MS Walk 2009

This one is a little harder to write than others posts, as it is more personal. I want to express a little bit about our experience with MS as I solicit for research funds again.

MA was definitively diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in March of 2002, after a first incident over Christmas of 2001. (as you can derive from the name, it takes more than one episode of inflammation of myelin around the nerves in the brain to constitute Multiple Sclerosis). I sent an email to many of our friends at that time; if anyone has a copy, I'd love to see it again.

The hardest part of MS is the lack of predictability. MA had numbness in her face in December 2001, then double vision and vertigo in March while we were with my family in Mexico. Strong doses of IV steroids tend to eliminate the short term problems like that and she did that a few times early on. Over the years since, she has had very few vision problems and no more bad numbness. The persistent recurring symptoms are extreme fatigue and a slight limp.

I did the MS walk in '05, '06 and '07, raising enough to be in the top 100 fundraisers in Georgia. A testament to how many people love Mary Anne. In 2007, our Faithmates Sunday School class from Peachtree walked with me (I should have a picture, but can't seem to find it) Last year, we were in Charleston watching Eleanor in her last college play during the walk, so we missed it. I'm looking forward to walking again this year.

My roommate Chuck said he admired me for how I took care of Mary Anne. It's really not taking care of, it's doing what you want to do for your favorite person on this earth. I love to cook, so it's convenient that it's easier for us to eat in most of the time. We did end up getting a housekeeper, as a concession to my not wanting to take the time to keep the house clean.

An MS blog Mary Anne read a while back was set at a diner and the speaker, who had MS, gathered spoons from some tables and put them in a pile. He explained his experience by saying something along the lines of:
Imagine that everything we expend energy on costs us some spoons and that we all start our days with the same number of spoons. Getting dressed, walking, shopping, even driving takes away spoons. For regular folks, getting dressed and driving somewhere probably costs one spoon. On a bad MS day, that can cost me a whole pile of spoons. This disease just makes me more careful about how I spend them.

We have worked very hard at making this disease less of a limitation and more of an opportunity to be careful with our spoons. Family and friends come first. We have eliminated from our lives many of the less important things that we used spend time and effort on. We do all our shopping on line. We also really don't sweat the small stuff; perspective is a beautiful thing.

Sitting here with the fire on, MA knitting, two dogs in dog ball in the den, life really couldn't be much better.

If you would like to sponsor me as I walk this spring, the link is here. If for some reason that doesn't work, paste the mess on the next line into the address bar on your browser.
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR/Walk/GAAWalkEvents?px=2158684&pg=personal&fr_id=11240

As the old Bartleby and James commercial used to say, thank you for your support.