As I sit here this morning my body is a virtual amusement park of scary rides. 

My arms, hands, and legs doing their increasingly familiar Frankenstine-ian thang.  Spasms and jerks that lost any charm that they might have had months ago.

My mind whirling chaotically, kinda like a rusty, broken down version of The Scrambler at some 2-bit county fair.

Eager to get off the ride, yet knowing I'm gonna stumble wildly and fall on my butt when I do.

I'd go on but I think you get the idea and I'm about to upchuck every bit of cotton candy I've had throughout my life.

And I'm avoiding the real issue (I'm really, really good at that.)

I called off work Monday.  Telling myself I had a bad cold.  You know, that nasty cold that's going around.  The one where you have a hard time moving and putting a coherent thought together, let alone putting it into words.  Yeah, not really a cold, more like a complete inability to function anywhere near 'normal.'

Tuesday I went thru the motions of getting ready for work.  Knowing, somewhere, in the back of my now untrustworthy mind, that I was never gonna make it.  I called off again.  Second day in a row.  Maybe the 10th time since I started working 35 years ago.  (2 of those times times culminated in childbirth and and the bulk of the other 8 in the past year while I was pretending not to have a debilitating disease).

After much inner turmoil and plotting as to how I was gonna continue to play this off as a minor bump in the road, I broke down and called the nurse hotline.  Where I promptly lost all control and burst into tears. 

I didn't so much pour my heart out as open the floodgates and release every truth I've fought so hard to bury deep inside for so long now.

After calming down and explaining that I couldn't immediately come in due to the fact that I'm pathetically dependent on the charity of others in getting anywhere she told me to sit tight and wait for a call from the PAC I've been seeing at the Neuro's office.

He called within the hour.  He doesn't pussyfoot around.  He told me to get the paperwork for FMLA and Short Term Disability up to the mediacl center ASAP.  He told me to call 911 if things got any worse.  He told me he'd be in touch.  He told me to breathe.

My daughter helped me with the paperwork and we took it in.  I remained stoic and full of purpose the whole time, until we got home that is.  Once again I burst into tears.  In front of my daughter.  Gasp. 

It occurs to me that I've done a great job nurturing the "stoic, full of purpose" gene in this amazing child and that, somewhere along the line, she's tossed her own life skills into the mix.  Compassion, acceptance, and faith.  Faith in our ability to handle anything and the acceptance that it would be hard and the compassion that let me know she really meant WE.