Hi everybody, so at the end of last week I was taken ill wit..
🕑 Added 2022-01-24 21:29:50 +0000 UTC
Hi everybody, so at the end of last week I was taken ill with a stomach bug. I’m going to describe below what it is like having a stomach bug when you are also partially paralysed with MS. I’m not going to hold back, so some of it might be a bit gross. It is important to me to be real here, to share my life the way it’s actually like.
So when I woke up I felt queasy but was generally okay. Within a few hours I felt very sick and was running a fever. It’s got progressively worse, with my temperature rising, and me being sick over the course of many hours and through the night. The following morning I was feeling much much better.
When I am sick certain aspects of my MS get worse. The stiffness I feel in my limbs is significantly magnified and I get terrible cramps. What do you do when you get a cramp? You stretch it out. With my stiffness I am unable to stretch the cramp, so the cramp continues to hurt me until someone else can stretch that part of me in the right way. In addition to the usual issues with my legs being stiff I have trouble with my hands. They would just clench, with my nails digging into my palms, and I was unable to open them. I had to rely constantly on my boyfriend to unstick my fingers and stuff a sock, or something similar, in them so I did not hurt myself. He was also, always, stretching my legs and feet to alleviate cramps.
When I needed to be sick I could not make it to the bathroom so I needed to use bags. Which was another gross thing for my poor boyfriend to deal with. I was also unable to access facilities to wash my face so I had to keep a cloth nearby and my boyfriend brought me bowls of water. I was so stiff I was unable to be stood up or transferred to my chair. I was literally stuck on the bed. I was too stiff, and in too much pain, to be lifted or carried anywhere; I really could not move.
Because I was unable to get to the bathroom I was unable to do the things that people traditionally do in the bathroom. For this I needed to use these little bottles with like a funnel on top. During the early hours of the illness, when I was still able to manoeuvre into position. Even if I couldn’t make it to the bathroom. During the worst of it I had to where pads that I was able to go in to. This is an incredibly humiliating thing to do and not something I was at all happy needing to use. Or relying on my boyfriend to change.
Sleeping at night was incredibly difficult. I was unable to move into a position that was comfortable, in constant pain, and needing to be repositioned every 20 minutes or so to try and alleviate some of the discomfort.
I was so glad in the morning it was over and I was feeling better. And I am so grateful for my boyfriend for helping me through it.
If you have any questions about this experience please feel free to message me and I will answer them for you.
