2:30 am

Fear @ 2:30 am

Tonight is one of those nights were I dozed off at 1:30 and just jerked myself awake thinking that there was something I needed to do bright and early this morning.

Guess what it isn't bright outside but, it is definitely early.  Way to early.  The stars are still gazing down peacefully on the earth.  It's all quiet except for Pandora playing softly in the background.  The music of choice right now is my Enya station.  This was supposed to help me tune out the dogs if they started rough housing again.

All I really wanted was a good nights sleep.  However tonight I feel like The Princess and the Pea.  There is an invisible pea (or 20) in my bed tonight.  No position is comfortable and the weakness in my left leg is playing up.

Man do I hate that.  I don't like admitting to any weakness.  However, since I was diagnosed with MS four years ago now, I have to admit that it probably isn't a pinched nerve.  That was the initial thought by the PAs at work.  So now I have to wonder is my brain in the process of attacking itself again or in that short 45 minutes or so that I dozed did I somehow sleep on my side wrong?

I have had two great fears in my life one of them was going blind the other was being buried alive.  I have discovered many other fears since this diagnosis happened.

• I fear waking up and not having my left leg support me as I get out of bed.  There are mornings now where I don't jump out of bed but test the waters a little first and make sure that I wont fall flat before letting go of the bed.
  
• I fear the loss of words. An occasional slip of the word that I wanted to say was no big deal.  Now however, I always wonder when those occasional slips while become almost Alzheimer's type moments with more and more frequency.
• I fear the impact this disease has had on my daughters life. I have become too cautious while at the same time being to crabby.
  
• I fear having no one in my life.  While the idea of peace and quiet in my house is really appealing; what happens in a couple months when I am truly living by myself for the first time since I was a teenager?
• I fear that I am unlovable.  After all has anybody loved me so far?
  
• I fear that I don't actually have anything in life left to live for.  My plans for great vacations always involved hiking, horse back riding.  I had actually gotten my motorcycle endorsement about a year before I was diagnosed.  I was going to wait a year and buy my own bike.  Now:
• I fear that my left side would give out on my while riding that bike.  In my mind (that is betraying me) I can feel my body impacting with the ground as I slide fifty feet or so.  My teeth jarring violently inside my mouth with the taste of copper and fear combining with the pain.
• I fear that I won't live long enough to meet my grandchildren.  My daughter plans on having them but not for a good 8-10 years. Even if I do; will I be able to make cookies with them or take them to the beach to fly kites like I took my daughter?
  
• I fear that I will live too long and be placed in a nursing home where the CNAs are overworked and underpaid.  A home where the food is slop that is designed for nutrition but not texture or taste.

Mostly it's 2:30 in the morning and I fear.