I don’t know if it was just because it was cold or something unknown, but I suddenly decided that I wanted porridge for my breakfast. I suddenly for no reason I can remember stopped eating it in December and never really gave it another thought other than the fact that I sometimes had a yearning for something other than yoghurt. It was another of those experiences in life where the second you try it, you remember exactly why you stopped doing it in the first place, I think I was on my second mouthful when I suddenly began to feel sick and then I started to gag on it. The memories rushed back in and I remembered sitting here for over a month forcing myself to eat as much as I could of it, as I saw it as a terrible waste of food. Today, I lost those thoughts, I couldn’t manage another mouthful past the third and the piece of oats caught in the back of my throat, was more than enough to make me put the plate to one side. Food for me has been one long issue for many years, right to the point of having it delivered to my stomach via a tube for three years, not particularly recommended, but if I had to do it again, well like everything else my health puts me through, I would do it if I had to. I was so annoyed to find myself once more with something caught in my throat, part of the reason that I eat things like porridge is the fact that there aren’t usually separate tiny pieces to catch, clearly one flake got away, tiny pieces of anything catch and once caught they stay. I don’t know why but the majority of people with MS actually find it easier to eat everything small bit by small bit, I find the total opposite, tiny things, including lightweight tiny tablets catch all over the place. Several years ago they did a scan on my throat whilst I swallowed radioactive food, what they found told them that I was better served by taking as much as I could in one mouthful and then also to swallow as big of pieces as possible. The weight and size meant that it’s assisted in pushing the food past where it sticks and then downwards clear of getting stuck anywhere else. Having said all that, I have one food type that I now seem to have a huge issue with that based on that description shouldn’t be a problem at all, meat. It took me a long time to work out why, but I think I now understand why. All the other foods I eat break up with ease in my mouth, normally meat doesn’t and the chunks are just too ridged to pass with ease, but at least that isn’t an issue at all for me as I have never been that crazy about the stuff.

I failed yesterday to do what I normally do, to cover the fact I am in pain. We were just sat as normal watching TV and I was doing my best to just be normal, but when it catches you and you can’t even move backwards to sit as everyone else does, with their back supported by the settee, well there is no way of hiding it. I hate him knowing without a doubt that I am in pain as he is such a worrier and he doesn’t need to worry about me any more than he already does. It’s not as though there is anything that anyone can do about it, if pain could be removed by sharing it, well I shouldn’t be in pain at all. I just wish that he could find the same calmness that I have over all this, as all the worrying in the world isn’t going to make me better. I know from the day that I got over the shock of my diagnosis that it was Adam that was in my thoughts, how he was going to cope with all this and yes like everyone who finds out something like that, I did go through a phase of believing it would be best if I told him to go. There was even a day when I told him that if he wanted to leave I would understand, I was sat there ready for my heart to break and putting on as brave a face as I could, clearly he didn’t and that just made me love him even more. It’s odd how we all think of love as being this wonderful airy feeling that gives us the power to do whatever we want, but the truth is, that love isn’t just that, it is the thing that binds us in such a way that nothing can tear us apart and causes us more pain than anything else. In all honesty, if there was a way of removing the effects that he sees and I could somehow give him less stress than I put on him, I would, even before removing the actual pain from myself.

I can’t quite make up my mind if love is a victim of chronic illness or if it is something that is strengthened by it, I suppose that it depends on the individual involved as I have heard of so many couples like Adam and I, but I have also heard of many who are no longer couples at all. I know well enough the strain that marriage has hidden within it, but since I was more than willing to enter into a second one, well I now also know the joy that is within it too. I guess the ultimate truth is that it is down to the individuals more than anything else and chronic illness or not, if a couple are going to survive they are the ones that make the difference. It has changed both of us, along with our dreams, but the one thing chronic illness can’t do, is kill love, it can bruise it at times and even made me question what is right and what is wrong about us, but that is healthy, it is healthy to questions every relationship from time to time, because if we don’t, well it becomes a stale acceptance rather than a feeling you can trust and enjoy. None of that makes it fair though on either of us and of course I would say that it is least fair on Adam, wanting to protect him is a just a natural thing and I doubt if I will ever stop wanting to or even trying to. Many things in life aren’t fair and many things are a constant trial but love isn’t one of either, so I will go on pretending and he will go on worrying, that is just who we are.

We are coming up to our 16th wedding anniversary next month, 14 years of that have been spent with me ill and if that isn’t love, what is. I often wonder what would have happened if I had been diagnosed years before, but it is a stupid thing to wonder as I wouldn’t be the person I am and I probably wouldn’t have even met him, life has it reasons for happening the way it does, maybe we shouldn’t question it too much.

Read my blog from 2 years ago today – 19/03/13 – Solo Hugging > http://bit.ly/11dV9yf

Day 3 of an MS hug that just doesn’t want to give in and every time I think it has faded, it suddenly returns with anger. In the last year or so they have been getting worse, slowly increasing in the pain they cause and how and where that pain appears. I remember the first few I ever had weren’t that bad and started as an ache either side of my spine, a little like……