People
deal with a diagnosis of MS in very different ways.
None
of those ways are right or wrong, they are simply the way you choose (or are able) to deal with this breezeblock that's
been dumped unceremoniously in your life.
Personally,
I am an information junkie and I read as much as was
available and asked as many questions as I could think of. This is
possibly due to a) my previous life as a journalist and/or b) my
inbuilt overwhelming nosiness.
During
my reading and questioning, I came across a phrase which was repeated
over and over again on forums, inspirational quote websites or in
interviews. It seemed the unofficial slogan of the community.
If
you have MS, I'm pretty sure you've seen it too, it's the catchy: “I have MS but MS doesn't have me!”
And
yes! I thought, when I first saw it, that sounds like an ideal mantra
to have, maybe I'll even have it on a t-shirt!
It
seemed positive and hopeful and a little bit fighty and I liked that.
And while I was still fortunate enough to be pretty quiet on the MS
front five years after diagnosis, it remained a slightly smug motto.
But
then, as the relapses became more severe, took longer to recover from
and left more damage, I had weeks when I was certainly more in this
camp:
Sometimes,
there is no point in denying that MS does have me. It had me when it
took my sight, it had me when it stopped my speech and it has me when
it forces me to review and adjust any number of my personal spheres.
But
to live with MS means to find your own balance between the two
extremes: the optimism and the despair, the denial and the knowledge,
the fight and the fear.
Fifteen
years since I found the first MS mantra, I still try to retain the
positivity of it - but am now far more likely to temper it with the
reality of the lived experience.
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