What The Nativity Story Taught Me About My Multiple Sclerosis

This is probably a cliché, but last week’s episode of Saturday Night Live made me rethink the Christmas story.

The show’s final sketch depicted a manger scene, where Mary, disheveled and exhausted after giving birth to Jesus in a barn without medical assistance, became increasingly frustrated with Joseph. First, he invited a wandering group of random shepherds into their crowded space, then he invited in the wise men, and finally he asked Mary to serve everyone drinks.  

Mary obliged, but, at least in the skit, she was not the least bit pleased with her husband, the strangers invading her privacy, or totality of her situation, entertaining strangers the night she gave birth in a pile of hay.

I don’t know how Mary really felt on that night in Bethlehem, but if she was frustrated at her situation, then she kind of had a point.

In the Bible story, Mary, who was mostly likely a teenage girl, is visited by the angel Gabriel and told she will give birth to the Son of God, who will come to bring healing into the world. Conveniently, Gabriel failed to mention anything about a barn.

In the Gospels’ telling, Jesus had a humble birth as God’s symbolism that true greatness is not caused by material comfort, and that God’s favor is not related to the privilege into which one was (or was not) born.  

In retrospect, it’s a beautiful sentiment. But all Mary knew, on the first Christmas Eve, was that she would have to draft her choice of cattle to serve as her midwife.

“God forced me to have this baby,” she might have thought, “but He couldn’t even get me a doctor? And if not a doctor, how about at least a hotel room instead of a bed of straw? God is relying on me to deliver the savior of the world, but He is treating me like an animal!”

That’s probably what I would have thought. Imagine her emotions when she went into labor on Christmas Eve. First, she was probably giddy that she happened to be giving birth to Jesus on Christmas Day itself. I mean, what were the odds?

Then reality must have set in. When Mary first found out she was pregnant, she probably didn’t envision giving birth away from home, much less in a barn. She didn’t have a Western calendar porcelain manger scene to reference, so when she first felt a labor pain, she probably expected God would provide a traditional means for delivery. After all, If God could arrange a virgin birth, surely He could arrange a qualified medical professional to wander by and assist.

It must have been crushing to find out that no doctor, relative, or inn could make room for her when she most needed it, so she’d have to duck into a random barn and make do, like an animal. It must have felt like God started this story, but then lost interest midstream and moved on to another project.

Notwithstanding the cattle lowing nearby, she must have felt alone. At least in that moment, she must have felt abandoned by God.

I would have been angry.

I know this because, while I haven’t given birth to any messiahs this winter, lately I’ve sometimes felt like God dealt me a losing hand this holiday season. I lost vision in my left eye two days before my birthday and found out I probably had multiple sclerosis the day after it. I spent Thanksgiving Day on bedrest after a spinal tap, and now I find myself literally limping through the holidays. I say that literally, because my left leg is numb.

It’s hard to celebrate the season of comfort and joy when the most prominent thing you feel is pain. It’s difficult to have holiday cheer when your new dietary restrictions mean you can’t eat the good stuff at your office Christmas party, and you have to give away all the sweets you get as presents. It’s impossible to make New Year’s Resolutions for 2017, when your most pressing goal at year’s end is to still be able to walk unassisted.

It’s much easier to be mad at God when it feels like you’ve done the right things, but life still doesn’t go as planned. I wonder if Mary played also the “why me?” card. She did everything God asked her too, and ended up in a barn in the cold surrounded by animal poop. And even when she was done, she had to host an assortment of random strangers she wasn’t expecting, one of which brought her newborn baby funeral spices.  

I try to remind myself that if Mary felt annoyed, it was because she didn’t yet know how her story would end. She probably didn’t know that her painful night in a cold barn would be memorialized as a symbol that God doesn’t care how big your parents’ house is. Mary couldn’t have understood that Jesus’ humble birth would foreshadow his life’s message that wealth and comfort were not really what’s important. She couldn’t have realized that her story would be told and people for thousands of years would be inspired by her willingness to roll with life’s punches, even when they didn’t make sense.

She also wouldn’t have foreseen that about two thousand years later, a man on another continent with multiple sclerosis would be heartened by the lesson in her story: that sometimes when life doesn’t seem fair in the moment, it’s because we don’t yet see the end of story.

This Is Blogging My Spinal Tap

The online medical websites said that a spinal tap wasn't actually all that bad. I was naive enough to believe them. I'm glad I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but at least I can blog about it now.


Wednesday, November 23:


8:15: My wife is driving me to the hospital. I have a spinal tap scheduled to confirm my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and maybe learn a little about its progression. A doctor will soon be sticking a needle into the protective sack surrounding my spine to collect fluid to be tested. The websites said that the local anesthetic blocks all the pain, and I should just expect to feel a little bit of pressure. The biggest problem, they say, is that for a small percentage of people the protective sack surrounding the spinal column doesn't seal, and the internal fluid leakage can cause a major headache. But if you take it easy for a couple days after the procedure, they say, you should be fine. That's what the websites say. I have the feeling no one writing articles for WebMD has ever actually had to have one of these.


8:16: I'm not nervous, just anxious to get the procedure over with so I can begin my Thanksgiving break. We turn a corner, and suddenly there's a giant rainbow straddling the freeway, something I've absolutely never seen before. I'm hoping this is a good omen, and not a symbol of reassurance I should need to recall on the other side of my impending doom. My hope, it would turn out, was not well founded.


8:30: I check in and get my hospital wristband with my name and vital info. I'm asked to verify that it is correct. Soon a nurse is walking me back to my waiting room, asking again if my wristband is correct as we walk.


9:00: I'm in my hospital gown and the doctor is in to go over the procedure with me, and also to ask if my wristband is correct. I tell him my neurologist had said that I should drink lots of caffeine to help my blot clot and prevent the post-operative headache, and he says that's an old wives' tale. I wasn't allowed any coffee before the procedure, so I plan to try it anyway.


9:05: A nurse asks if the information on my wrist band is accurate. I really just want to mess with her at this point and say no.


9:07: The nurse tells me I should be sure to drink lots of caffeine after the procedure so that my blood will clot.


9:30: My hospital room has a tv. It seems weird to watch Judge Mathis in the minutes before someone opens my spinal canal, but I'm getting kind of bored. The nurse tells me that she makes really good tea, and she'll be glad to give me some after my procedure so that I won't get the headache. I don't like tea, but her personal pride is clearly at stake so I smile and nod.


9:45: The nurse comes to roll me into the operating room, after, of course, asking about my wrist band. The hospital is preoccupied with my identity, but took my word for it when they asked my weight without putting me on a scale. Since they are about to give me an indefinite amount of anesthetic, this seems like maybe this should have been important.


9:55: We reach the emergency room, and my wife returns to the lobby. The nurse tells me that if I get a headache after the procedure, I should call my doctor get a referral to come back in. "Tomorrow is Thanksgiving," I remind her. "No one will be at her office until Monday."
"Oh yeah," she says casually. "You should just come to the emergency room in that case."


10:10: The doctor appears, and asks me if my wristband is correct.


10:11: The doctor puts the coldest liquid known to humanity on my back to sterilize me. A noticeable pain comes a moment later as the anesthetic goes in. I was promised this was the worst part.


10:15: The first needle exits. A disconcertingly short period of time passes before I feel another. The doctor tells me that I will feel some pressure. I feel that and much more. "Ok, I think to myself. That was a bit sharp, but it's in now so that should be the worst part...


10:16: UHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


The doctor pulls the needle back out, as I gasp loudly. It was a pain so sharp I couldn't even scream; The worst I've ever felt. "Let's get you some more anesthetic," he says.


10:18: I get another injection of pain killer. I'm hoping the doctor will give this one a little while to set in before digging around my spine. A few minutes later he goes in again, with a nurse holding onto my leg, no doubt checking my wristband as she holds me down.


10:25: The injection was not as bad this time, but the pain is starting to spread down my legs. The doctor tells me this is normal, as the nerve endings are all connected. A pressure builds inside of me. It feels like someone is literally sucking the life out of me. Which is kind of what is actually happening.


A few minutes later: The needles goes out, right about at my breaking point. "We need to get a little bit more fluid so they can complete the tests," he says. "We need to change locations."
I whimper.


10:30: I gasp again as the needles hits a new location, not quite as bad as the first insertion, but worse than the second. He tells me we're almost done. I debate telling him I absolutely can't take another second. Right as I'm about to announce it, he tells me we're done.


10:45: I'm wheeled back to my hospital room, and there are tears in one of my eyes. But my wife has coffee.


11:00: The nurse asks if I'd rather have some of her homemade tea. "Get over yourself," I tell her in my head. But in real life, I say ok, in an attempt to give her life meaning. She emphasizes the importance of drinking caffeine. Then she asks if she can order me lunch from the cafeteria, excitedly proclaiming that lasagna and cookies are on the menu.
"MS patients aren't supposed to have dairy or saturated fat," I remind her.


12:30: I order a sandwich, drink some tea, and soon they tell me it's time to go. The only problem is that I can barely walk due to what they just did to me. I ask to just make a test run to the bathroom before committing to anything bigger. As I limp gingerly down the hall, the nurse asks my wife, "Does he always walk like that?"
"No," she says. But they just stuck a needle in his spine and dug around for awhile.


1:00: The nurses put me in a wheelchair and being to wheel me to the car. One of them asks if I'd like to take her tea with me for the road. "There's nothing special about your tea," I tell her, forgetting to say the words out loud. In other words, I just smile and nod.  She grabs my tea, and bangs me into some furniture while wheeling me along the hallways. "I thought these kind of follies only happened in movies," I said, actually saying it outloud this time. As I load into the car, the nurse reminds me to drink lots of caffeine to keep the headache away. I'm pretty sure she checked my wristband one final time, just to ensure they weren't letting the wrong person go.


I get home and lie on the couch. We download the movie "This Is Spinal Tap" because I had never seen it and will never have a more appropriate occasion. I'm surely never agreeing to do this again.




PS: In the ensuing days, I drank lots of coffee and stayed mostly flat on my back on the couch.  I still got an excruciating spinal headache on Thursday when I sat up, but it seemed to get slightly better through the weekend. It got worse when I went to work on Monday, and I ended up in the emergency room Tuesday afternoon, getting a "blood patch"--an injection of blood into my spine to clot the leakage, a procedure perhaps chosen because no nurse was available to make me any tea. But the procedure worked, and after six days, I was finally able to stand without a train ramming into my head (although my back hurt for a couple days).


When I first was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, it seemed a fate beyond what I could bare. But after six days of not being able to stand upright for reasons not directly related to the disease itself, I just wanted to get back on my feet so I could go back to fighting it. My head is better now, and it's been a good couple of days since I've been back on my feet.  I'm back to living with the familiar exhaustion, leg pain, and blurred vision. But I went for a run in the vineyards yesterday. My alma mater won a football championship. I had an amazing glass of wine. And when I checked in at the ER registration desk, they even made me a new wristband, and all my information was correct. If only I  knew where to get a glass of tea.