That's Today

There are bad days with ALS, often triggered by something on my part, but bad nonetheless. This is  one of them. I was up late last night, drank too much, upset a friend and spent the last part of the evening in tears. This morning the tears continued, on top of a bad time with shaking, thanks to clonus and spasms. As I lay in bed this morning, I could see the muscles twitching under the now loose skin on my arms.

Something is going on in my throat too. It feels like the roof of my mouth, way in the back, is oversized, making swallowing difficult, whether it be liquids or solids. It doesn't matter all that much; I don't really feel like eating today. With any luck I will be better by tomorrow. Mostly, though, it is the emotional stuff that makes for a really bad day.

I can get used to the physical stuff. I can manage the shaking, the weakness, the exhaustion. The feelings of anxiety, hopelessnes, anger, frustration; they all combine, climbing one on top of the other to make a mountain out of my emotional distress. It is the emotional part of this disease that is the real problem. I work hard to keep it inside, to keep the negatives from dominating my life. The problem is that those negatives are still there, just buried within. At some point I need to get them out, to let them loose, to rid myself of them.

My emotional breakdowns are not pretty. Nor are they common, although they are becoming more common. Take them on to a general sense of loss of control over my life, and the scene can get ugly. What's even worse is that I am not good at releasing, not without some self-medicating liquid courage to help me release the beast within. I hate it all. That's today.