Pain is a Shape Shifter
Shape Shifter
As the swirling shroud hovers over my legs its color changes from an opaque curtain of grey to a sheet of tomato red spandex. Pain is a shape shifter and sees me as the straw man. It sees a weakened opponent, unable to mount a defense. Pain can look like anything. It is a roadmap to the final target. As the kaleidoscope of color reaches the zenith of combined colors it goes into the final dive. Faster than a deadly comet spinning through space it finds a spot. Like a white hot twirling dervish it furiously attacks.
Lesions of pain
You see, pain is not delusional. Pain knows what it is and how deadly it can be. Pain uses all the evil potions in its bag of dirty tricks. Sadistic tricks to inflict every level of pain. Pain delivered like a taser set at a level of its choice. Pain rapes the cranial minutiae from the lesions of those with MS. Lesions...those nameless bright spots that appear on the MRI scans. Some medical doctors refer to them as unidentified bright spots. Bright spots, or are they the gaudy neon signs of the cheap rent-by-the-hour motels across the street from the railroad tracks? The blaring neon signs that advertise MS. Bright signs that announce, “Check in here for a cheap jolt of pain.”
Wishful Strategy
I often fantasize that pain is nothing more devious than a school-yard bully. Bullies will stop their bullying if you ignore them or run with a group of bigger bullies. My vision is four muscled-up big guys each carrying .45 caliber Heckler & Koch pistols in their holsters which are tucked in the back of their 505’s right above the crack in their butts. Their camo jackets carry
flash bangs and Gremtech suppressors that attach to the threaded barrels of their pistols. We all wear vests of Lexan that look like double down comforters. We look like Michelin men waddling down the street. My men are on steroids that strain their undershirts to the popping stage. Their job is to protect the short lady without sanction. My bullies also have Uzi machine pistols strapped to their heavily muscled legs. Drawn, they can draw a bead on and hit any target up to one thousand yards. What a sight we are. We watch pain as it tries to find a path into my body. My bullies draw their pistols from the butts of their 505’s. Just when my bullies are ready to take care of business my left foot begins to painfully twist upwards resembling a stiff salute to some unknown god. My left calf muscle begins to twist and jerk without relief. My leg resembles the broken leg of an antique french porcelain doll. My fantasy has ended and I’m wracked with pain. I realize that my dream has been the dream of the wishful. A fantasy not to be lived.
Farewell
She had to say farewell to her three inch high heeled shoes. As each shoe dropped into the Goodwill bag she vividly pictured the occasion when the shoe was the star. She wept as she dropped each shoe into the bottomless pit of oblivion. Forty years of walking tall, precariously balanced on leather stilts, was now part of another life. Her life was cracking into small bits shoe leather. Shoes of red, green, navy blue, black, and other colors of the rainbow. With an agonizing wail she said to each pair of shoes, “Good-bye, Good-bye, Good-bye good friends.”
Future
My doctors continue to spew out their platitudes like the gurus of make believe often espouse. Those same doctors prescribe medications that clutter my medicine cabinet. Looking like four cans of sardines packed head to toe in one small tin coffin there is no room for my toothbrush or toothpaste. The charts, graphs, medicines, MRI’s, research, and statistics prove to me that MS is my nightmare. A nightmare that does not end happily. A nightmare from which I won’t wake after a good nights sleep.
Resignation
Have I resigned my diagnosis and nestled into the cocoon of my type of MS? Mr. Shape Shifter, I’m not as weak as you think I am. I will not gamble your Shape Shifter against my Straw Man. From now on you are nothing more than MS. Mr. Despicable Debilitator, I have the rest of my life to dodge your gossamer shroud.