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.
