I decided to write my post about the weekend all as one thing as it’s tough to break down hour by hour.

On Saturday, the weather was awful so we decided to give Poppy’s play date a miss. It was a relief really – as anticipated after the busy week that I’d had, I knew that I would suffer. We went out for breakfast and although I wasn’t suffering any pain, I was conscious of feeling really tired and like my legs weighed a tonne. Most of the time, my fatigue is mostly extreme tiredness, but it’s rare for it to wipe me out physically. But on Saturday it really did, and that carried through into Sunday.

Something else that was up over the weekend, which those closest to me typically bear the brunt of, was my mood swings in full force. When I’m like this, I’ll react disproportionately to the situation. So I go from chilled to raging in about half a second and it will be completely OTT for whatever it is that’s happening. And just as quickly I’m fine again. Luckily Dave is very forgiving of this and takes it in his stride, because if he didn’t I don’t know if we’d still be together.

I also received (another!) letter from the hospital on Saturday just confirming the results of my recent blood tests. My lymphocytes are still on their way up at a good pace (I’m at 0.7 for anyone that’s counting!) and I’m pleased to report that I still don’t have Hepatitis. Another positive is that my Vitamin D levels are ok which means my daily tablets are doing their job!

On Sunday, I don’t think I even dragged myself out of bed until 12 ish – I wasn’t sleeping, I just didn’t feel as though I had the energy or motivation to move. My legs were feeling really cramped too. I couldn’t bend my knees and when I finally did drag myself to the shop to pick a couple of bits up, my sensory overload was at Level 10! Sensory overload has been getting worse for me recently. I have suffered with it at work for a while, when there are too many conversations going on at once, but it has started to get bad in public places where the lights are bright, there are lots of crowds and it’s noisy. Luckily, I ran into a friendly face in the shape and form of Dave’s brother and seeing him just seemed to ground me and bring me back down again.

I got home and after spending an hour relaxing, I got to playing with some essential oils and made some bath salts. I succeeded in my task but an hour later my legs, feet and back were in a lot of pain so I had to sit down and declare the task over!

So, that’s a week in the life of an MSer. Or at least this MSer. If you speak to someone else it could be completely different, and if you caught me on a different week it could be totally different again! This was a very social week by my standards, and that level of activity and socialising always comes back and haunts me a day or two later. Really, my life isn’t that much different to yours. I just ache more easily or tire more easily. I hope this mini-series has provided some insight into what life can be like with MS.