I try to avoid everything I write sounding like an out and out bitch fest, I really do, but I seem to fail at this more often than I succeed lately.

Do you ever feel like you’re being tested?

I practice gratefulness. I remind myself over and over again how good I have it. How many amazingly wonderful things and people I have in my life that I should never, ever complain about a single solitary thing. How lots of people look at this life I have and wonder what I did to deserve such abundance, such amazing …luck. I make the lists. I do the meditation. I practice loving kindness. I do all of that shit, I promise you. I do it! I believe it (almost). I really do.

Then I have a week like this week, and the lists, the mantras and the grace shoots out of me like…well. I’m just going to stop that analogy right there because it wasn’t going anywhere good.

It started out well enough. I was super tired after PT on Tuesday, but I survived. I had a new therapist covering for my usual girl who was on vacation this week. DJ is Melissa’s boss. He took me through some of the same things she usually does but he added in a few new things to mix it up. I was whipped when it was over, but that is to be expected, or so I’ve come to accept.

I was having a decent work week, although I had failed to make it into the office even once and I also had to cancel my weekly appointment with my Precious (aka, Cheryl, my therapist) because I was too weak to walk there. But I told myself even that was OK. I had to prioritize my physical health over my mental health. I’d already established this as my new priority. The decision was easy.

I was trying to be like the water, as I’ve learned from the Buddha over and over again through the years. I was trying to let things happen and do my best. My best would be good enough, I told myself. My best was probably better than I give myself credit for, I told myself. I even believed it.

On Wednesday, I was doing my work from home thing and being crazy productive, yakking it up on conference call after conference call, doing my pelvic tilts and side leg lifts to prevent myself from sitting all damn day. I was feeling myself, you could say. But I wasn’t paying attention to the details. This is what gets me.

Every. Freaking. Time. When I stop paying attention to every detail and forget for a moment that I’m generally broken.

I was on the phone talking to Brooke, my trusty number 2 and long-time friend, when I realized I had to pee. Like immediately. Sometimes when I’m on calls, one after the other like they tend to be, I forget the basics. I forget even the biological basics made even more urgent by that pesky MS bladder thing. Brooke and I have been working together for so long, so closely that we’re more like family than co-workers. We both laughed when I asked her if it was OK if I peed while we talked because my next call was going to start right after this one and I wouldn’t have time to go. Yes. This is also part of my new MS life. I talk way too openly and often about bodily functions not usually appropriate in polite company.

I was listening to Brooke tell me some really good stuff about work while simultaneously getting up to walk towards my stairs to go up to where the bathroom is, when I felt my left foot get stuck while my upper body kept moving forward. The top of me had momentum but the bottom of me wasn’t going any damn where.

I tripped on the runner that goes across my living room from my front door to the kitchen. Yes, the same area rug that I tripped on once before that resulted in a nice purple and yellow bruised nose and face. This time, as I was going down, Brooke was still talking. I was making gasping noises as I tried to stop myself from going down all the way but then I realized that was futile and let out a little gaspy yell kind of thing. Brooke suddenly realized what was happening, “Are you falling? OMG are you actually falling right now? Are you OK? BETH ARE YOU OK?”

By that time I was on my living room floor, face first like I do.

Luckily, I missed the hardwood banister and landed face first on the bottom carpeted step. Instead of getting off the phone, I basically yelled into my wireless headphones at Brooke, “JUST KEEP TALKING I’M OK. JUST KEEP TALKING DON’T STOP TALKING.”

I mean, what?!? Who even does that?

I fall down in the middle of a conversation and then I yell at the person on the phone who is expressing concern and asking me if I need help. I just sat there on the floor, once I rolled over and got off of my face and tried to catch my breath. Brooke, god love her, kept talking! She did offer to get her husband to come over and rescue me. But I assured her I was going to get myself up just fine, given a few minutes to collect myself, and that she should JUST KEEP TALKING. While I sat there on my living room floor.

Here’s the thing. I wanted to burst into tears. I wasn’t hurt, much, but holy crap averaging one fall a week in the last couple of weeks kind of takes it out of a girl. I’m so so so very tired of not being able to stay on my damn feet! Falling is the freaking worst thing ever. OK. I know it’s not. There are so many worse things. But falling is jarring and off-putting and emotional. And dangerous! Nothing makes you feel more helpless than going ass over teacups in your own living room while just trying to take a pee. While talking on the phone. But still.

That next day was going to be the day I made myself go into the office. Not because there was something urgent for me to do in the office that I couldn’t easily do at home, but because my mental health was teetering on the edge of utter disaster. Getting outside of the house was going to help prevent me from going over the edge into straight-up shut-in madness. But when I woke up, parts of me hurt that I didn’t even think I fell on. The thing about falling is that you often hurt what you fall on, but you also hurt what you don’t fall on because of the weird, jerky movements your body makes just trying not to actually hit the ground. I operated my daily business from my bed. I did pretty well. But I did not get myself to the office and my mental health, ergo, was in extreme peril.

By around noon, I started to feel a little less horrid. I told myself that if I could just get up and get a shower, I would surely feel better. I did some stretches and movement to loosen my stiff and bruised body. I got myself into the shower and I didn’t hurt myself at all trying to get clean. I actually felt better after that shower, which is shocking in and of itself since showering is one of the most exhausting and trying things I do. The sun was shining. It was just about the end of the work day.

I desperately needed to get out of the house. So I did what anyone would do…I texted another work friend, my best friend Sandy, and asked her if she would like a ride home from work. And in payment for the pleasure of my company and a ride in my sweet convertible, would she be willing to come with me to Trader Joe’s to get an onion. I needed a single onion. I wanted to have an onion with my grass-fed hamburger I’d planned to make myself for dinner. I didn’t really need an onion but I really wanted one.

In the old days, I would have offered Sandy a ride home and we’d stop for a pop or two (or five) at our favorite bar to unwind a bit and talk about work and life and play some bar video games and have some much needed mindless relaxation. These days? We go to Trader Joe’s for an onion. Thank god for Sandy because few people would understand how desperate I was to get that damn onion. Few people would be as much fun to go onion shopping with.

Once I dropped her at her house, I dropped the top and took the long way home. It was a beautiful sunny day. Not too humid. Not too hot. I drove listening to David Bowie, The Platinum Collection, and singing at the top of my lungs. I took the long way home so I could drive slowly through some back roads and get as close to hiking as I ever get.

It was an amazing drive through the nature. It made me happy.

I went to PT today and had a good session with DJ. He made a few somewhat obvious suggestions (maybe I should get rid of that particular area rug?). He did my walking test again and timed me two tenths of one second better than I had tested the last time.

Oh wait. DJ clarified for me that it was actually 2 one hundredths of a second improvement on my time, but any improvement is progress. Somehow I resisted the overwhelming urge to punch him in the face. I didn’t feel nearly as exhausted after this PT session so my mom and I went to breakfast and I did NOT fall down. I didn’t even fall down when I got home and I’ve peed at least three times. I paid extra close attention to staying on my feet and remembering to focus on doing one thing at a time.

I’m getting stronger. I can feel it. But I can never stop being super duper extra careful doing every little thing I do lest I end up face first on the ground again, unplanned. It’s rather…exhausting, all of this focus on every little detail of every little thing I do just to remain on my feet and off my face.

But I’m getting stronger. Maybe next week I won’t fall down even one time! A girl can dream.