When I decided to go for this new approach to my treatment, I made some promises to myself. Maybe they were more like challenges that I presented to myself than promises but I decided to treat this experience the way I’ve always treated my work: No matter how bad, intense or scary things might get, I would believe in my ability to figure it out and doggedly refuse to even consider any alternative beyond that which I desired – for me, for my team, for my clients – for all of us.

My therapist Cheryl always reminds me when I panic about anything in life how good I am at hard things.

When I wale in her little room with the busted up leather chair, the acrylic paintings of flowers on the wall behind her head and the overwhelming heat coming from the space heater that’s there for every other patient who always seem to be cold, she calmly reminds me that even though I never see it this way, I am very good at difficult things. I always respond in the same way. “Well that’s different. That’s just work. I don’t know why or how or when I realized it, but this work I do is as easy for me as breathing. I’m confident, I’m smart, I know what to do and I do it. My real life hardly ever reacts to my will quite the way my work life does. Also, my work is a stupid thing to be good at. I’m good at making other people money. I need to be good at really hard things. And I’m just not.”

My long-time friend Jennifer and I have a running joke about the common phrase that is thrown around in advertising agencies when someone is able to surmount seemingly ridiculous situations with ease. When you can do this, people often will refer to you as a “trooper” as in, “Jesus Beth, you really pulled that shit off, you are such a trooper!”

Jen and I always secretly laughed at the idea that either of us were troopers. We both secretly knew that neither of us was really a trooper. We were merely good at impersonating troopers. I hated schlepping around the country, luggage and computers in tow being tossed about willy nilly by the whims of the business world: late flights, late nights acting delightful, long meetings not losing your shit in front of clients who might just drive you nuts, and the dreaded canceled flight leaving you stuck in a place you didn’t want to be for longer than you wanted to be there. I would text Jen in these times with our personal code, “JENNIE…stuck in NYC and I am SO NOT A TROOPER.” And we’d laugh.

I think of this phrase a million times a day since being diagnosed with MS, a disease that makes even the everyday basic actions of life hard and I say to myself, “OMG Bethie, you need to be a trooper! Figure it out! Suck it up for the love of god! Get your shit together!”

The thing is, I realized today that I actually am a trooper! Imagine my delight and surprise when it finally hit me. Being a trooper doesn’t mean you have to enjoy what’s happening in your life, it just means you trudge through it and get to the other side eventually. Nobody really likes being a trooper, it’s just what life requires and you suck it up and do it whether you like it or not. I’m going to say it loud and proud right now!

I am indeed a trooper. And I will get through this.

After the hell that was the longest infusion week ever, I’ve had surprisingly little to deal with after Round 1 of Lemtrada. I was prepared to feel like I am dying. I was prepared for pain and suffering. I was prepared for horror and calamity. Now, I’m not stupid enough to think that any of those things aren’t still out there waiting for me to think I made it through this scot-free, but I am here on Day 6 post-infusion feeling pretty OK. Pretty OK but for one big thing. My legs are pretty much like dead tree stumps these last few days.

You know that my legs are often the source of my MS angst. The fuckers just don’t often want to cooperate when I most need them to, which is often because usable, functioning legs are things most people tend to take for granted. When you have a faulty set of legs, things get complicated pretty fast. Since a couple of days ago, my legs are behaving like Satan’s very own limbs – they refuse to actually lift off the ground. They buckle when I’m gingerly easing myself up and down steps. They make walking the very short distances in my house between things to hold on to rather dicey.

I’ve stayed in bed a few days since this has been going on. It’s kind of the best option really when you live in a three-story house and have shit legs. I’ve been lucky to have my family at my beck and call to come bring me full water bottles, sausage McMuffins and other critical staples of life. I’m also lucky in that I have an amazing bed and time off from that job I used to be so good at to actually allow myself the luxury of time to heal. So what if I can’t move my legs? I literally have no place to be. I am here. I am safe. I am loved and taken care of. I am supported virtually by a network of other MS folks and a network of friends who understand how much I miss life so they send me loads of messages, updates and even video messages! Those are my favorite.

But I’d be a liar if I said this didn’t freak me out just a little bit. I emailed The Great Scott this morning after I spoke with the worlds’ best infusion nurse to let him know what was happening. I explained how I felt basically pretty great with the minor exception of these stupid legs. I wanted him to know how good I felt! That I wasn’t panicking – that I remain optimistic that this aggressive approach to my MS was still the right thing to do. This too will pass, right TGS?

Well, he didn’t sound as optimistic as I felt but I’m gonna give him a pass. When he responds to me himself without sicking Evil Nurse Carol on me it always gives me pause. When he calls me, it straight up freaks me out even while his voice is soothing me. He didn’t call me today. That’s a good sign. He just wants me to get to the ER if things get worse. I wish he hadn’t of said that because it definitely harshed my Zen-like approach to this post-Lemtrada recovery situation but I’m still sticking to my trooper-like optimism. His reply didn’t beg for a response but I had to send one. I had to let him know that I was not accepting anything but open optimism when it comes to what happens next:

I’m cracking my own self up. I can see TGS over there in his office thinking to himself in his sardonic, big-brained inner voice, “Methinks Maribeth doth protest too much perhaps.” Maybe he’s right. But I’m not letting this shitty leg experience harsh my vibe. My approach to this is simple:

1. When you go to move your legs and nothing happens, don’t panic.

2. Use a little shopping bag to carry supplies from floor-to-floor to allow for maximum holding on ability with both hands.

3. Take the drugs I’ve been prescribed, as prescribed. Take the other drugs that help relax my muscles that I get at the dispensary as needed.

4. Pick up a good book. Read it. (I don’t have a television in my bedroom and I’m kind of resistant to adding one even in my current predicament.)

5. Drink lots of water. Pee. Sleep. Repeat.

I stayed most of this day in my bed but I eventually made it downstairs. I’m reading a book that I kind of love but that is also irritating to me because as usual, someone went and wrote a book about the way I live my life before I could actually write it myself (this haunts me…I am haunted by the books I didn’t take the time to write). I shall feed the kitties in a bit and loll about on my big green chair until said time that I realize I can’t climb the stairs one more time today – and then I shall retire to my boudoir, as one does, and loll about some more up there.

I’m not sure what happened to my brain during that hell week of infusions but whatever it was, I think I like it. Maybe it’s the realization that this is kind of my last hope – for now anyway. There is not currently a cool new treatment for me to have my unrealistic hopes set upon thus keeping my life firmly rooted in some kind of ungodly medical limbo. Until there is, I feel some kind of strange calm. I’ve officially done everything I could possibly do, medically speaking, and there is some crazy freedom in that fact.

My legs don’t work so well right now…but I’m choosing to believe that it will work out somehow. I’m going to avoid the ER at all costs, sorry TGS. That place is no place for sick people. I’m going to follow doctor’s orders and I’m going to keep envisioning my central nervous system as a golden network of wires inside of my body that is currently not being attacked. I keep envisioning my golden central nervous system as glowing with the reality that the rogue cells that have been attacking it relentlessly have been killed dead. At least for the time being.

I envision the inside of my body empty of bad things. I envision it resting and appreciating the respite. I can almost feel the lack of badness inside of me – even though I can’t move my legs so well right now – that void has a distinct feeling and the feeling is good.

That’s how I’m feeling for today anyway.