Tag: lesion

Confession.

Forgive me, Tumblr, for I have sinned.  It’s been two months since my last post session.  And woe betide any Tumblr that isn’t updated regularly.

I’m not clearing the path for an announcement that I’ve suddenly had a conversion to faith.  I haven’t.  I’m a quiet atheist.  Which is to say, if you have a faith, good for you.  I don’t share it but I won’t have a dig at you about it.  I don’t believe in spirits, ghosts, fairies, etc. either.  Which is a good thing because MW has had more ‘sightings’ of things/beings that has unnerved me a bit.  Not in the sense of “what might there be in the house?” but in the sense of “what effect is MS having on her?”.  When you’re asked to “stop the dead people from moving me and picking at my sore”, it’s hard to know how to react.  I don’t want to make her feel stupid or humiliate her – these things are evidently very real to her.  But I can’t help her with what is plainly not there.  All I can do is reassure her that she’s not being moved, there’s no-one picking at her sore, and there’s no-one/nothing in the house that has any intent to harm her.  So far, she’s believed me.  What’s caused her to see these things?  I have no idea.  She does have a susceptibility to urinary tract infections, and she had one earlier this year.  But the frequency and repetitiveness of the sightings can’t be down to just that.  My next guess is that they are either side effects of the interstellar array of pain medication she’s taking or there are MS lesions affecting some part of her brain that is responsible for governing her perception of reality.  I had a chat with the MS nurse.  She reckons that side effects would be a likely explanation.  Right now, the benefits of the medication outweigh the risks of the side effects, so we carry on.

Other issues include: an overzealous care company employee who looked to impose a hospital bed on MW.  Apparently, the bed’s too high and is causing problems for one of the carers.  None of the carers had mentioned this to me, nor had they written about it in the daily log.  My insistence that current sleeping arrangements are more than adequate was met with, “I’ll have to take this to social services as a ‘safeguard’ issue”.  This sent me into a bit of a spin.  The idea that, out of the blue, someone can, de facto, impose a change on your living arrangements with little or no regard for how it would affect you is pretty frustrating.  I suggested a compromise but that was refused by said minion.  A compromise that was accepted following lengthy consultation with social services and an occupational therapy visit.  In future, I’ll be extra careful of the influence of care companies.

Right, I’m off to do my Tumblr penance.  Go in peace.

Visions.

Well, the last half an hour has just freaked me the fuck out.  MW is currently in bed.  I went in to check that she was alright before making a night-time drink.  She said, “Don’t think I’m stupid but what would you say if I said I told you I’d been talking to your Dad?  And that he’s all around us?”.  My Dad’s been dead for ten years now.  She grabbed my hand and said that he would have to “show himself”.  She continued to talk to thin air for a minute or two.  I had no idea what to say or how to react.

MW has NEVER shown any interest in the occult or in mediums.  The opposite is true, she was always very sceptical about it.  I remember she once went to see a fortune teller as part of a group but her demeanour towards it was very sceptical.  I know people change over time but this is the first time she’s behaved like this.  It’s really scaring me.  Not the subject matter, I don’t suddenly believe she’s developed a ‘gift’.  I assume she’s either reacting to her medication, or her lesions are affecting whichever part of her brain is responsible for hallucinations and other related symptoms.

We celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary on Sunday.  I look at how she was then, and compare that with how she is today.  It’s frightening, and very upsetting.  Tonight’s incident is another in a long list of examples of how MS has changed her.  I’m scared.  I’m scared of losing her completely.  I’m scared of the future.  And I’m tired of being scared.