This whole business with the MS originated in my lower right leg. As far as I know, anyway. The numbness mostly affects my mid-to-outer shin and wraps around to stop in the middle of my calf. And sometimes it spreads down past my ankle and onto the top of my foot. Tapping the skin there just feels like a dull thudding.
Sometimes, just to be extra interesting, the tissue near the base of my right toes appears swollen, as if my foot is retaining water. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just annoying. No one can tell me why it does that.
I’ve come to accept these symptoms as the norm. Even on my good days, my right leg is partially numb. It is what it is.
But lately, the leg has been bothering me more. I’ve been feeling a weird sharp, prickly sensation just to the right of the back of my knee (I wish I knew the names for all the body’s tiny parts) where the tendons connect lower thigh to upper calf. It’s a really irritating sensation, one that’s caused me to favor the leg more–I put my weight into my left leg, and even balance on one foot to take pressure off of the right foot, which has been feeling more like I’m standing on a block of wood than a foot. When it’s like this, I feel uneven, like my right leg is longer than my left.
And I’ve also felt these random shots of heat, like something thick and warm oozing down my leg. This sensation mostly spreads down the outside of my shin, over my ankle and onto the top of my foot, but sometimes it will start at the back of my thigh. I might trigger this when I put pressure on my foot, but otherwise, it just happens. Like most things with MS, it’s unpredictable.
Then there’s today, where I felt something vibrating like the beating wings of a buzzing insect trapped under the skin just above my ankle. I couldn’t see any twitching and when I touched my fingers to that spot, I didn’t feel anything different. I massaged the muscle and was only reminded of how numb that part of my body is.
I don’t mean for this to sound like a complaint. I’m not terribly concerned about these sensations–not yet, anyway. I just thought I should note these changes somewhere. So I’ll just wait and see if it gets worse, I guess. Until then, I’ll keep doing yoga, walking as much as possible, and in the spring, I’ll start riding my bike again. Party on.
And because this blog post’s title is a nod to INXS, who I loved in the late ’80s and early ’90s, here’s a video of them performing “New Sensation” at the 1988 MTV Music Awards, with an intro by Arsenio Hall (where is he now?):
Wow. That was a little embarrassing. I can’t imagine that I’d like this music now if I hadn’t first liked it in 8th grade. And check out the shoulderpads and ruffles on Michael Hutchence (may he rest in peace).
