Oh Clippy

My friend Ian of the extremely entertaining How to do Everything checked in after reading about my diagnosis, and I'm posting a bit of my reply to him regarding my running future and life in general now:

I don't know if I'll ever get to a level where I can actually train comfortably, though I'm hopeful. In my case the cervical and thoracic spine seem to be where I'm having problems, which is challenging my mobility, strength and balance. There's also a real problem with heating up and fatigue, which isn't easy to deal with given our average temperatures. The grieving period for my athletic endeavors lasted much shorter than I guessed it would, but with so much other stuff to worry about (cognitive difficulties, mobility, premature death and catheters and other nastiness), plus the family and the financial burdens made competing at a high-ish level seem trivial. Much as I hope to get back to decent mileage for mobility's sake (40-50MPW would be ideal), I don't reasonably expect to ever have another PR again. If my left leg and hip flexor magically start going where I want it to that might change.

Honestly the hardest thing is just having this press down on me every second of every day (plus the time it keeps me up at night). As I've said to Kiera, it's like having your arch nemesis (be it a co-worker, running buddy, annoying family member or random friend/acquaintance) tied to your leg at all times. As you can imagine, it turns life into a long, sadistic 3-legged race. A new (and slightly less depressing) analogy that's come to mind is having "Clippy" (remember the old Microsoft Word animated paper clip) constantly in the corner of your field of vision. "I see you are trying to navigate a crowded stairwell and you are feeling uncoordinated and off-balance. Would you like MS to make this more stressful and difficult? No? Too bad".
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All this being said, it's been a good week. The runs are coming along, I'm feeling stronger in the weight room, and I'm getting more coordinated in my Pilates classes. I started a short course of the steroid Prednisone last week, which might explain these gains, but I'll take it. I've been tapering down the dose every two days, and I'll be off it by this time next week. I've found that this second course of the drug definitely gave me more pronounced mood swings, and there are certainly more side effects ahead once I start the high dose Interferon drugs (hopefully next week).

Even with all this, life goes on. Our band Lunar Light Collectors plays a gig tomorrow night, and while it was a bit sad to have to reorganize my guitar effects pedalboard to accommodate my newly jittery and off-balance left foot I'll be glad to play again.