I have found it difficult to write lately.

I have found it difficult to write because of what the people of the Gulf Coast are facing. I have found it difficult to write because I saw this show about this boy/man who was born with a condition that made his skin literally fall off his entire life. He spent 36 years in constant agony and found himself on a journey of experience rather than sunken in despair. I have found it difficult because of the response I have gotten from my last post.

"I didn't know you were having problems." How could you not know?

"You made it sound so bad." Do you think I am exaggerating?

I spend so very much of my time masking. I mask how much I struggle cognitively. I mask my confusion, my fears, my mistakes, what I have forgotten, who I have become. Until this testing, I did not talk about my breathing much, because three other doctors have just blamed it on my asthma without ever listening to me or seeing how easily I desat (how much my oxygen saturation levels decrease).

I don't like how very much I resemble an old person while climbing stairs or inclines. I don't like feeling as if I am going to suffocate each time I lie down at night, trying not to think about it as I am waiting to adjust to the lower oxygen level. I don't like getting light headed so quickly when singing. I don't like taking quick breaths while talking so I don't loose my ability to speak. I don't like feeling as if I am somehow complaining if I speak about my breathing problems.

I breathe shallow. I breathe short. I pray about it. I try not to think about it.

But deep inside...when I consider how much worse my shortness of breath is now than last year, and worse still since I first noticed it three years ago...I wonder...what it will be like next year. I wonder if all this testing will lead to any relief or if it will simply be that this is just another symptom to chalk up to MS.