When Multiple Sclerosis Relapses Make Me Dread My Bed

I hate my bed. I realize I shouldn’t, but it became more than a bed during my multiple sclerosis (MS) relapse last summer. It felt like a ball and chain attached to me all day and all night. I could not escape that dreaded bed.

I found myself becoming bitter towards anything to do with a bed. I remember scrolling through Facebook and coming across a meme that said something about waiting all day just to get home and back in bed. It was meant to be funny, but it made me feel snarky and mean.

“Yeah, OK. Try having the choice of being out of bed taken away from you, and we will see how glorious that bed is then.”

My mind started to fill with poisonous thoughts. I felt that little rain cloud forming over my head.

And I knew it was time for a change.

That bed was not evil. If anything, it was trying its very best to help me rest and recover, to comfort me, to bring relief. So why was I so angry at an inanimate object? Then it hit me.

I was mad at my MS.

The poor bed had just become a scapegoat. What was really angering me was the relapse and lack of options to get out of it. Waiting was all I had left to do. And I am extremely impatient. Just ask my sweet husband.

I started to think about what I could do to make the best of the situation. At first, it was little changes such as a move to the couch or recliner, looking for a new book to dive into, or journaling. Within a week, I no longer wanted to violently lash out at Facebook memes.

With MS, like many chronic illnesses, you may not always be able to make something disappear with medicine — you simply have to wait. But that doesn’t mean you have to wait miserably. When I think of all of the times I have said to myself, “If only I had time to…” I realize I have been slowly making a list of things to accomplish when MS strikes.

Read a book, cross-stitch, write, create, learn. Those are my favorites now.

MS may think it is stopping my life dead in its tracks when I relapse, but I decided it is just a mandatory vacation from the busy lifestyle we live. And I’m not letting any vacation go to waste.

Liz sitting in a chair, reading a book — Liz reading a book while on a “mandatory vacation.”

Follow this journey on Brain Brake.

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