File this in the folder called “Italian mothers are no joke.”
I pretty much slept all day today. My dizziness keeps getting worse. It started out as a passing thing. Now it feels like it’s here to stay for a long visit. When I rolled over in bed this morning and I felt like I was on a boat on choppy waters, I knew I should just stay put. I managed to get myself downstairs to feed the beasts but I didn’t dare attempt the basement stairs to scoop litter. I called for reinforcements and my angel of a nephew came to the rescue.
I called my mom to check in after that because if I don’t, she often begins to worry that I’m rolling around on the floor without the ability to right myself (which is a totally reasonable worry when one is my mother). So if I sleep in super late, I give her a warning first. I texted: “Super dizzy. Going back to bed. Call you later. xoxo” (as one does). She replied: “Call me when you’re up again just to check in.” Also not shocking.
Around 3PM I stumbled to the bathroom and back to bed when my phone started ringing.
“Hello?”
“You were supposed to call me, Bethie.”
“I know. I just woke up. The room is spinning. But all is well.”
“OK, well I’m sure you should just stay where you are, Alex is coming by later to help with the cats.”
“But I really need a shower. I think I’m going to try to take a quick shower. I know it will make me feel better.”
“JESUS CHRIST BETHIE. DO NOT TAKE A SHOWER. DON’T BE STUPID.”
“But I’m afraid I might have to go to the hospital. And remember the last time? It ended up being weeks before I could shower and I was dirty when I got to the hospital. I can’t face that again.”
“Jesus Christ Bethie. Do NOT take a shower. I’ll come over tomorrow. I’ll sit with you while you shower to make sure you’re OK. You’re not going to have to go to the hospital. Stay where you are. Alex is coming to help you later. DO NOT SHOWER. I FORBID IT.”
It’s important to note that two invocations of “Jesus Christ” in any conversation with my Italian mother is never a good thing.
At this point I know better than to argue. I agreed not to shower like any self-respecting 51-year-old-woman does when faced with the wrath of her mother. You shut the hell up and you do NOT do the thing she FORBADE you to do. That’s just how life works. It worked that way when I was 15 and it still works that way at 51. This isn’t shocking to me at all. It’s one of the few things in the universe that actually makes real sense to me. Mothers are psychic and always know when you lie. Period. But the thing is, I didn’t even know at the time of this exchange that I was lying! I had every intention of doing what she said and not risking life and limb to avoid being dirty should I find myself in hell, oops, I mean the hospital at some point in the next few days.
One of the other laws of the universe, as it turns out, is that girl children who are strong willed and who might also have vivid memories of being in the world’s worst hospital puking up her guts every 30 seconds with week-old bedhead that ended up being two week-old-bed-head after I was admitted…these girl children also remember that in times like these, these girl children become lying liars.
I knew I had to take a shower. What little is left of my sanity relied upon it. The very real fear of being sent back to the hospital for extreme vertigo was haunting me. I kept remembering the ER nurses who kept telling me how awesome my hair was while handing me more green hospital puke bags without a single clue about just how dirty my awesome hair was. It was insanely dirty.
I turned to my friend Adrienne, enabler that she is, to explain that my mother forbade me to shower and I know I’m gonna do it so if I die in the act of showering, please travel to my funeral from Corpus Christie Texas and give my mother one moment of pure joy in her intense grief from missing me to let her know that I regretted lying to her and I also openly admitted that she is always right. As a mother herself, Adrienne of course agreed to this. Being a MS-having-bad-ass herself, Adrienne also knew I was totally gonna shower because as I told her, nobody is the boss of me. I’m a grown ass woman! I’m a grown-ass extremely dizzy but even more extremely dirty woman who’s sanity required a shower. So when Adrienne agreed to perform her deed in the unlikely event of my death, I baby stepped my way to the shower.
It was quick by my standards. I got clean. I got out. But my standards of quick are nothing to crow about. Let’s face it. On a good day, I do nothing quickly. On a day when the world is spinning in addition to the regular usual everyday MS shit happening, quick isn’t even on the table. I was still in there a while. When I gingerly stepped out of the shower to wrap myself in a towel and glance at my phone, as one does when one knows people who call just because to make sure she isn’t dead, lo! I had two missed calls. This cannot be good.
It was either some holiday weekend work disaster or it was my mom. Those were the only two options possible. Guess which one it was?
Oh, I’m not gonna make you guess! You know I never make you guess. It was my mother. She’d left not one but TWO voice mails. Both said the same thing. “Where are you? I’m sitting on your porch. Your door is locked. WHERE ARE YOU?”
Sitting there in my dressing room with a wet head, wrapped in a towel, many options for escape went through my mind. None of them were remotely practical since the whole room was spinning and also, I was naked and nobody needs to see that. Knowing that if I didn’t present myself in a reasonable amount of time it would be moments until I heard police busting in my brand new front door, I called her cell phone immediately, “I’m here! Don’t panic. I’m upstairs.”
“Well, I’m on your front porch. Can you come down? Don’t rush. I’ll wait.”
“Well. I can come down but it’s going to take a minute or fifteen. I have to get dressed because…”
“BECAUSE YOU TOOK A GODDAMN SHOWER, I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! And that’s why I’m on your front porch. Take your time. I’ll wait.”
No words ever sounded more ominous to me. I didn’t rush mostly because I couldn’t and also because I was all about putting off my moment of shame when I would have to face my mother, all new and shiny clean and smelling of vanilla and SHOWER. I eventually stumbled down there.
My mother is the best. She knew I was bummed out. I might have cried a little when I talked to her earlier when I said I wouldn’t shower because I just am so over this whole thing.
I’m so over NOT being the boss of me! Sometimes this disease makes it perfectly clear who the boss of me is and sometimes even I get overcome by it and just lay in bed and cry. I don’t usually allow anyone to see or hear me do this because worrying people I love makes me feel even worse than a spinning room does, so I never do it. Sometimes, though, it’s not possible to hold it back. All I wanted to do today on this long weekend when other people are out celebrating with fun cookouts and dates and picnics or day drinking was take a fucking shower. That’s all I wanted. And that was going to be too much to ask,so yeh, I cried a little. I might have cried a lot. But crying on the phone with my mother will always, 100% OF THE TIME, bring her to my front door. Every. Single. Time. I should have known better to cry, then lie. I should have known  better!
Well the upside to this hilarious story of being the adult child of the world’s best Italian mother is that she also never shows up empty handed. She brought me a chocolate easter egg she had in her freezer from this past easter. It was a chocolate peanut butter filled easter egg – one of my favorites. Chocolate and peanut butter are two great tastes that taste great together. Some super talented advertising copy writer told me so in my youth and I bought that shit hook line and sinker. My mom brought the frozen chocolate peanut butter egg for me to make me happy.
So, yeh, I’m dizzy as hell. I’m scared to death that this latest series of symptoms won’t pass before I end up in the ER. I’m trying like hell to hold on until I see The Great Scott, my neurologist wizard, on Tuesday at 2PM.
I’m hoping if I hold on until then I can get his take on this almost annual, to the day, repeat of my last first great relapse in July of 2017. I find it stunningly telling that I still seem to have relapse-like events at times in my life when the new goo starts to run low (Ocrevus for the newbies). When I’m a couple of short months from my next infusion all kinds of bad shit starts hitting the fan. It’s making me feel like the question of starting a new drug might be an easy one for me to make. This isn’t working. Maybe something new will?
On the upside, I have an amazing mother and amazing friends and amazing family who help me when I need help. And now, I also have two great tastes that taste great together in a giant chocolate peanut butter egg in my kitchen!
Moms are the best. Is it Tuesday at 2PM yet?