Not sure how long it's been since I've admitted that. To myself, or anyone else.
I had two MRI's last Monday, and was told Wednesday I have a brain disease. That's about all I know until tomorrow. And I don't know what I'll know tomorrow. I assume the next step is more testing.
Last August, while in the emergency room for the most intense headache I've ever had — and I've had a lot of intense headaches — I was told I may have MS. There were white lesions showing up on my CAT scan. The MRI a few days later confirmed the same. And more. There were lots of white lesions, apparently.
The MS protocol that was done with last week's MRI came back positive. That doesn't mean 100% that I have MS, according to my doctor. But I do have "severe abnormalities" in my brain. Every time I've told anyone that over the past week, I've made a joke about it. But today, I cried.
I've been rocking a c'est la vie attitude all week. The people who love me are acting really concerned, and to be honest, I've found it somewhat annoying. See, I feel good. I feel healthier than I ever have. So, what's the big deal?
I guess when it really hit me was after my run on Sunday. I ran 9 miles around White Rock Lake — a personal record. After some stretching, as I stood up to get in the car, the stars came. The scary silver floaty ones that won't go away. I closed my eyes. They kept swarming. I covered my closed eyes with my right hand. They didn't fade. I hate those stars. I remember one afternoon last summer, as I sat at my desk at work, how they flew around in front of my eyes for several minutes, taunting me. I had buried that memory until I relived it yesterday.
Today, in my frustration, I wrote this in a tweet:
I've always been great at being strong for others. Now finding out being strong for
yourself is really #*@%ing hard.
But I realized later it wasn't an entirely accurate depiction of my situation. For as young as I am, I've been through a lot in my life. More than my lot in life, I would argue. I've had to be strong for myself, by myself, many times over. This is not new.
But in the past, I've always allowed myself to crumple a little bit. To sink into whatever despair I'm facing, then come out fighting. This time around, it's different.
I've become fiercely independent over the years. And I realized today as I mulled over my mixed emotions, it's not because I'm so strong. It's because I'm scared. I'm scared to be vulnerable. So I've built up a lot of walls, and stood guard. I haven't let people in, and I haven't let myself feel.
I've been dealing for months with the aftermath of a broken heart. And for months, I've done my best to block out anything that would cause me to feel hurt. I don't want to feel the pain of a broken heart. Who would?
Then a few weeks back, I had a revelation: What's the point of living if you're not gonna feel everything? And from that point on, I quit trying to block out the pain.
I think it's a similar thing with my broken brain.
I feel things in my body that I know are not right. And it's okay for that to scare me. My doctor told me my MRI is "grossly abnormal." And it's okay to be nervous about what that means. Tomorrow I go — by myself — to find out what the specialist says, and what comes next. I can finally admit that's kind of a big deal.
I had a hard time staying focused at work today, and I'm sensing I'm gonna have just as hard a time getting rest tonight. I'm really hoping tomorrow holds a few answers. Even if they're small answers. And that I can continue to be brave enough to be vulnerable.
Writing this down and putting it in public is a pretty big step for someone who's known to have a random privacy crisis and immediately banish every photo album from Facebook, or demolish an entire years-in-the making twitter profile. But I think this may be just what I need to start tearing down those ugly walls I've built.
We'll see how it goes…
-Molly