body

I have a lot of shit to say to this body. I constantly see body positive things on Instagram and Pinterest, but those are about accepting your size, not about accepting that your brain is set to self-destruct.

How can I love a body that is actively trying to kill me? I didn't wake up one day and decide to stop walking. I woke up one day and my body decided for me. How the fuck am I supposed to love that?

I feel like I've been in a fight with my body my entire life. I have always been the person who gets so hot from physical activity that my face turns a shade past red, to an almost purple. And it stays that way until every single person around knows that I tried to be healthy and failed.  This, is a symptom that I had for 30 years before I was diagnosed with MS.

I would never go so far to say I was an athlete, but I was an active person. I was involved in activity all the way through school. But I always felt overweight. I have poly-cystic ovaries, which in some cases isn't a big deal and people still get pregnant and have normal periods. Not me though. I don't get pregnant, I don't have normal periods, and I have a very silken and illustrious mustache. Yeah, love this? No thanks.

But I'm trying. And the first thing I did was stop dieting. I've lost weight before with Weight Watchers and from starvation (separate instances) and I'm done with that life.

I don't know exactly how it happened, or when, but at some point, I decided that I had to be skinny to be pretty. As I'm typing this, I still half believe it. All skinny people are automatically pretty, because they've done what I haven't, so they win by default. I was much older than I should have been when I finally accepted that I would never been a tall and thin, willowy person. It isn't happening.

And all of those beauty norms aside, I have a lot of body un-norms all up in this bitch.

Today for instance, I woke up and my hands were so swollen that I could only get my wedding band on. I have to wear a specific type of pants because if I don't, I will pee myself trying to get them off. I have a hard time with zippers and buttons. I never fasten my coat because I feel confined in it and my upper body cramps up. I can't wear certain fabrics. I constantly feel like the tip of my left middle finger has a piece of tape on it because it's numb and doesn't feel like the rest of them do. 

I do my shots every Wednesday. It's an intramuscular injection, so there is no fun "grab a little fat on your stomach and stick it in". There is "Hold on to your butt, because we're going in hard and fast". My injections go into my thighs and I alternate each week. The needle is 1.5" and is spring loaded into the pen the houses my medication. I put the pen-tip on my leg, press down so that the safety releases (yeah, my medicine is so badass, there is a safety) and when I press the big blue button at the top, it shoots directly down into my muscle.

Which whatever, I have continual bruises on my legs. No big deal. However, you can't see what is under the skin, and several times, including last week, nerves can be hit. I've hit veins before and tasted metal instantly. But those times when I hit a nerve, it's awful. One week ago today, I hit a nerve in my left leg with my injection. Today, seven days later, the skin on the front of my left leg and hip burns so bad that it feels like it's on fire. In a few minutes, it will be ice cold. A few minutes ago, it itched. So you tell me, is it possible to love that?

This, like my body itself, is a work in progress.