April 11, 2019

Spring Broken

So we had Spring Break.

Thaddeus kicked it off by accidentally almost cutting his finger off with a machete. Yes, you read that right. WITH A MACHETE. So we got to head to the urgent care, where he received 8 stitches AFTER an x-ray to make sure he didn't chip his bone. (He didn't.) He also had to do a fun exam to make sure that there wasn't any nerve damage.(There isn't.)

And we got to have a super full house for spring break. Blayne came up with my parents, and we had some friends from VIRGINIA!!! come to visit as well. Kaela and Blayne got to be silly together for the first time in, gosh, five years? It was pretty exciting. Kaela was accompanied by her parents, so the rest of us got to have some fun too. We just love their whole family.

The kids all went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. I stayed home because I have MS, and it was being a real *ss that day. We also had a movie night, and a game night, and a couple sit-around-and-chat nights. Basically, it was a low key spring break with some of our favorite people. WIN.

And now everyone has gone back to their respective homes, and school has started again, and I'm back to my regularly scheduled days of..... well, whatever I want really. Actually, I just have a mental list and I go down that list one by one, asking myself , " Self: do you have enough energy to do this?" And most of the time, the answer is not really. It's quite obnoxious. Like, I KNOW I can't clean my whole bathroom. But I'm pretty sure I could clean the toilet, and probably the sink. It's just how it is these days.

I also managed to have 3 mini MS attacks. Those are always fun. Have I ever told you about an MS hug? They hurt. Real bad. Like, I can't move or breathe or anything besides lay in the fetal position and cry.  The "hug" feels like a vice, gripped just under your breast and around the ribs, slowly tightening so hard that you feel like your body is going to be snapped in two. The worst part is the beginning, when it first grabs hold. I took a few pain pills, because I KNEW what was going to happen next, but pills take 20-30 minutes to work. And I didn't make it to my bed in time, so I literally collapsed beside my bed. As the pressure increased, so did the pain. It felt as though my ribs were breaking, and the sharp, jagged edges were slowly puncturing my organs. I could do nothing to stop the torment as waves of pain began to travel down my spine. As I lay sobbing on the floor, I kept telling myself to breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth; one, two, three, four, five. I called for Troy as I exhaled, hoping he heard my cries. He put me into bed, then hurried to the basement for the ice packs, because my body temperature was on the rise. My fever broke four hours later, as did the excruciating crush of the hug.

There is something that happens to your mind when instances of agony have become commonplace. It is a disconnect, as though your spirit leaves the body, hovering from above, so that you don't feel the enormity of the pain. It is a weird, yet wonderful feeling, because then *I* am not hurting, that other Caroline is.

I had three of these hugs during spring break. Thankfully, they were less debilitating the second and third times.

And now, today, people are back at school, and I am still in my pajamas, because I am not yet fully recovered. This is also why I can't possibly clean the whole bathroom at the same time. Isn't life grand?