Don't let him waste your time

I’ll be honest, I’ve been putting it off forever.

Finding many and varied reasons not to: it’ll be very dull, no-one will be interested, work is frantic, home is frantic, there’s places to go, there’s friends to see, oooh, there’s that thing on the telly, the cats need feeding, I’ve got to help with the homework, the loo needs cleaning (no one says this voluntarily, ever) I need a cup of tea.

But! No more! I now have a large cup of tea, the loo is sparkly fresh and at almost 13 years into this multiple sclerosis malarkey it’s about time I tried to write it down. Surely there’s something of use that I’ve learned since that first unknowing trip to hospital in January 2004.

Erm.

Well yes, there is quite a bit, but the vast landscape of MS means there’s an awful amount I don’t know too. Perhaps because it’s too frightening, because there’s no point in worrying about it until it happens, perhaps because it’s too overwhelming and perhaps because, quite honestly, I’d rather-not-consider-that-aspect-of-it-yet-thank-you (yes, I am looking at you bladder and bowel control, sneaking your icky little faces over the parapet.)

But if I do have any words of wisdom* they are:

• that dealing with MS may take things away from you – physically, mentally and emotionally – but it still leaves you with a choice about how you deal with those losses. And having a choice, even within diminishing parameters, is a massively powerful thing;
• that MS forces you to find out what kind of person you are and to discover that you are stronger than you think – and that’s not a bad thing to find out about yourself;
• that MS helps you, in the nicest sense, sort the wheat from the chaff – your decisions about who to spend your time with, what to spend your time on and the things that really make you happy; and
• that MS can sneak in like a really, really rubbish Milk Tray Man and instead of leaving you some iconic (although possibly slightly squashed) 80s chocolates, may steal your legs, your sight or your speech. But don’t let it take your sense of humour, your faith in yourself or your time.

If there’s anything you think you should be doing then, wherever possible, do it now. It’s taken me almost 13 years to realise that – and there are many things I haven’t done that I regret, but there’s an important lesson there and it’s one I’m now trying to live by.

:: Don’t let him waste your time – by Jarvis Cocker

*I say wisdom, I mean slightly incoherent ramblings that can get a bit passionate. Then I cry.