Last Thursday, I met an old friend in Hartford for dinner, and then went back to her new place to listen to music, hang out with her cat Momo, and have a seizure on her couch.
Okay, that last bit wasn't actually in the schedule of planned events. The truth is, though, that with multiple sclerosis, I don't really get to write my own schedule, and while it's been over two years since my last seizure, they're always possible.
With MS, all things are possible, my neurologist likes to tell me. I think it's funny, too, but it's also a good reminder: nothing about this disease is actually static.
Chion is a friend from what I always think of as my first life: I met her when I was growing up in Connecticut, before I left for the military. She knew me best when I was very young, very healthy, and for a brief time, we were in love. She knew my body when it was close to its peak of health -- before my disease began making serious inroads.
Between all the travel I've done for the military and afterward, she's missed seeing the largest chunks of my illness, which comes and goes. I live in Baltimore, so I only visit Connecticut when I'm healthy; I can't make the five-hour drive when I'm not feeling well.
She might have seen me once with my cane. I can't really remember, but only once, if then, and even so, if I had made it to Connecticut, I was doing really well on my cane. The point being, she knows I have MS, but she's never actually seen my disease, and there are miles between those two things.
Late last week, I was leaning on Chi's railing in Hartford, and we were talking. She was trying to bring up some episodes of a YouTube show created by Caitlin Doughty, who had been on the radio show Chi works on (did I mention Chion works in public radio? GEEK GIRL SWAGGER).
I suddenly felt cold and shaky, and noticed that all my sensory information was beginning to feel as though it was coming to me through a filter -- like an Instagram photo, slightly askew and faded. This is my aura, the roughly one-or-two-minute warning I get before I have a seizure. I’m grateful to get such a dramatic, if somewhat nauseating warning of what’s ahead.
I made my way to the couch, and sat down. "I almost have this up," she said. "You want to see?"
"Yes," I said, calmly. "First, though, I'm going to have small seizure. It's fine, and I'll be fine, and it'll be over in about a minute, OK?"
