Out of Control

By annnieM (Deanna Mattox)

You think I'd get a clue.  17 years ago I got MS.  I'd always been a control freak.  It took me a few years after that to realize that I wasn't in control of everything... but I still thought I had control of quite a few things.  Lately I realize I have control of very little.

I don't even know where to start... there are so many things.  No matter what I do I have no control over my son.  He is grown up... I shouldn't even be worrying about him but he is in jail.  He is in another state and far away.  There's nothing I can do, no matter how much I rail against it.  It just seems that there should be something I can do.  I sent him a card... and even then that I couldn't really cheer him up.  I talked about the real world where I live... I told him I had fallen.  How cheerful is that? 

My son... he goes through women like they are paper napkins and he is not at all concerned about the Earth's resources.  He has been married twice and has probably had dozens of partners.  Every time he calls or writes, he has a new woman.  I feel really sorry for the new woman he has right now.  They'd just moved in together.  It seemed to be an up and down a rocky type of relationship... and I wasn't really surprised to hear that they were fighting.  I was surprised to hear that she called the cops and that was the impetus for him being in jail.  He deserved it... he had a warrant out for his arrest.  He hasn't exactly been a model citizen.  Anyway, this woman was just shocked, she said.  She knew nothing about it, she said.  What a hell of a thing... to be living with a man and then have him arrested!  (Not that he is really a man... he hasn't grown up yet)

Anyway, I have no control over his predicament or his woman or his circumstances.  I am just here and I get to listen when she calls... frightened and alone and not knowing what to do.  I don't even have much for advice, having never been in this situation. 

I'm fighting with my little bit of control in my own life.  I thought I would lose some weight.  So I've been watching what I eat... and then I thought I would see how I've been doing by climbing on the scale.  (As you do)  I have this thin Weight Watchers scale which is probably only an inch and a half tall from the ground... but still I have it placed by my grab bars and I have trouble getting on.  Once I am on... I have trouble letting go for those few seconds for a weight to register.  This particular time I don't know how it happened but I lost my balance and I fell.  What the heck? I cannot even weigh myself?  How am I going to lose weight without any reward like seeing that I'm losing?  If I have to wait for my clothes to get to where they are hanging on me??  Sheesh.  That will not be a very quick reward.  I guess I'll have to do it that way... what choice do I have?  I cannot control that little bit... standing on a scale without wobbling.  On the other hand, I can still control what goes in my mouth.  I think.  Mostly.

 I have no control over where I am.  I don't drive.  I can go outside when it's nice... but then... I have to hope and pray that I am going to get where I head to.  Not so long ago I was out in the middle of a blizzard on my wheelchair... stuck.  I do have a cell phone, but Murphy's Law says that when you need someone they won't be at the other end of the line, anyway.  A regular person can just get up and move on... I am so limited.  It's almost like when you're in your car in a snowstorm and stuck and you are rocking back and forth to break loose from a snow drift... I can go forward and back but it doesn't always work.  It's that helplessness I have... and not just in snowdrifts.  I can get stuck on plain old wet grass.  I do try to avoid mud.

 Having mobility limited... being in a wheelchair... it tends to make you cautious and kind of frightened.  You end up getting in situations you can't even imagine.  In the summer time I have to make sure that I do not go out in the heat of the day... because, as I have joked, if I get stuck out there on the hundred degree day at one in the afternoon, then I'm going to bake if someone can't rescue me.  The heat and I do not get along.  

 No matter how careful I am I cannot control falling.  I can keep track of how often I do it... but I have no control over whether or not it will happen.  When I move from one place to the next I'm always holding on for dear life.  In my bathroom alone I have four grab bars.   Make that five.  I even have a grab bar by the sink disguised as a towel bar.  You can imagine how I learned to do this.  A person can only grab a towel bar once or twice before it gives away.  There is no reason to not have a good solid grab bar as a towel holder.  It works... doesn't look much different... and it is so helpful!

No matter how careful I am I cannot control dropping things.  I don't want to drop anything because I really don't clean things up well.  If I do drop something then I have to call for somebody and they don't really want to clean up my messes. 

No matter how hard I try I cannot have plants like I used to.  I cannot transplant them when they are large... so I have gone to African violets.  African violets are small enough so that I can manage a plant.  I think I can do them, for now.  I have no control over whether or not they die... really.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.