i’ve learned I can keep going long after I think I can’t….
I’m pretty confident I didn’t sign up for MS. I didn’t take a number and stand in line to obtain a short fuse, memory problems, sensory overload, fatigue, numbness or pain. Yet, I’m the infamous owner of all and more. Sometimes I feel like the quondam image of me was long ago obliterated. I’d love it if someone could toss me a magical life ring. If I could just reach it, all these symptoms would be gone; but it’s just out of my grasp.
I am paddling toward the horizon but I never reach my goal. Every day is comparable to that. Some days are good, and some days are better; but then some days are just too much. I keep paddling through troubled waters littered with stress and anxiety, unanswered questions, heartaches and trying to explain symptoms for which words don’t exist.
When you have an invisible illness, there is a certain pain associated with not looking sick. Included are physical symptoms that you learn not to advertise. There are times when you feel really good…..so good – you absolutely overextend yourself. The next day you’re wiped out, literally. The life ring would come in handy about then. Still you keep going. I’m not sure how you persevere but you do. The way you feel is definitely inexplicable.
I was diagnosed with MS almost 20 years ago. Looking back, I wonder how I could have possibly come as far as I have. How was I a single mom all that time? I’m sure I did an acceptable job as a mom, but I wonder if it would have been different had I not been diagnosed with MS. Certainly all of us have wondered “what if?” at times for all sorts of reasons.
Then again, I feel extremely fortunate that I’m simply alive. I’m not sure what my point is, but I do know I have to keep going. As they say, “only the broken wave can know the ocean.”
You really can’t make this stuff up. I truly believe that. Some days your biggest supporter is your pet. Your greatest advocate, though, can be you. Difficult days can drain you, sometimes you feel unreliable, confused and just plain useless. It usually takes me the whole weekend to become whole again after a long week. And, stress can destroy you. Any stress.
I have a difficult time explaining that to anyone. Stress can drain anyone, but when you have MS, symptoms are magnified by a trillion. One would have to really sit and think about that to understand what I mean.
More than anything, I know that when you keep going good things happen too. If the goal was more difficult to obtain, the reward then is sweeter than you can imagine. Even though some days I can’t see the forest for the trees, I know there is a beach somewhere waiting for me to be on it.
In the mean time, I keep dreaming, believing, hoping and surviving. I keep going, long after I think I can’t.
