“Have Lemtrada” they said.

“It’ll make everything better!” they said.

Right now, I think “they’re” big fat liars.

Today has resulted in a full scale pity party. I feel terrible. I’m pissed off that I’ve got MS, I’m pissed off that I’ve had Lemtrada, I’m pissed off that I haven’t stopped feeling lousy for two weeks nearly now. I’m just pissed off.

So, since my last blog last Wednesday, what’s been going on? I was discharged from hospital by about 5pm. I felt pretty chirpy and just generally ok. Legs felt really whoozy though. If you remember, last year, I’d managed to get quite a bit of time off the ward so I’d managed to retain the use of my legs a lot more than this year.

I spent the majority of Thursday sleeping and just generally aching but for the most part I was ok. Friday was reasonably ok too – I even managed to go out for a couple of hours.

Saturday saw me at Poppy’s play date for a couple of hours, then sleeping the effort of that off all day. Same for Sunday, minus a playdate.

Sunday night, I headed back to mine and pretty much, all was about as I’d expected.

So far, my experience was mimicking what had happened last year for the most part.

But then Monday happened.

Following a terrible night sleep, I had to stay awake for my Tesco food shop to be delivered. Given the three hours sleep I’d had, this proved difficult. And the temperature really increased. When my shop did arrive, I was the hottest, sweatiest mess I’ve ever been!

The sheer effort of unloading my food shop made me want to throw up, and I found myself horizontal on the ice cold kitchen floor, desperately trying to feel cooler.

Monday night was another night with very little sleep (but that could have been because I stayed up reading a book).

Tuesday was a terrible day. I felt like I’d been hit by a bus. I barely moved all day but when I did I was seeing stars, dealing with waves of nausea and my heart rate spiking from taking three steps. I wasn’t good. I never felt this bad last year.

I was beginning to realise that perhaps I was lucky last year for Round 1 and how much it had affected me. I admitted defeat and got a taxi back to Dave’s. I couldn’t look after myself. Every effort to just made me feel worse, but I have to eat and stay hydrated.

I want to say that Wednesday was a better day. And in many ways, it was. I didn’t feel as sick or weak. But Dave spotted a patch on my arm that didn’t look like the rest of the Lemtrada rash that was slowly taking over my body. I usually like to give a visual representation but you definitely don’t need to see my rash. Think hives.

The short version is I ended up seeing a Doctor, not from my regular surgery as they close on a Wednesday afternoon (coz people don’t get sick on a Wednesday apparently). He said it looked like I had early onset of cellulitis around the site of my cannula. He prescribed me a course of penicillin to add to my already offensive list of medication.

Overnight, it definitely hasn’t got worse and it’s less red in colour now and more pink.

Today, I’ve just slept. Then woken up eaten and gone back to sleep. But I’ve got a confession. I have also had a proper wobbly today. A real “why me, why MS” angry strop. I cried my eyes out. I try and avoid doing this too often, because for me personally, it’s counter-productive, but some days putting on a so-called brave face just gets too much. And nobody would blame me for it.

I feel so weak for doing it though. I feel like I’m not living up to how people perceive that I’m coping. In life, it feels like crying is seen as weakness. But I truly believe that strength is not in your reaction, but how you recover. So it’s ok to cry and let it all out.

Or it could be the emotional rollercoaster of steroids and I had no control over it.

In short, whatever I thought I knew about going through Lemtrada has completely reversed. Last year I felt under the weather. This year I can barely move with every limb and joint aching. I have a horrendous rash, I’ve ended up with cellulitis and I can’t stop sweating.

However, if you’re reading this, waiting for Round 2 yourself, please don’t let this scare you. All this proves is that this is so different for everyone and there’s no way of predicting how this will go for you. And please remember. There’s a greater good behind all of this. It could be leading you to a day where you don’t even think about the fact that you have MS.