There is a consistent phenomenon that occurs in my life every single time I’ve ever had the audacity to love my life out loud. Well. It doesn’t only happen when I love my life out loud, it also happens when I allow myself to be a tad more positive than usual when considering my own particular circumstances in a written form. It’s the inevitable backlash when I discover something that might be almost good. Something bad almost always follows.

I’m not making this up. You know by now that I am a dedicated journal writer. I’ve written my way through days and nights of happiness, sadness, joy and pain (pump it up pump it up) since my high school years. It’s what I do. How I survive, you might say. This record of my life of 52 plus years has some very distinct patterns – some of which involve bad decisions related to very young men who tend to tend bar, eating or drinking too much of something I shouldn’t, working myself into a frenzy over completely imagined slights and the tendency to do something drastic to my hair at least every five years or so.

Other patterns are around bigger things. Like how I tend to batten down the hatches and retreat to my cave when the going gets tough OR almost as consistently do the absolute opposite and simply pretend my way into happiness by force of sheer will, powered by anything from buying expensive things, to partying a bit too hard or burning candles, all the candles, at both ends until I collapse or until things are somehow better. I’ve proven myself quite consistent.

In my last post, I wrote about how I had to sit back and observe the reality that I am getting better, even it’s happening so slow and so subtly as to almost be impossible to discern with the naked eye. I had to admit it! I have gotten better. I just have. Can you guess what happened next?

Vertigo happened next. Because of course it did.

Now, vertigo isn’t a new symptom for me at all. It was the symptom that landed me in the hospital after my first-ever ride in an ambulance after waking up throwing up and not being able to stand up somewhat out of the blue. Four days in the big house almost did me in, you might recall, and left me with residual dizziness that was anything but convenient. Vertigo sucks, y’all. I mean, having MS sucks in general but having vertigo flare up as part of my MS is one of my least favorite parts of this raging bastard of a disease. Happily, I didn’t wind up in the hospital this time but I did end up in bed for a few days. I did find myself struggling to manage steps again, struggling to shower again and needing more help at home, again. And not leaving the house as much, AGAIN. My first instinct was to call The Great Scott and freak the fuck out, as I have done in similar situations in the past.

But this time was different. I was different.

I’ve lived in this diseased body for a little over three years now and as it turns out and in complete spite of myself, I have learned a thing or two. I can’t say this was a conscious effort on my part. You might say I’ve done my very best to resist all learning, all reasonable attempts at acceptance, all efforts to succumb to the obvious reality that is unfolding all around me and coming out in words on these pages and you would be right but somehow, in spite of myself, I did something different this time when the vertigo hit.

I sat with it. I observed it. I tried to talk myself through the waves of nausea and brain swimming as they happened. It was mostly when I tried to get vertical that the brain swimming on rocky waves began to happen. In those moments of transition from one position to the next my body would start to feel like it was moving when it really wasn’t moving at all. Instead of my usual internal monologue (“fuck, fuck, fuck what the FUCK is happening to me oh my god FUCK” over and over again sometimes even out loud), my internal monologue the last couple of weeks sounded more like this:

“It’s ok. You know this happens sometimes and it’s scary but it will pass. Hold on to something. Maybe we should hum a little bit? Don’t move. Your brain is swirling but you are not. You’re really not. Let’s keep it that way. Just wait it out…it will pass. You’re doing great. See? It’s going away. You didn’t throw up. Good girl! Very good girl. Ok let’s get out of bed now before we pee the bed. You’re not gonna have the energy and motor skills required for changing sheets just now. Ok…hold on to the door. Hold on to the wall. You’re doing great.” 

And then it was over. It was over, of course, for the time being until it happened again a little later and the entire inner monologue thing started all over again. But that’s the good part! I did it over and over again until the waves stopped. I didn’t fall back on my fuck-fuck-fucking at all. Was I happy about any of it? No. No, I was not. Was I prepared to ask for a ride to the hospital for another dreaded in-patient visit in hell? Yes. Yes, I was. I sat with it. I felt the feelings. I observed that shit like a freaking Jedi. I went to bed dizzy each night. I woke up dizzy each morning. It wasn’t getting any worse, it was being rather annoyingly persistent, but I wasn’t vomiting uncontrollably so I wasn’t in danger of dehydration. I was not alright, but I was OK in some bizarre way. I think Whitney would have been proud, to be honest, not to mention TGS who didn’t get my usual panicked missile-gram via email. I watched it. I sat with it. I laid with it. I got all the way Zen on that shit.

Then it happened. Two days ago, when I woke up to pee in the middle of the night, I sat up. I didn’t spin. I just sat up and went to the bathroom and lay back down again when it was over and no brain swimming overtook me. OK. I didn’t “just” sit up. I dragged myself up with my arms grasping at the wrought iron headboard of my bed after failing to wake my numb, dead legs and hoisted myself into a seated position on the edge of my bed by the sheer force of will that is only possible when one is contemplating the need to strip a peed upon bed in the middle of the night. But I did all of that without feeling dizzy. Then I did it again. Then I woke up in the morning and did it again. And…

Whoa, Bethy Not-so-Bright. I almost did it again! I almost loved my life out loud. Or in writing, whatever, but I almost did it again! Fool me one thousand times, shame on you but fool me one thousand and one times, shame on me? Or something like that? I won’t tell you about it any further but you get my meaning. Wink wink.

I’ve been remembering this lesson I learned so many years ago when grieving my husband’s death, and the death of a life I thought I had all worked out at the ripe old age of thirty years old. I learned that sitting quietly, observing the feelings, not panicking but more often writing about them…it was what saved me back then. Well. It was the healthy thing that saved me back then. There were a LOT of really unhealthy things going on back then that I thought were saving me, too, but we don’t talk about those in polite company. I tend to have my most profound personal insights in those places of quiet observation. This time was no different. Here are a few random things that hit me during my week or so of vertigo:

MS isn’t what will kill me. Fear of the unknown is what will do me in if I let it.

Holding on to things is never a good idea. Things will drown you eventually. Things will overwhelm you and make it hard to breathe.

Appearances matter too much in our world. Appearances are almost always deceiving.

Life isn’t fair. But it’s life and it’s so much better than the alternative.

Sadness isn’t fatal. You shouldn’t resist it so hard. You should listen to it.

Friendships in the digital age are weird but also kind of wonderful. My secret skincare loving friends from Japan to Canada from the UK to Mongolia and Florida to Missouri will know what I’m talking about. Thank god for those amazing bitches.

I know I’m probably full of shit. I know the will to sit back and observe when terrible things are happening to me will fail me again in the future. I know it just as sure as I know any true thing. But there is also the chance that I might remember how to observe whatever messed up thing is happening to me at that particular time so I can have new and more obnoxious deep thoughts by Beth. There’s always that chance, isn’t there?

In more mundane news, my recent bout of vertigo made things like reading and writing really difficult. My scrambled brains weren’t allowing for my usual escapes to take me away. The things I wrote came out very badly. I finished one entire book without remembering what the hell it was about. That kind of sucks. I also have a new laptop with a weird track pad thing and an unfamiliar keyboard that is annoying as all hell to write upon. I’m pushing my way through that particular tragedy slowly. Very, very slowly.

I had a super long MRI last Friday to check on the status of all things lesions. No news yet but I’m guessing there won’t be news at all. I’m expecting things to look completely stable – as they have since my very first MRI way back in November 2015 but I am still looking forward to hearing what TGS has to say about it even if it will be almost certainly brilliant and annoying as hell. I had a meeting with another neurologist in TGS’s practice about the crazy notion of shooting up my legs and feet with BOTOX® of all things. It’s going to take about a month to get insurance approval but I’m super curious to see if this crazy treatment approach might make my muscles less spastic and more cooperative. If nothing else, I will have super young-looking feet.

It’s good to be back. Even if for only a short while until the next bout of madness begins, it’s good to be back.