Here’s the thing. I keep sitting down to write some inspirational prose about how to overcome adversity, see the bright side of life and wrap myself in silver linings made of actual silk. Then I think about the last few days and all of that happy horseshit flies out the window because here’s the simple truth. This MS thing sucks.

I had a big meeting on Friday. I think I’d written about it before – preparing for it, dreading how I was going to get there, blah blah blah. Well it happened. Let me explain a bit more.

In advertising, you get new accounts by pitching companies who need your services usually in a process where you also compete with other agencies who want the same business you do. It’s a long, drawn out process – first there’s usually a big long questionnaire (called a RFP or request for proposal). Once you get past that stage, there is typically an in-person meeting where they decide if they like you better than the other companies they’re also talking to. New business is a big part of my job.

I’ve never actually used Tinder, what with being old and all, but I imagine it works a little like the advertising new business process. You see images of all the options, you swap right over a whole bunch of pictures of not-quite-right-guys or girls, then you find one you like and swipe left. Or that’s how I’ve been told it works. A new business pitch in advertising feels kind of like that. Except with companies playing games with other companies who need their money to grow and give people jobs and make money etc etc etc.

It’s all a big show. And guess who is the ringmaster?

That would be me. I used to be really good at this. I mean, in some crazy way I’m a born performer. Put me in front of a room and I can convince Eskimos they really need my ice. Not only do they need ice but they need MY ice, the special ice that only I can sell. I’ve loved this part of my job from the very beginning of my career when I was a junior scrub who worked all night on documents that had 9AM due dates for submission for the latest RFP. I love it to this day. I feel like pitching new business is when I’m at my best.

I’ll give you the good news first. I’m still good at this part of my job.

I’m actually really good at this part of my job and even though it was hard on me physically and mentally in the week leading up to the pitch meeting on Friday, my team and I put together an awesome story and we were prepared for our first blind date. It was a great presentation. We had great thinking and awesome creative work. We had assembled the right team – people who not only know their business but liked each other. Chemistry in the room at a new business pitch can make or break you. We had everything going for us and we killed it. Each person in the room made me proud. I made me proud for the two hours I was in that conference room playing ringmaster. So good news, right?

Well. Not really. It was everything else about the day (and the week before) that completely and totally sucked. I had made plans. I think I’ve written before about the amazing village of people I have around me in all aspects of my life. My work life is no different. My people are around me cheering me on. They offer help and support of every kind. On Thursday afternoon, the day before the pitch, I ran into a snag at my usual parking destination at the valet stand across the street from my office. For some odd reason they were full and couldn’t park me.

The thing is, my legs have been good for absolutely nothing for weeks now and I panicked for a minute wondering what the hell I was gonna do because I had to work on this presentation with the team who were in from out of town but there was no way I could walk more than half a block to get to the office. I noticed a spot on the street in front of what looked like a giant tour bus. I parked there. There may or may not have been an orange cone sitting about three feet in front of the bus, and I may or may not have gotten out of my car and moved the cone to let myself fit in the spot. I knew it was a sketch move, but I had to get into that building.

At around 4:30PM while I was in a conference room doing a walk through of our team’s presentation for the next day, I got a text from our office manager Pam. She said there were flat bed tow trucks out front of the office and my car was the last one there, still parked in front of the bus. I could be next. I jumped up in a panic and took a step and immediately realized that this was an even worse situation than it appeared on the surface because it was going to take me too long to get there. My car was about to be towed.

Pam, wonder woman that she is, grabbed my keys and went flying to the elevators. She ran outside and basically threw herself across the hood of my car so that nobody would take it away before I could get down there. I packed up my stuff and willed my legs to move. They barely cooperated. As I made my way across the office lobby my Ugg boot caught a carpet edge and I nearly went flying but the valet guy who was in the lobby looking for me literally caught me in his arms and kept me on my feet. I got in my car and I had to go home because the street was closed for some kind of special event (apparently the orange cones and giant white buses were for this special event).

Well that was a dramatic end to pre-pitch night-before planning. But I felt good about it. I knew we were ready. I knew we’d have a great meeting. I made all the special arrangements I knew I’d need for the next day (meals, rides, outfit and shoes and such). I planned to get lots of sleep and give myself a good chance for a good leg day for pitch day. I was being optimistic even though I haven’t had a good leg day in weeks. Miracles happen, right?

Nope. Not often anyway.

My legs weren’t actually legs on Friday. They were useless trunks of solid wood. They were made of stone. They had no intention of being used as legs they just wanted to hang there and look good. My legs woke up on Friday thinking they were inanimate objects. Every time my brain told my legs to walk, my legs would barely move. If they moved they dragged. If they dragged they got stuck and made me trip. They moved so slowly that they seemed to be moving backward. I was the definition of awkward. My body would not cooperate no matter how many smart plans I’d made to prevent my body from screwing up this important day.

Like I said, the meeting itself went great. Or so they tell me. All I could think about was how much pain I was in and how many of the clients would still be left in the room when I left and who would see me lurch slowly out the door like a drunk, injured woman. Not like the woman who had to command the room and set the tone and run the meeting like a boss. In my mind, seeing me move like that erased anything good these people might have had in their minds about me based on my performance.

My co-workers carried my things, helped me from place to place, tried to walk slowly enough not to actually lose me but sometimes forgetting and having to wait while I leg dragged to catch up. At one point one of my co-workers had to stand outside with me to wait for my ride (the ride I’d arranged to take me two blocks). It  look longer than it should have because my ride had to circle the block at 4PM on a Friday because by that time of day, I was unable to walk across the street during rush hour. My co-worker stood outside with me to wait but she had no coat. She stood there anyway.

By that time I couldn’t even lift my legs to get in the car. I had to lift my right leg in with my arms. I did the same thing when I got dropped off to my waiting car to drive myself home. My car that was waiting in front of my office building with my trusty valet, a whole TWO BLOCKS away from where my big meeting took place.

All of that because my legs can’t take me two damn city blocks. Or 50 feet. Or anywhere, it seemed, that I need to go. I sat there in my car waiting for another co-worker who I was giving a ride home. She hopped in the car to find me sobbing.

“It’s so fucking hard! Everything is so fucking hard,” I said. And said it again and again and again. But we had a good meeting, she said! But you were awesome, really you were! She said. She said all the right things. The thing is there is nothing to say because this really isn’t ok. None of this is ok.

I do this because I have to do it. I have to do it for a lot of reasons – some of them really super practical things like, um, mortgages and bills that require paying and they all have my name on them. Then there’s the reality of health care and medicines that require health insurance for what will now be seen as a pre-existing condition for the rest of my life. The Ocrevus I am taking that costs as much as a decently equipped Mercedes twice a year.

I do it because it’s the only part of my life that feels like my life used to feel. I do it because it keeps me a part of the world in some way. I do it because I’m good at it and because some sick part of me loves this insane business. I do it for all of those reasons.

But goddammit. This is hard. The Great Scott and I are going to have some date on April 17. He and I are gonna discuss this Mercedes-costing drug I’m on that was supposed to make this whole thing better, not worse. How patient am I supposed to be with this whole thing? How many more days like Friday will I have to deal with before this whole thing changes?

I know. I know the answer. As many as there are and maybe more than there have been. There is no answer. Dr. Scott will have no answers. We will wait and see, like we always do or we will talk about the next pricey poison he wants me to consider. We will ask permission from the insurance company that I am desperate to hold on to and then we will wait until they say yes or no, and if they say no we will ask again. Then in six more months it will happen again.

Anyway. I also got myself some trekking poles for my trip to Nepal…Just kidding! I’m not hiking in the Himalayas. I got them because someone who knows more than me suggested they might help me feel more secure if I have to walk longer distances than I feel I can by using just Stanley. I will use them to try to learn how to walk again. I will look ridiculous doing this. It will be hard. And I will hate how hard it is. And I’ll probably do it again in 6 months with a different contraption to help me get from point A to point B.

I can hardly wait for the meeting where I get to walk in with my fantastic, artic-ready trekking poles.