bethybright

[bethybright]

I’ve been hacked

This is a public service announcement for anyone who follows me on Facebook. Apparently, I’ve been hacked which means I no longer have access to the Bethy Bright and Dark Facebook page (and I’ve lost thousands of followers there). I’m waiting to see if I can recover my old pages before making new ones but there’s a pretty good chance that content may be lost forever. If I can’t get it back in…

[bethybright]

And here we are: crisis mode

And here we are: crisis mode

It’s been a good long time since I’ve felt like my typically quasi-functional MS self. I think that’s been obvious by my unwillingness to write about it. I mean, when have I ever gone three full months without writing a single word? Never. Not since I could hold a pen and write words with it. Everytime I start to put words on a page, I get lost, then I quit and say, “Maybe tomorrow.” Then…

[bethybright]

Mary Jo: The Third in a Series

Mary Jo: The Third in a Series

I have to be honest. When I started this series about the surprising and wonderful people that have come into my life as a result of having multiple sclerosis, most of the folks who made the list are people I’ve known for quite some time. I’ve had MS for six ridiculously long years. The number of people both in-real-life and on the socials who have impacted me in amazing and unexpected ways is…

[bethybright]

Idris Elba: The Second in a Series

Idris Elba: The Second in a Series

No. I do not own the rights to this photo of the one and only Idris Elba so I am fully prepared for the copyright police to come after me but this is a risk I am willing to take for the second in my series of posts about the people in my life who have made a fundamental and sometimes unexpected impact on my life. And yes. Idris Elba is one of those people. We’ve known each other for some time…

[bethybright]

Alicia: The first in a series

Alicia: The first in a series

Perhaps you’ve noticed a certain lack of words coming from these pages as of late. Maybe you haven’t and you’re also sick and tired of reading about how tired I am of being both sick and tired. I wouldn’t blame you. This not writing thing started as me telling myself I needed a little social media break over the holidays. I didn’t want to take pictures of my first family holiday in my new home –…

[bethybright]

The things we don't talk about (Volume 2)

The things we don’t talk about (Volume 2)

Back in 2017, before my MS went into hyper-speed mode, I shared what I thought at the time was a very open and vulnerable post about some of the body image issues that re-emerged for me two years into my diagnosis. It wasn’t easy for me to hit “publish” on that post called “Broken eyes, broken brains and the things we don’t talk about.” I re-read it just now trying to get back to the headspace I…

[bethybright]

You in danger girl

You in danger girl

Do you remember this epic scene from Ghost when Whoopi tells Demi Moore’s character Molly how she was in danger from specters from the great beyond? Better yet do you remember the original Friday the 13th movie, the very first one? It ends with one of the only surviving campers from Camp Crystal Lake somehow making it to safety in a row boat out in the middle of the lake after all of her friends…

[bethybright]

The Value of a Life Inside

The Value of a Life Inside

I don’t think there is a MS-related concept that has troubled me more than the notion that since becoming a full-time wheelchair user what I have become what some would consider house bound. I mean, those words! I shuddered typing them. And yet the truth is that since becoming a full-time wheelchair user and because of the progression of my level of disability along with my strong desire to be…

[bethybright]

Limbo

I cannot lie, reader, using the particular image I chose from my stock photo service for this post made me chuckle right out loud because as I’m sure you can guess, that perky fun beach limbo is decidedly not the kind of limbo I am about to write about. No, there is no beach limbo with ridiculously good-looking stock model friends in my future and yet I am, indeed, most definitely in another kind…

[bethybright]

Bethybright and Dark the Movie: the episode nobody wanted to see

Bethybright and Dark the Movie: the episode nobody wanted to see

I can’t type. It sucks. Badly. So I made this cringey video. Click that link at your own risk, people. Writers should stick to writing, no?    

[bethybright]

A cure for pain

A cure for pain

I don’t remember when I started listening to the band Morphine. I know it was sometime in the late 90’s when I was working at Ketchum Advertising. The creative people there with whom I’d become fast friends were always hooking me up with new music I’d never heard of. It was like work heaven to me. A career that felt more exciting than it had any right to feel, working alongside the coolest people…

[bethybright]

The Cure for Pain

The Cure for Pain

 I don’t remember when I started listening to the band Morphine. I know it was sometime in the late 90’s when I was working at Ketchum Advertising. The creative people there with whom I’d become fast friends were always hooking me up with new music I’d never heard of. It was like work heaven to me. A career that felt more exciting than it had any right to feel, working alongside the coolest…

[bethybright]

For Meggie

I can’t talk to my friend Meg right now. Which is difficult because I also can’t stop thinking about my friend Meg right now as she is ensconced in a hospital room in Omaha after just having gone through a surgery that I am hoping with all of the hope I can muster gets my friend Meg some desperately needed relief. It’s funny really. I’ve never actually spoken to Meg using my voice. We text. Or DM…

[bethybright]

What are you doing today?

What are you doing today?

Holidays are the best. For this Fourth of July, I was fortunate enough to have not just the usual three-day weekend, but my French-company gives us a five-day weekend for this most American of holidays (viva la France!). The Fourth befuddles me, though, mostly because I know enough about systemic racism and American history to know that there were thirty two thousand four hundred eighty five days…

[bethybright]

Irony is my jam

Irony is my jam

I stumbled across an article from The New Yorker yesterday that got me kind of excited. It was written in 2013 by Meghan O’Rourke about her experience with autoimmune disease entitled, What’s Wrong with Me? I Had an Autoimmune Disease then the Disease Had Me. Reading about her long journey to diagnosis where so many specialists  reviewed her symptoms and wrote her off as 100% healthy to the point…

[bethybright]

Fam. We Need To Talk About Compression Socks.

Fam. We Need To Talk About Compression Socks.

I first learned about compression socks during my first tour of duty at IPR (or InPatient Rehab for the luckily uninitiated) where I used my first wheelchair because they were mandatory – both the socks and the wheelchair. Those socks were called Ted hose and they were from the devil’s own sock boutique. They were white elastic things that resembled old school knee-highs but were like pulling up…

[bethybright]

The stories we were told

The stories we were told

Our lives are built from the stories we were told from the time we were old enough to have the ability to remember – and if you ask me, maybe even before that. Sometimes those are very happy stories that make our hearts overflow. Sometimes they’re traumatic stories that nobody remembers quite the same way you do. Sometimes they’re just goddamn funny stories that make you laugh right out loud at…