Get Comfortable with the Uncomfortable

Get comfortable with the uncomfortable (title word credit to Sarah Allcock, available for weddings, funerals and general get togethers, if you’re lucky)

I have had a few days to think even further on this, this being that word(s) MS. 
Now, I have expanded the list of people I have told (and believe me the first hit of send on social scared the shit out me), it got me thinking and worrying about whether I should tell people/anyone in general, and whether by saying that word(s) I am making people uncomfortable and perhaps they don’t know how to react when me saying I have just been diagnosed. I mean, what do you say, if you mention that C word as well? “Shit mate, sorry, life sucks” ?

I actually don’t have the answer, as yet indeed it can suck, we can all draw the short straw in life at any given moment. Illness, infidelity, death (not in that order) in fact the list is far too long for me to even start - so looking at the here and now, who should we tell and how do we stop people from feeling uncomfortable and sorry for us?

So, it seems normal practice to tell someone you have a cold/the flu, a bad head, but not to chuck in the M.S.or C words in there too...Should I shake someone’s hand, and say ‘Hi i’m Hannah from Sherfield Park (too posh to call Basingstoke but really it is), I have MS’ just like someone says ‘Don’t come too close to me I have a cold’ ? Probably not, but it’s a thought! 

I say this, as this week I have been attending the local CrossFit box in Haverfordwest, where really I don’t know the athletes from Adam, as lovely as they are. But after the initial, I am visiting my mum for a few days, i’ve been adding in the ‘oh and my double unders are fucked as I now have MS’. Probably not the normal greeting, but nevertheless my anger on my legs not working properly, has at the moment still got the better of me. 
A couple of ‘oh shit’ faces i’m sure but did I really need to add that in there? Do I want people to know I am normally better at this shit, but now i’m defined by my disease? Probably, but that’s my problem and have indeed been referred for 10 CBT sessions by Bupa’s health doctor - oh and for people who are not sure what that is, it stands for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (TBH I wasn’t sure either until I was told I needed it). I worried about mentioning probably even more so in my own CrossFit gym at home last week, sorry guys, I just don’t want to make an excuse for being shitter than before. It was OK, when it just involved a hangover!

This afternoon I have come into a lovely pub in Little Haven to look at the sea, a place Neilly and I love, and the bar man Alfie, a nice young man, starts up a conversation whilst ordering my wine (yes I’m allowed wine). This somehow involves him telling me (in probably the less than 5 minutes we were talking) that he has been banned from driving for 15 months, following him driving his un-MOT’d car at speed away from a police car in Cardiff, being chased for a while but getting away (I think he was showing off on his driving skills there, but that’s irrelevant) but that he ended up handing himself in the next day. I did find this funny, although I probably shouldn’t, and he does indeed as promised come up as the first hit when googling ‘Alfie Young Police Chase’ which he told me I could check. He did also add that he never had been in trouble before, and the 15 month ban, and 6 month suspended sentence seemed a wee bit harsh! 

Anyway, the point i’m trying to make, is that as humans, we have a preconception about what is normal chitchat and what isn’t. Perhaps I look trustworthy (or dodgy on my own on an iPad in West Wales) and perhaps it is the British in me that thinks such things aren’t talked about, so sorry I don’t mean to be presumptuous as i’m not suggesting we start all sorts of inappropriate conversations (Brexit included!), but maybe we need to change that. Maybe given I am stuck with MS for life and so are the other 2.3 million people in the world (that stat is from nationalmssociety.org but can’t believe that’s it) this is something we should talk about, we can joke about and something that we should bring to the table - along with the wine and the police chases!

Just a thought. 


WOD today was:

3 x 10 Min AMRAP in teams of 3

1.
30 consecutive DU or 50 singles (I struggled with these, so managed about 30 singles at a time)
10 x Synchro Thrusters (stuck at 25kg)

2 min rest

2.
30 Pull ups
10 x synchro OH Squats (stuck at 25 too)

2 min rest

3.
200m Row
10 x synchro power cleans (30kg)

Felt a little conscious in a team WOD today, not being able to work full capacity and quite leg intensive , but was good.

Well done to my CFB hero’s for hitting Karen today (to everyone else, don’t worry they are all now in custody)

Now for Ireland v Wales rugby tomorrow! C’mon Wales!

Han xx