I was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting Multiple Sclerosis in December 2008. This is my blog about my life living with the roller-coaster world of MS with a little humor and advice thrown in!

Monday, December 8, 2014

Time Flies

It's been a while since I've posted I know!!  As I've mentioned in the past  I volunteer as an MS peer with National MS Society (basically, I just listen and help people get through their first year of diagnosis with support and my own experiences)  and I had a new MS patient that was assigned to me.  After a few chats she was thoroughly disgusted with her quality of care and lack of knowledge about MS.  I'm sure my vague answers about my experiences didn't help.

As most of us MS'ers who have had Multiple Sclerosis for a while we now KNOW
what a gray area (pun intended!) MS is.   There are so many variations of symptoms and everyone is different blah blah blah.  Well, this particular subject was frustrated not know what to expect and was scared (we've all been there) of the unknown future.  And proceeded to tell me that "thanks for trying to help, but I'm opting out of the MS community"

I was stunned.   Opt out??  Was that an option???  Nobody told me about that one. Where the hell was the check box for that one?????

 Well these last few months have been kind of crummy with my personal MS experience.   I've had a small exacerbation with eye pain, dizziness, numbness and pain.  Small in the sense it's still going on after a month  but has gotten no worse like I've had in the past and is tolerable.  Yay! Lucky me.......

I haven't felt like posting on my blog because of me feeling yucky and the last thing you want to do when your having MS symptoms are talk about them.  At least for me. Plus, my son was coming in from overseas in the Navy and would be home finally after 3 years. And,  my other 2 teenage boys had all kinds of things going on.  It has taken all I've got to act "normal" and conserve my energy so I could keep up.  I had a lot going on and it dawned on me.  I wanted to "opt out" of MS too.   At least for a while.  So I did.   Sure, I had daily reminders that I have it but I had enough to keep me distracted.

So I get it.  Everyone is entitled to "opt out" for a while if they feel like it. Doesn't make you a weak person.   Sometimes we just have to concentrate on ourselves.  

So here are some examples of me "opting out" since I've last posted.                I hope you enjoy!