Swimming Against The Current

Some days its hard to find the words to explain what dystonia feels like. It's invisible to most people, yet it shapes every hour of my day quietly, persistently and often painfully. I don't share this because I want sympathy, I share it because awareness matters and too many people still don't know what dystonia is, let alone how much it can affect someones life. Dystonia affects my hands, feet, back and neck. My hands ache as though they've been gripping something for hours, even when they're resting. My neck strains as if theres a weight hanging from it and no amount of stretching helps. My feet cramp and curl making sonething as simple as standing still feel like a test of endurance. I've grown stronger in ways I never expected. Ive learned patience, determination and resilience. Ive learned to celebrate small victories, like waking up with a little less stiffness or being abke to open a jar of spaghetti sauce. Im sharing this because I want people to under...

Its been almost a month since my surgery. That morning started with a splitting headache before I even got to the hospital. I think part of it was because the surgery was late in the day and I couldn't eat the whole day before or that morning. We brought Max to my parents house and headed to Boston. My surgery was scheduled for 3:30 and we got there a little after one. I checked in, got lab work and before I knew it I was changing into my gown and fancy slipper socks. I asked for some IV tylenol which helped the headache a bit then the surgeon came in and they told me to shut my DBS off even after we told them it had a surgery mode. So, I shut it off then off I went into the OR. I remember moving onto the operating table and what seemed like seconds later they were pulling a breathing tube out of my throat. They woke me up too soon so I felt it being pulled out. yikes. The next thing I remember is being in recovery and telling the nurse my nose hurt. She was working on getting me ...

A few months ago I was feeling pretty lousy and every day I was noticing new symptoms. I was so exhausted I could barely drive and staying up to watch a show or play a game with Jim was impossible. My eyes started giving me problems and I was getting dizzy quite frequently. When I tried to read, all the words in a paragraph bunched up into one big blur. I was overweight but couldn't find the motivation to even walk to my mailbox to try to lose some weight. It was the worst I ever felt and it was causing me to be miserable and not be the mother and wife I needed or wanted to be. I had an appointment scheduled for a physical so I decided to talk to my doctor. She told me that fatigue can be caused from so many things and she would do some blood work but she suspected it was just from having a baby and getting muscle spasms from my dystonia. I knew it was more than that but figured I would just wait and see what the blood work showed. Not long after my appointment I started gettin...

It's 430 in the morning and i wake up to Max's whimper over the baby monitor. I get up to go get him and the first thing I notice is that I cant open the door. My left hand is so weak I cant turn the door knob. I try with my right hand even though I have no feeling in it. As the door opens my forearm goes into spasm and causes excrutiating pain. i've had quite a few problems with my arms and hands over the years, but this is the worst it's been. The Botox wasn't working so we tried a new medication called xeomin and my left hand seems to be opening a bit, but it's completely useless because it's so weak. I can't do anything with it. My right arm has been affected by the dystonia, but also I have carpal tunnel so the two of those together also makes doing anything very difficult. Hopefully a DBS adjustment will help soon. After Max was born, I was diagnosed with a pituitary macro prolactinoma. I didn't know what it was at first, but then found ou...

I wake up in the morning, get my kids ready for school, make my husband and I a cup of coffee and take three small pills. When you look at them you’d never imagine what they could do to your body but right from the beginning I was willing to do it. No matter what it took, I would do it. Little did I know, these pills would just be another part of the sadness. I continue on my day, limiting caffeine, watching what I eat and gaining a pound a minute. Before bed, Jim injects more medication into my buttocks. These medications are supposed to be getting my body ready to have a baby but for some reason this small thing that I want so badly is so hard to achieve. Since the day I met Jim, we’ve wanted a baby. We’ve picked out names, first outfits, and ways we want to tell our parents the news. It’s been 4 years since we agreed we wanted to start trying and we still don’t have it. Just before Covid hit, we decided to see a fertility specialist to help us achieve pregnancy. We tracked my cyc...

  For some reason I don’t remember a lot about my childhood. But, I remember being sick a lot. I remember when my friends were outside playing, I was sometimes laying on the couch with a nauseating headache and a tickle in my throat. I remember even when I felt ok I still had a cough and when my mom would bring me out in public everyone would stare at me and be afraid they would get it. Nothing I had was ever contagious though. I was tested for whooping cough more than once and it was never positive but I still had to be out of school for days to wait for the results. I remember when I was in second grade I had to have an MRI of my brain because my headaches were so bad. I used to tell my mom it felt like there were marbles rolling around in there or someone inside my head with a hammer. My mom and dad tried everything to help me, bringing me to many doctors and even health food stores to find out I had a sensitivity to dairy.    When I was 12 I started having different s...