If Slipper Fuzzies do you in, you might have Multiple Sclerosis

An MS kind of day

First, I slept through 2 morning alarms, I’m pretty talented this way, and didn’t wake up until 10.  It’s not a record for me, but I’ve been working harder to keep more normal hours.

Next, I saw several black things on my floor that I feared were bugs.

(This happened once.  Something went wild in the ant world and I awoke to an intrusion of some sort and there were ants everywhere! The whole thing still gives me the creeps.)

Then I remembered something I thought I’d noticed the night before- my slippers seemed to be shedding.  I’d bought these slippers late in November and I really like them.  They are warm and super comfy.  But now, just two months later, they have a hole in them, and they were shedding black/gray fuzzies everywhere.

There were fuzzies in the kitchen and in the living room.

There were slipper fuzzies in my bedroom AND in my bathroom.

There were even fuzzies in my shower!  I don’t wear slippers in the shower so how could that possibly happen?????

Oh well, I thought as I went to turn on my computer and start boiling water for tea.  But the computer was not cooperating. 

First, it was ridiculously slow.

Then it booted me out of the internet once I’d opened all my favorite sites.  I restarted it which made it slow again.  I was almost done with my tea before it started to act normally.  While I sipped and waited, I noticed more fuzzies in my little apartment.  Suddenly, the fuzzies and slipper issue seemed a little overwhelming though, of course, it wasn’t.

Shedding slippers are NOT a big deal!

I know this.

You know this.

Before you think I’m whining please understand that I get that this isn’t even a problem.

People in the world have real problems.

I have real problems.

But the fuzzies were getting to me.

My winter happy place is dressed warmly, curled up near a window with a good book, a blanket, another cup of tea and some snuggly footwear. 

What is one to do when your slippers are falling apart every second and the detritus of their collapse covers your floor wherever you wander?

Should I buy another pair after I go to my doctor’s appointment the next day?

But I already bought slippers for the winter and aren’t we supposed to be staying home as much as possible?

I did get a stimulus check, should I use that to order new slippers online?  That might take several days, at least.

I did have back up slippers from years past.  But they were so old and grungy that I’m not sure why I even kept them.

Maybe for slipper emergencies?

Was this a slipper emergency?

Sort of like how I keep old grungy sneakers that don’t even fit in case of sneaker emergencies.  Can anyone use a pair of old grungy sneakers?

Even if I didn’t have old slippers, I have a sock drawer so stuffed with socks I’ve got it on my list of things to do to weed through them.  And I know some even have that rubber stuff on the bottom that keeps you from skidding around when you wear them.  I could finally go through my sock drawer and find a pair of those to wear as slippers for now AND get “go through sock drawer” crossed off my things to do list.

I actually had a lot of things on my current “things to do list.”  I needed to get to it, 2 hours later than planned, 3 hours and 15 minutes later than planned if you count my computer and fuzzies issues.

But damn, I kept coming back to the fuzzies.  Should I wear the slippers anyway?  I need exercise and bending and picking each fuzzy might count.  And if I got too tired of doing that, I have a stick vacuum.  Easy peasy and lightweight enough to quickly pull out and vacuum the little suckers up.

(I mean the fuzzies not the ants- they ants were a problem two summers ago.)

I needed to move on from this issue.  I was sick of thinking about slippers and by now you’re probably sick of reading about them.

Yet, I couldn’t get out of my own way. Everything on my “to do” list seemed Herculean.

I decided to start small and make some of the calls I was supposed to make.  No one was available to address any of the issues I needed to tackle.

The thought of taking a shower or making my bed, things I do every day, became a chore.  Just rinsing out my tea mug was a struggle.

And the problem of the slippers was still hanging around.

I realized it wasn’t going to be a very productive day and my best plan was to just get through it.  But my usual means of procrastinating- something I’m expert on by the way- weren’t working either.

YouTube foolishness?  Couldn’t pick something out though I also have a list of things I want to watch on YouTube.

The list was sort of messy, maybe I could redo the list?  Nope too stressful.

I love to read, why don’t I read my book?  With my slippers on or off?

It didn’t matter, I couldn’t focus on the pages anyway.

I grabbed my word search book- something I check out for mindless entertainment, usually during TV commercials.  After searching, I couldn’t find any words at all.

It was then it all became clear.

My issue had nothing to do with shedding footwear or a clean floor.

It was bigger than that.

It was MS brain fog in the extreme.  A combination of exhaustion only someone with a chronic illness can experience after 9 + hours of sleep, and a lack of focus that lives within our brain daily but chooses to explode here and there, just for fun’s sake.

Fortunately, all of this occurred on the day of the second impeachment of President Trump and so I did the only thing possible.  I got on my sofa, accepted the uselessness of the day, and tried to follow the the government news.

As if my brain wasn’t fogged up before……

At least I could offer the excuse that all the impeachment back and forth was historical and try not to beat myself up too much. Tomorrow was another day, and it may bring with it the potential for much clearer thinking.  Maybe I could attack the “to do” list then.  I’ll get through all of this haziness. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll also be in a better place to investigate my slipper non-problem.

Eleven years in and it still took me several hours to figure this out.  But that, my friends, is the nature of multiple sclerosis.   Sometimes it confuses you and sometimes it surprises you.  Often, it overwhelms you.

Some days, in order to stop obsessing over fuzzies, you need to get on your sofa, pull a blanket over your head and listen to junk TV.

Or politics…….

 

Happy New Year my friends!   Here’s to a brighter, healthier and safer future for us all!