Just kind of feel like writing about my Jadyn this morning. I was thinking about all of this during our drive in to work this morning and wanted to get it down, if I can.
Jadyn is, apparently, having a flare-up of her MS. Among other things, she has a twitch in her face that pretty much doesn't seem to stop. It's subtle -- you wouldn't see it if you were having a casual conversation with her, but it just keeps on going, and she says it feels like an electrical buzz under her skin. The first medicine her doc prescribed for this made her so foggy and tired that she was almost non-functional. She couldn't lift her arms, but the twitching stopped. Now she's on a different medicine that doesn't make her feel so bad, but the twitching is continuing along merrily.
At first, I thought that it probably wasn't so bad. I've had twitches before...they're annoying, but they don't hurt, right? But I'm thinking now that it's probably pretty bad for a couple of reasons. First, even though it's subtle when you look at her, I'm sure it's like when you have a cold sore or a zit or something on your face and you're sure that whoever you're talking to sees it just like it's got a big red bullseye around it. I'm sure it feels to her like a big blinking neon sign saying that something is wrong; that she has MS. Your face is what you show to the world. Jadyn's face is beautiful. Yeah...I'm probably biased, but strangers stop her to tell her that she's beautiful. She's radiant. That's the kind of thing you want people to notice, not that half of your face is spasming.
And this is on top of the physical irritation and discomfort of it. I know it bothers her because she's mentioned it several times. Jadyn is the very definition of 'stoic', so that means something.
We're going to a new doctor tomorrow morning. Her current doctor is kind of hard-headed and enjoys hearing himself talk, whether or not he's answering Jadyn's particular questions. We've heard really good things about the new one and I have high hopes that she'll be helpful.
In the meantime, I'm thinking about my girl, who is struggling with this awful disease (facial spasms are just the newest symptom, and are unlikely to be the last). Sometimes she seems distant to me and cold, and sometimes when I just want to be a girl in love and laugh with her and hold her, and she is only partly there for me, I forget that she's probably doing all she can just to hold herself together.