Different

After my previous post where I wrote all the things that would be different if I didn't have MS I became acutely aware that I am very different from the person I was last year.
The one year mark is quickly approaching and I find it hard to believe it has almost been a year since I woke up with a numb thumb. It wasn't really that memory that sticks with me though. At that point I was still naive and believed it was nothing. The first AH HA moment was a few days later when I was standing under the water in the shower and I realized my entire upper half of my right body was numb and tingling but as soon as the water hit the left side it was normal. At that moment I knew this was something bad. Really bad.

I have one more vivid memory of my initial symptoms. This too was before I had my official diagnosis. But this memory sticks with me because it was the first time I realized how completely powerless I was to whatever was happening to my body. The first time I experienced what many refer to as the MS HUG was terrifying. How can the damage to my nervous system make me feel like I have an extremely tight girdle around my ribs. So tight that I couldn't catch my breath? Could my body really do that to me? And at the same time I wondered for the first time what the future held for me.

I'm a different person than before I knew I had MS, but more importantly I'm different today than the person I was in those first two painful memories of my disease. I am no longer controlled and overcome by my fears. I know what I have, I know what I can't do anymore and I listen to my body. I only hope that my life is not much different in a year from today because I like where I am.