Something has triggered a round of twitches and jerks, to date I have been one of the luckier ones when it came to twitches as I have seen many who have them seriously, huge and drastic jerks that take over their entire bodies. For some it is not just the movement that is disturbing, I know that some find them painful and almost impossible to deal with. The worst I have ever really had is one that never really leaves it just goes quite and then shouts for a while, I lost my core stability years ago, when sitting still became an almost impossible event. To be still I have to be braced, by a chair back or something, sit free and the twitches run free to. It is a sort of side to side movement that is focused in my mid spine but flows both ways to my head and to my feet. I think it is the movement of my shoulders from side to side that most notice the most, but I feel it where ever it is. Besides that well there is the odd mad jerk or jump that passes in a second and unless I am unlucky enough to be holding something has no real consequence at all. Like a lot of things that happen to us all the time, it isn’t their lose the we notice but their return that tells us they haven’t been there for a while.

A couple of days ago I started to twitch side to side again, I was swaying more violently than I had done for months. I’m not sure if they actually stopped, probably not, but I know they had settled to a more gentle motion and almost no movement but not gone. I wish that I knew what had stilled them as believe me I would still them forever if I could. They really are annoying to say the least, especially when your cigarette flies across the room, or your coke has once again adorned your nightdress. What drew my attention to my resident pest was actually the appearance of their more violent cousins. I have found that around 10 or 15 times a day my foot or arm has suddenly jerked or jumped, a motion that until now I might only have felt a few times a week not ever a day. Suddenly I have found myself with a violent jerk in my leg that translates through my entire body, giving both the feeling and appearance as though I have had some kind of mild convulsion. I am sure everyone has had the same feeling when just about to sleep your body makes a violent jerk, pulling you back to being awake, the difference here is, I am awake when it starts. They seem to be centred in my legs, as I can only think of maybe twice my arm jumping badly, I don’t know why but it has always been one of the strange symptom that I have always wanted to hide, almost like a dirty secret that needs hiding because of what others might think. Strangely I don’t even really know what I mean by that, or why l feel that way, but I do. I know that when ever I have felt a jerk or twitch that other if they were in the room would have seen, I quickly look round to check there reactions, even with Adam for some reason. There has to be something there that I have seen in the past and has locked in the dark regions of my mind, irrational, totally.

Through out all the years of living with this thing, I have gone through spell of tremors in both my hands, both making it hard to lift and drink from a glass at time, but usually the weight of the glass makes it easier not harder. I use really heavy crystal classes with ease, but hand me a light porcelain mug and I will slosh it around and dribble everywhere, it is like so many things with this illness, the opposite from what you expect is actually the answer. The heavier and most unlikely object works better than the lighter and more simple solution, I am only guessing but I wonder if it is because when faced with something heavy that if dropped would do a lot of damage, your brain pays more attention, making it less likely to drop it. I just realised that that is something else I have never mentioned, dribbling, it isn’t exactly something major in my life but something I have missed somehow. I only occasionally dribble down my chin, it is more a case of dribbles running down mugs and glasses, as though I can’t actually make the seal required for transferring liquid into my mouth. It has happened for many years and luckily is something not so noticeable when you drink from a glass, I don’t know what it is about mugs but I tell you this I hate them, as coffee is always noticeable regardless the colour of the mug. Not so bad when it is your mug, well it is you who will be washing it, but having to hand a mug to it’s owner covered in dribble lines is simply embarrassing.

I was sat watching TV with Adam just before I went to bed last night when for some reason I suddenly realised that I couldn’t manage to make a fist with my left hand. It has always been weak since I lost all use of it a few years ago, it had returned to almost normal after death, it was only the strength that was always missing. My hand was causing me pain as it often does and I was flexing it to try and settle it again when I realised that I couldn’t actually touch even my finger tips to my palm, far less form a tight fist with the entire finger nail flat on the palm. Only my ring finger and pinky can get anywhere near and then it was for milliseconds before a gap once again appeared. I don’t suppose forming a fist is something I have a great need for, but it is once more a sign of it growing weaker again, no fist and you can’t carry things, or a more major one for me to use a wheelchair. Although I did manage to form a fist on first recovery, I never managed to get the strength to push myself forwards, now I wouldn’t even be able to hold on the wheel properly meaning no motion at all. The more that strength leaves me the more I wonder if there would be any real purpose in having grab rails fitted at all, well if I don’t have the strength what is the point? All they would do is make the house look like a hospital and be a false image of safety to others, but something that wouldn’t stop me hitting the floor if I don’t have the strength to use them correctly.

All small things in themselves, none are things that would change someone’s life but all of them together probably form the outer shell of MS, as they are the things others see. Twitching, jerking, dribbling, weakness and tremors, all designed to embarrass you, as they are the only outside view of what is happening inside. As embarrassing as they are, they are such a tiny part of what MS does, but they are the things that are seen and gain those pitting looks, when what is happening to your mind is far more debilitating and the pain is far more distressing. I guess we all need to look past the surface, whether it is illness or just the true person we are trying to see, a second longer and might see the reality of another’s life, not just their façade.