Broken Back and Other Trauma, Thanks to Satan, the God of this World

My life of late is a chronology of troubles. First off you have the baseline MS, which causes its own troubles every day. Then I get the kidney stone, then the kidney stone surgery. Then I receive a $250 traffic ticket which I never actually received. The next day I find that my driver's license has been suspended. In the meantime Capital One is suing me for a debt I had not known existed. And now, yesterday, I somehow totally screw up my back just by rising from a chair.

Yes, I was sitting at the dining room table, working on a letter to the circuit court (yet another letter, I mean), and the CD in the stereo, some 6 feet away, was skipping and crackling through Edvard Grieg's piano concerto (for the disk apparently had a scratch). Rising quickly to put a stop to this insult to a great work of musical artistry, I went down just as quickly, like the proverbial sack of potatoes (which I actually physically resemble, if you want to know the truth).

Upon rising, my back just stopped. It simply quit on me. As did my legs. So I'm worming across the floor, propelling myself with my feet, saying "Ow, ow, ow, ow, shit, ow," working my way toward my cane, which is about 500 miles away on the stairway banister. Both of the dogs, comfortable on the sofa, are staring at me. I have disturbed their sleep. My son is upstairs, inextricably tied to his X-Box. He pays even less attention to my trauma than the dogs.

Today I must somehow get my son's SSI money to him. I make it as far as the Wamu and then halfway back to my car when I go down again. Crawling to a sitting position against the wall, I light up a cigarette, just like everyone else, and I call my first ex-wife for help. Then I call my son.

He tells me that the devil is very active these days. He is attacking people right and left, leaving them with wounds and diseases and every kind of trouble in between. He tells me that he passed out the other day in a heavily wooded area in his neighborhood. He does not know how long he laid there. He just remembers somebody finding him--a transient, a derelict, a hobo--you know, one of those sorts of outcasts from decent society. The man helped him, fed him something, saw him back home.

My son, you see, has type 1 diabetes mellitus. Has had it ever since he was 4 years old. He takes several shots of insulin a day, and sometimes this sort of artificial measure does not work out so well--more and more of the time, quite frankly--which, in itself, is attributable to other problems, which I will not go into here. At least at the present time.

Yes, the devil is very active, and focusing particularly on me. And my son. Damn you, Lucifer! Damn you to hell!

Or . . . hm . . . wait a minute now . . . Oh well, never mind.

Now those with MS are those who understand that MS makes every difficulty just a little more difficult, every pain just a little more painful--the way a good friend makes all things funner, only the opposite. Pain in the back, therefore, is not enough. My legs must also go numb, my crotch must also ache, other parts of varying name and nature must fail to respond appropriately to my desires. A body in rebellion. So it is. So it has been for just about as long as I can remember now (the good news is that that is not very long).

Poor old grampa, my young wife says.

Sure. Poor grampa indeed.