve slipped into relapse while on the two-month-flush have taken a little longer to start to see benefits from the new goo, but he still thinks it’s going to work for me.

He said he would support whatever I wanted to do. Steroids. Or wait it out. I decided to wait it out. But while I’m waiting, he’s sending me a scrip for physical therapy. This way, a therapist can help me determine if a walking aid would be helpful for me for the especially bad days.

I just said I might be getting a walking aid.

We’re not going to get into the fact that I just admitted for the first time that I need help walking on really bad days. It’s not a walking problem really – Ampyra helps my legs get the signals they need for walking almost properly. The challenge with my legs is that they are so weak that they threaten to go out from under me at any given, random moment. Part of the reason why the damn party was so incredibly hard for me was this issue with my ability to stay on my feet. It’s not so great right now.

But hey. If it’s going to take a while for the new goo to work it’s magic, a temporary cane is OK with me. It’s much more OK with me than rolling around on Sixth Avenue while attempting to walk into my office. That I am decidedly not OK with.

We’ll see. If I get a cane, I’m going to give it a name. I will know what it is when I see him. I already know it’s going to be a he.

I almost hate to say this, because it changes by the day, but I think I might be feeling a little bit better today. Ever. So. Slightly.

How do I know this, you ask? Well, I took a shower and didn’t feel like I was about to perish halfway through shaving my second useless leg. I’m also finding steps not quite so daunting today. I’m thinking about changing the sheets on my bed! If I have to lay down halfway through that chore, we will know I am full of crap and I don’t feel better at all. But at least I feel like TRYING.

Trying to try is a thing. I keep remembering that. I have to keep trying to try.

On our next episode, our heroine will attempt to make it into the office and do actual work in said office instead of in her living room. News at eleven.