I’m hanging with the puppies again

Look I even included a makeup free version of myself. I just had my hair done yesterday so I must say the color looks fabulous though my hair needs a little straightening help. However my sweet ZoZo looks very cute on my shoulder and I had to show the picture. That’s where she loves to sleep. Marshy is sprawled across my lap.

This is most mornings for me when I’m writing my blog. I should say speaking my blog because I usually dictate it correcting the mistakes that along the way.  Most mornings my hands are very numb and typing letters to spell words could be very difficult. I spend a lot of time stretching my hands and rubbing my hands trying to bring feeling back into them, like they are just asleep and need to be woken up. You’d think after almost 5 years I’d stop doing these motions but I haven’t.

It has been five years since the relapse that took most of the feeling out of my left hand. I never got any feeling back in my fingers. It became difficult to detect different textures like satin  from cotton or even if my hair was damp or dry. My right hand was better but only marginally. In those early days I was always stretching my hands, rubbing my hands and doing anything I can trying to get feeling back. I remember I would walk my dogs in the rain and I couldn’t tell after drying them if they were wet still. I would have to put my face to them to feel them. I couldn’t tie my shoes because my hands just couldn’t feel the laces. I couldn’t put my hair up anymore in ponytails because I couldn’t wrap the ties. I couldn’t put clips in my hair. I just couldn’t do any of those hand things. The truth is I still can’t do a lot of those things most of the time. Sometimes I have better days and I could get my hair up but it’s not tightly done. Are usually can get my shoelaces tied now but I can never get my shoes on anymore so somebody’s always helping anyway. I can’t do any of the little hand tasks that people do everyday without thinking because I don’t have feeling in my hands. I can’t do a paper clip, I can’t do a little jaw clip. I can’t really cut my meat. I can’t open those little creamers that they put on the table for coffee. I can’t put in earrings. Sometimes I can barely even write a letter. You never think about these little things until they are gone.

I have adapted to the loss of feeling. It’s still uncomfortable after all these years. That’s why I still go through that motion of stretching and rubbing which I don’t even realize I’m doing until I looked down. It’s worse in both my pinky and ring fingers on both hands compared to the other fingers and my left hand is much worse than my right. Thankfully i’m a righty not a lefty.

Numbness has always been a predominant symptom for me throughout all my years of MS. I haven’t felt my feet in 10 years at least. Even my face has numbness from my first attack in 1998. Numbness is everywhere in my body however settling in the extremities is not an unusual thing. It just is super uncomfortable and more challenging for me in my hands than ever where else it is on my body.