Reflections from the front line: Home for 3 weeks and still sorting papers

After a hospitalization comes the paperwork. Living with MS is never easy.

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by John Connor |

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So Iā€™m back home.

Four monthsā€™ worth of bureaucracy lay in front of me. In truth, quite a wodge had grown before I went into the hospital. Hey, I hadnā€™t been well in the months leading up to my hospitalization late last year.

Thankfully Saint Jane ā€” my wife, who was christened with that name by regular reader Wendy Roe Hovey ā€” had spent some of those four months tidying my bedroom/office. It was more than a mess.

Cardboard boxes had proliferated under my desk like I was some kind of hoarder. Maybe I was ā€” I am. Maybe thatā€™s what a hoarder is ā€” someone who always means to sort things, just never has the time.

Iā€™d also become a fire hazard.

In my defense, your honor, like so many other multiple sclerosis (MS) incidents, I’d been forced into it overnight.

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A pile of messy papers, medical documents, and other various items sits atop a desk table in a home office, indicating chaos.

Papers, papers everywhere, but now I need a drink! (Photo by John Connor)

The robotic loop

My new bedroom had just been semi-prepped. A hospital bed was even installed the day before! The idea was that Iā€™d have time to move in slowly. Except I got home after my regular one night a week of work as a director and producer ā€” this was somewhere around five years ago, and I was still just about in showbiz, darling ā€” and tried to make it up the stairs to go beddy-bye and realized I couldnā€™t do it. And I never did again. The upstairs of my house disappeared from my life.

Sorry this has all gotten a touch maudlin. I think Iā€™d better take a break and see if I canā€™t cheer myself the ______ up. (That was possibly one of those naughty, naughty swear words. I really have no idea, your honor.)

Right. Iā€™ve now slept on it. Letā€™s give this the craic.

I certainly havenā€™t been lazy! It took me a day just to sort files. I also entered that fugue state of hustling papers that kept falling on the floor and then searching through files that were also on the floor. Fatigue had set in. I hadn’t noticed. I kept dropping more and more. I kept picking up papers with my varied collection of grabbers and kept dropping those papers ad infinitum.

Iā€™d gotten into the human equivalent of a robotic loop ā€” the more I continued, the more papers I dropped. As my brain had stopped functioning, I didnā€™t notice. Viewed from the outside, Iā€™d turned into a slapstick character of the silent age. The worse I made things, the more I tried to correct them. Iā€™d never finish.

Luckily, I was finally called away to supper. That was a wasted afternoon of exhaustion.

I finally, last weekend, conquered my molehill, which is something incredibly hard to do, as the moles just make another one. In my case, besides trying to help out with home issues, medical bureaucracy keeps piling in. It dropped a doozy on me today as I was writing this very piece. Sheesh.

It’s only taken a mere three weeks to finish!

OK, seems I canā€™t get away from the dour state that living with multiple sclerosis often imposes. I try to find the light side, but living with MS and its effects is the raison d’ĆŖtre of us MS News Today columnists.

Oh, get me out of here!


Note:Ā Multiple Sclerosis News TodayĀ is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice,Ā diagnosis, orĀ treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice,Ā diagnosis, orĀ treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those ofĀ Multiple Sclerosis News TodayĀ or its parent company, BioNews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to multiple sclerosis.

Comments

MADELINE l NEWTON avatar

MADELINE l NEWTON

sounds like my life ...hard to get all of it done ....oh we just have to stop thinking like before this MS junk ..no problem ...ahhahhahhahhah....i know exactly what you are talking about ...i have been trying to down size the stuff i can't do also ...my sewing /craft room ...loves and happiness while you are going thru the process of clearing all the paperwork ...hahahhaha...still enjoy the fun of getting rid of it off the desk ...

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