Love and drugs.

Last night, my boyfriend and I watched the movie Love and Other Drugs. It was pretty okay, mostly, except for the corny background music and some of the soap opera dialogue toward the end.

If you haven't seen the movie, basically, it's about a pharmaceutical rep who falls in love with a girl who has Parkinson's. Of course, this is only destined for disaster and everyone knows it. There were a few parts in the movie that I could have done without, but overall it was a pretty good flick, I guess.

The worst part about the movie, though, was how much I could relate to Anne Hathaway's character--26 years old and in the early stages of Parkinson's. I don't have Parkinson's, but I do have a neurological autoimmune disease that will only get worse over time and for which there is no cure at this time. I'm still young and I'm still relatively healthy, and I don't let it stop me from doing most things or from being happy or living my life, but the reality of the situation is this:

Despite a healthy diet, and despite exercise (both things that I do need to be better about), there will be a day, most likely not for a long, long time, when I won't be able to walk without a cane, or maybe I won't be able to walk at all. There will be a day when I won't be able to lift my arms, or use the phone, or type on the computer. My muscles will atrophy because of weakness. I won't be able to work or do much else other than sit or lie down.

Watching her character, Maggie, struggle to open a bottle and pour a glass was painful for me. I don't have tremors, but I can imagine not being able to do that either. Yesterday morning, I woke up with a searing, burning pain shooting down both of my legs at unbelievable rates of pressure. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I just laid there for a second. My own body was not even letting my reach over to the side of my bed for my medication. My own goddamn body was failing me. And I was stuck. I just laid there with tears streaming down my face.

Eventually, I told myself to quit being a baby and I forced my legs over the side of the bed. They were so cramped up that I couldn't even bend them. I scooted on my ass over to my desk and fumbled for my pill bottle.  Like Maggie, I live on an arsenal of medications and electrodes and wires. Without them, I wouldn't even be able to move or get out of bed. I tried not taking them for a while but then I had a horrible relapse. And the worst part was admitting defeat, admitting that I won't be able to live my life without taking pills every day. For the rest of my fucking life.

Sometimes, I really wonder what it is about me that makes people like me. I'm trying my hardest to participate and engage in my life now while I'm still healthy. I'm always worried that one day, when I am really sick, no one will want anything to do with me. I won't be fun anymore. I won't be able to do things. I won't be able to drive. I feel so much like the kind of person who wants to be out there, doing things, living in the moment. I always feel like I'm on the inside, looking out the window, wishing I could be like everyone else. But this outer shell just isn't doing it for me. Every second of every day, my entire body aches like it does when most people have the flu. The medication only slightly abates it to the point where it's tolerable. Like anyone else, I have good days, and I have bad days. The bad days have been few and far between lately, but with all of the stress in my life right now, I can feel a relapse coming. When it happens, I'm bed-ridden but I can't call off sick from work. Nobody understands that I'm ill 100% of the time and there is no way to fix it. I've been called a faker so many times that all I can do is just laugh at it. I can barely remember what it was like before I was sick. As a child, I played sports and I was healthy. My body didn't start failing me until high school.

When you're fifteen years old and you feel like you're 85 some days, it's a scary thing. Nobody knew what was wrong with me. I was tested for millions of things, for allergies, for multiple sclerosis, for diabetes, for lupus, for rheumatoid arthritis. And all of them came back negative. And then I come to find out that my brain just doesn't work right. This thing that teaches me things, processes things, looks at the world and tells me it's looking back, this is the thing that is hurting me the most.

Some days, it makes me just want to scream and scream until I have no voice left. 

So I sat there, watching Maggie and feeling sorry for myself, and on the TV, she says, "I wouldn't want to be with a sick person either." And I'm looking at my boyfriend and thinking, "I wouldn't want to be with me either." I wouldn't want to be with someone who is so tired every day that she can't keep up the house and gets home from work and can't even move, someone who barely has energy to feed her dog and take her for walks and sometimes can't even move out of bed all day. And yet he's still here, and that gives me hope.

As a woman of many words but few feelings, it's hard for me most of the time to tell people exactly how much they mean to me. I hope he understands and knows how much it means to me, even just the smallest thing, just lying there and letting me put my head on his chest, and breathing with me and being quiet together and holding my hand in his. Just knowing that someone is there for me, someone who understands how I feel every day and makes the best of it. I admire his dedication to his health and the aplomb with which he deals with his Type I diabetes. It's inspiring me to be healthier and to tackle my disease and kick its ass. Being around him is refreshing and relaxing and it's nice to feel like I have a built-in best friend, someone whom I can count on and talk to about things. He came out of left field and he came into my life during a difficult time and turned it into something wonderful.

It's nice to be cared about and cared for, for once. For once, I'm not always the one wondering, worrying, watching. We take care of each other. Isn't that how it's supposed to be?