I am and so are "YOU" A very long journey. I anticipate another twenty or thirty years. That will mean fifty or so years with Relapsing-Remitting ms (RRms) and seventy or eighty years of age. I was Diagnosed (DX'd) with my RRms at twenty-nine or thirty. Not very sure which it is not that important anymore. It was at the time but not anymore. "YOU" my dear ms sibling will start to understand that over your years with RRms. What was all-consuming, your entire being will change. I used to live for aeroplanes. Loved airports, lived for hanging out there and watching the aircraft come and go. I knew what the piots were saying to the Tower and when. All the good stuff a pilot should know. Now it is a take it or leave it type of situation. I know what is happening, but, it does not hold the same thrill that it used to. Do not get me wrong I still love a cool aeroplane and will ask to look in the cockpit if I can, but the all-consuming passion iI once had.
The same goes for fast cars, photography food and dare I say it, sex.
Yes, without a doubt over my twenty-plus years, I have changed. "YOU" my ms sibling will as well. Is it getting older, more mature, or is it our condition? I do not know. Ask somebody older and wiser than me, and they might have an answer. I would suggest that priorities change over time. Being able to walk through the grocery store and not trip now is my priority. Not looking too drunk when I get to the checkout is neat, not that I care, but it is polite. There is no reason to be a total ass even if I can be. Times change, I change. "YOU" will change, friends, family and lovers will change.
"YOU" will get old. This is a progressive disease, and it will progress. That is what it does. Come to your own terms with this and learn to accept it. RRms is a lifelong chronic and progressive condition. Make your long life as good as "YOU" possibly can. "YOU" will be disappointed, that happens, but "YOU" need not end up crying in your very own dark corner. There is pain, some excruciating, but it need not ever break "YOU." I do not doubt that "YOU" are much better than that, and those who think otherwise. Ignore them. It is quite okay, prove them wrong just because "YOU" can. I see people like us who do all sorts of things trying to act normal, whatever that is. Good on them. I do not have to be like that, and neither do "YOU."
Livs, your RRms journey, live it the best way that "YOU" can. Live by your own rules, not somebody else's. Meet your expectations, not somebody else's. There are challenges, and this is what keeps life fun and exciting, figuring out how to get past the next obstacle in your ms journey. Where to turn next, no goal or dream lasts forever in the RRms world. Change is your only constant. Do not fear it, learn to embrace it. Be aware that it happens and be like the bamboo bend in the face of the storm. Bend, bend hard, never break and slowly come back straight. Maybe not so tall, but "YOU" did not break. "YOU" had a victory, "YOU" perhaps did not claim total victory, but every little win is a win for your Gringotts treasure vault. Take every win that "YOU" possibly can, "YOU" might need them one dark lonely night.
Royce (the writer
)every day in some way you are getting better and better
