In a Field Full of Poppies

I loved the Wizard of Oz.  OK, I’ll admit all that flying monkey stuff had me hiding under blankets and behind pillows, and still does even as an adult, but it was a magical movie.  I especially loved the poppy field scene.

Last night, 48+ hours after Tysabri infusion number two, that scene came to mind.  I seem to get rather fatigued after my infusion and then that fatigue comes and goes for several days.  When it is around it is debilitating; powerful even.  I slept over 12 hours Friday night, another 8 or 9 on Saturday evening, after negotiating with all that Heaven holds to help me stay awake long enough to complete the long drive back home, and I didn’t expend gigantic amounts of energy on Sunday.  Regardless, by late afternoon on Sunday I drifted off into a scary-deep sleep.  I know it began after 4 PM, because that’s when my youngest bonus child kissed me on the nose to say “goodbye” as her mother beeped the car horn in the drive.  It ended before 7 because I that’s when I awoke with a start.  It likely could have been a three hour solid sleep – one of those dead-to-the-world ones that take a good 30 minutes to awake from.

After I woke I attempted to take Master Oboe outside to play with his new favorite toy from puppy psychotherapy, the stick. I threw it maybe a half-dozen times and then, winded, I sat down on the tree stump bench in the back yard.  I let him come back to me with each throw and the tosses became more timid with each arm pump.  “I’m just whooped!” I thought.  Like Dorothy in that darn poppy field.  My legs felt heavier than usual, my gait ultimately slow, my balance wobbly, with a few noticeable toe-picks throughout the day.  Funny, before having M.S., I didn’t know what a ‘toe pick’ was (until one of my readers here referenced it with herself) and now my peeps love to bellow “Toe Pick!” whenever the occasion allows.  My legs were just too heavy to lift.  My toes were dead meat on Sunday.

If fatigue, and perhaps a little dizziness and mild-ish stomach upset are the only side effects from a ride on the Ty-Train (at least for me), I’m thinking that’s not too shabby.  That’s certainly better than the chance of ‘flu-like’ symptoms once to several times a week or the occasional IPIR attack that scares the living daylights out of the needle-pokee.  And at least my poppies aren’t deadly; they are just ultimately powerful like the mighty Oz.

I’m sure I’ll be dancing like Dorothy and the rest of her crew in no-time!