There’s nothing better at proving to you that you’re a sick person with the capital S then an unscheduled stay at the hospital. When you expect to go home overnight because you’ve had a successful surgery and you end up having to stay because of unforeseen challenges like excessive swelling, and gas it can really throw me for a loop. Here I am again. You would think I would be used to this by now, but I’m not. All I wanna do is go home.

With every test or visit from a doctor or specialist, there’s a little bright light of hope that I might be going home sooner rather than later at this time I know I’m not going to be going home until at least Tuesday and that just feels like an eternity to me. Even though in reality, it will be a couple of days.

I tell myself I can do anything for a couple of days. If it means that I’m gonna get the care that I need because I’ve decided to stay here and get a colonoscopy that I’ve been putting off for weeks and take care of my health even though it’s going to be extremely uncomfortable and gross to get through. It feels like the right thing to do.

I’ve been blocked my dear readers, I can’t get the words out. They’re all just right there at the end of my tongue, but I can’t get them from my fingers to the page no matter how hard I try. I’m forced to talk my words onto the page instead of typing them and it just doesn’t work the same way. I keep reminding myself that I’m not home. I’m sitting in a bed in the hospital because I can forget and I’m sitting here staring at my phone and listening to music. I wake up in the morning and I forget where I am. It’s the most disconcerting feeling ever. You would think I would be used to it by now, but I’m not.

There aren’t many outlets for emotional expression in the hospital because it’s difficult to make telephone calls or have a text exchanges while I’m laying in bed totally uncomfortable. I think it’s always that thing about the reality being that I’m just never comfortable. I keep telling myself get comfortable with this discomfort because that’s what you have and that’s what you need to make yourself happy with. But it’s difficult to get my head, right

I have been unable to move my bowels for five days and I feel like I’m gonna explode. The constant pressure in my gut feels like pushing from inside my body that I can’t control. I can’t control it enough to get it out it’s the most frustrating thing ever and nothing reminds me more that I’m sick with a capital S than not being able to move my bowels like a regular person. It shouldn’t be that way. It’s not fair. And yet here we are. Thank you MS.

I’m not sure that when I was diagnosed with MS that I knew it would get this bad. I feel like there are so many areas in my life where I insist on being an overachiever and this is just another one. If I’m gonna have a disease, I’m gonna have the worst kind of disease possible. I’m going to give you the worst of the worst. My MS is going to show the world just how bad things can get and somehow still survive. I don’t know. It’s like a game I play with myself. You would think I would be tired of it by now. And yet I keep coming back like the worst friend you’ve ever had that you couldn’t get rid of. That is what my MS is. It’s that annoying friend who keeps coming back even though she’s been made unwelcome clearly.

I’m telling myself that soon I’m going to begin to prep for this colonoscopy and it’s going to help me to feel better and the poop will come out because it has to. The doctors will help me and it will be the relief I’ve been waiting for. And it will last because I’m in the hospital and they know what to do to fix me. And it won’t be too hard on my caregivers or me together accomplished like it would be if I was trying to do this at home. The hospital is the right place for me to be and yet nothing reminds me of the fact that I am sick with a capital S than having to stay in the hospital unplanned.

Get your head right, Bethy. Reframe this experience. I am in the best place for me to be. I am safe. I have excellent nurses caring for me. I will get the procedure and it will help me to feel lighter. My beloved care team will get a much needed break. Maybe it’s not the dark winning. Maybe the bright is winning even in spite of me. And I have you, dear readers. How lucky am I?