The person I always thought I'd be died the day I heard the words, "You have MS."
Now don't get me wrong...I had no delusions of grandeur. I wasn't going to set the world on fire, write the next great American novel, or discover the cure for cancer, but I WAS going to live a "normal" life and face the same challenges that everyone else in America faces. I fully planned on working two or sometimes three jobs in order to pay my bills and provide a stable financial environment for my son.
There are everyday experiences that are accepted as absolutes.
Barring some kind of accident it never occurred to me that I would wake up and just not know if my legs would cooperate, that I might not be able to see from day to day, or that showering would prove a mighty enough task to fell me.
My MS has changed, has robbed me, of all of those "absolutes".
After my diagnosis I lived in a rehabilitation facility for a couple of weeks to learn how to walk, talk, bathe, and use my assisstive devices. I had difficulty writing (which is still a challenge), thinking, and caring for my most basic of needs like feeding myself (my mother still cuts my meat a lot of the time). The cognitive dysfunction for me has been the hardest to get used to, and the most damaging to my self esteem.
The challenges I now face are many and varied but they've forced me to slow down and focus on the aspects of my life that were being ignored...my son/family and health.
I don't know if I'll ever truly be able to bury her, or that I'd want to, but I AM learning to cope with the loss of the woman I thought I'd be and embracing the woman I know I still am.
Ya know.. that is one way of thinking I have never taken into account for myself. I LOVE your last statement. "Learning to cope with the loss of the woman I thought I'd be and embracing the woman I know I still am." I don't have MS, but I do have an embarrassing and hard to get used and life changing disease in my Crohn's. My Crohn's will never cause me not to see one day or not to walk the next, instead my daily life centers around one room in the house and besides for closets it just happens to usually be the smallest room in your home. Odd the similarities even in the most basic form. My heart goes out to you Jazmin and I gotta say... the woman that you are today is beautiful and strong even if you don't see it from day to day. ((Jazmin))
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