Thursday, October 27, 2016

My 'real' Reality

A few days ago I desperately wished I was back at work. It wasn't that I missed having a career or felt like I didn't have a purpose.  I had a tightness in my chest because I was able to finally see that I CANT work. Up until yesterday I was able to live in denial, not only about work but my life.
Now I'm having to face the reality that MS is part of my life, it's there when I wake up, it's there when I try to write, when I sit too long, when I go to sleep and even in the middle of the long nights when I can't sleep. My days are spent dealing with numbness, neuropathy pain, fatigue, burning, itching, bladder issues.
Back when I was first diagnosed I was able to live in denial as MS hadn't taken up such a big part of my life. Now over 5 years later I've had to do some housecleaning and make more room for MS in my life. Almost every decision I make it is a factor.   With the constant neuropathy pain and parathesia it is harder and harder to push this part of my life to side side and pretend it isn't there.

The past few days I've been looking back on this disease over the years and I now realize I am not the same person I was 5 years ago or even a year ago. MS has slowly taken things.  It's been sneaky about it, so slow and sly that I often didn't realize it when it was being taken away.
My right hands ability and function is far less, but can I tell you the days it got worse? No, it's so slight yet constant that there isn't a day or time I could pinpoint that it got worse.

Ok that's all the sad crappy thoughts I have had recently.  But if you know me I like to find a positive. And even though I had to dig hard and deep on this one I have found one.
If I can't remember the moment that MS took the feeling and fine motor skills in my right hand, if I don't remember the exact moment the neuropathy pain became my constant companion then that must mean that I am learning to adapt to this life with MS.

For now I will accept it and allow it a little more space in my life.  But I am not yet willing to give up anything else to give it more room.