I’m not aiming to be flippant, but let’s look on the bright side.
Is there one to MS?
It’s up to us. I’ve established that MS is:
- Crap
- Forever
- Crappily forever
So. Life with MS is crap. On a dramatic level, it took my father from me, at the age of 35. I was 4 and a half.
On a less-dramatic level, I hope I can show that life with MS is not The End.
Strangely, I have a lot to be thankful for:
- Life is wonderful and I now live it day by day.
- Life is unexpected.
- Life is a learning curve.
Ok. So, I was bitterly, utterly depressed for a full two years following my diagnosis. Not helped by a toxic working environment. Or having my partner leave without a backwards glance. Or … you get my meaning.
Anyway, almost three years down the line from The Diagnosis, I have finally realised that MS is here to stay. And if it’s here to stay, then I might as well get used to it. I actually struggle to remember life pre-MS. It shook me (us) up, it rocked the foundations of our lives and it had no mercy. What it left was a tidal quake of regrets, sighs and a lot of evaluation.
So, it rocked my life, and how. I was ‘lucky’. I was not as young as my father, who left before we knew him. I was not so old as to be set in my ways. I was 37. The Teenager was just moving from 11 to 12, seismic in Teenage years. I’d had my wild, crazy years and could still bore anyone passing with my reminiscences.
Me and The Teenager have gone through it all pretty much alone. We’ve had tears, tantrums and turmoil. Now we are in GCSE year, we’re shifting back to how it should be: me nagging him, rather than him reminding me to walk carefully.
It’s been a journey, to use a hackneyed phrase. Are we through the worst? I don’t think so. But that’s another challenge, for another day.
Hi,
So MS killed my career but since then life has been one long happy evolution. You are right life with MS is crap but Life is what you make of it.
I have learnt more since I was medically retired in 2012 than I learned in the previous 30 odd years as a computer geek BUT those 30 years prepared me for what I’m doing right now.
SO – I’m very relaxed and in a curious way grateful for MS. It really has given me a totally new life. OK we are poorer but more content. Finally recognized that life is more than money in the bank.
MS really is a funny old disease but then I am lucky. I hope this is note too trite but actually its horribly true.
Patrick
What a brilliant comment!! So true. MS really does show you what life is really all about.
x
Ian Dury & the Blockheads…now there’s a song (I like the bit near the end, …Sax, solo or something like that!) REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL…..
Now I don’t want to bore you but I remember the time he played Belfast back in the 80’s..A good gig!
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be,
Jonny
Nostalgia is brilliant and I love this song!
x
“I hope I can show that life with MS is not The End”
same here. I have actually had people ask me how long the docs thought I had left….um bugger off :p
That’s terrible!!
x
it is and goes to show how little people really know about MS
Very true. Needs to be a lot more education about it.
x
I collected my MS at 55, and it moved me career wise in a direction I wouldn’t have dreamed of. But I think it has also helped me to enjoy every minute of it. So I’m strapped in ready for the ride wherever it goes
Great comment! Totally agree with you. I’m toying with the idea of getting my motorbike license…
X