Play the cards you are dealt

When you are first diagnosed and you suddenly feel like you are in free-fall, it's helpful to quickly assess your basic situation: your shelter, money & food.

 

With MS, for example, you are probably a young adult. I was.

 

In 1991, I knew nothing about this disease, there was no Internet yet, and all the books in the hospital that discussed it were over 10-years old and basically said it was an incurable, progressive, neurological disease, and I should just start planning to be in a wheelchair, move someplace on the ground floor.

 

I was 26, single, living alone, a recent college grad.  The first symptoms that had caused me to go to doctors to begin with had already vanished. (Later diagnosed as some form of random Trigeminal Neurologia which has never reoccurred, in this form anyway, since.)

 

But when I told my friends and family, they were devastated for me. I, however, didn't yet know how I felt, so I couldn't deal with anyone else's feelings right then anyway.

 

I hope it reassures you to know that I am older now (you do the math), happily married, live in a two-story house (going down is easier then going up), finished graduate school, and am still working full-time (albeit telecommuting entirely from home now).

 

Basically, what works for me and hopefully comes across to you is the determination to keep moving forward, to play the cards I'm dealt.

 

I recently watched a video clip about a high-school athlete paralyzed in a car crash. After pitying himself for a bit, "he discovered hand cycling, and now teaches and rides competitively. He travels all over the world…(t)eaching hand cycling to other people in his position (which) brings him joy."  You can see his story here.

 

 Writing brings me joy!

 

Related stuff

• Happify website
• Spark Joy: An Illustrated Master Class on the Art of Organizing and Tidying Up
• Awkward Bitch: My Life with MS