Rewriting Your MS History
If you could go back in time and change whether or not you got multiple sclerosis, would you? I imagine if I asked this to a crowd of those with this disease, a riot of “duhs” would rain down. Who in their right mind would want MS? That person must have a brain smaller than a walnut. Clearly a cashew-sized brain or one not quite the girth of a beer nut. (Incidentally, a beer nut technically is neither made of beer nor nuts—peanuts are legumes—and is an outrageous bit of misleading advertising, especially to a teenager looking to catch a legal and cheap protein-laden buzz.) But the answer, as you’ll read, isn’t so clear cut.
Scientists are not sure how multiple sclerosis
manifests itself, but there are clues, like where you lived in your early to
mid teens. Those residing in latitudes farther away from the equator are
significantly more likely to get diagnosed with MS than those living closer. Is
it because of less sun exposure, less Vitamin D? Perhaps. How would your life
be different if your family was uprooted and forced to move to a sunnier,
warmer location? For some of us, those were the years where our strongest
lifelong friendships were forged. There would be no snow forts to defend, or
cold Halloween nights to bemoan your licorice haul, or basement slumber parties
in the dead of winter where the friend wearing footy PJs was the envy of all.
Would you trade away all of those friendships and all of those memories? Maybe.
Researchers also speculate that the Epstein-Barr
virus could be a contributing culprit. Like many others with MS, I got EBV/mono
when I was in high school. (And from a girlfriend, no less, who I wasn’t that
fond of to begin with, sigh.) So maybe my rewritten past would mean a mono-free
senior year. Brilliant! I wouldn’t have missed a month of school, my grades
wouldn’t have nose dived, and I wouldn’t have had to settle on my third-choice college.
But I also wouldn’t have gotten that job at The
Washington Times, I wouldn’t have had the afternoons off to wander into a
random greeting card store… and I wouldn’t have met my wife. Give me MS a
million times over; I wouldn’t want to revise those parts. Not to mention I obviously
wouldn’t have started ActiveMSers … and then where would you go to find nonsensical
rants about beer nuts?
It’s funny how life works out. And you know I don’t
mean ha-ha-milk-out-the-nose funny (or for those of you on a dairy-free diet,
soy-milk-out-the-nose funny). We can’t change our past, which is probably just
as well. But our future? We can still mold that. I just wish I was a touch better
with a potter’s wheel.
Comments
Phew! That's the best MS has brought me - saved me from a horrible guy.
I
As for would I change my having MS, I would in a half a second. I'd probably be faster, but the darn MS slows my response time for such difficult decisions. In all seriousness, I look at a lot of the physical issues I've dealt with in the past like ripping ligaments playing soccer or having testicular torsion as mere training for how to deal with the pains of MS. I view a lot of my mistakes in the same light now that I make many many more. I view experiences from both categories in a different light in terms of the tolerance I've developed for accepting less than optimal outcomes.
This doesn't mean I would chose to play this great game of life with a mental hand tied behind my back handicap. Unless this MS is preparing for something else to come, I'd just assume pass. None of this keeps me from appreciating the benefits MS has given me in terms of empathy with my medically fragile kids or the sense of needing to fill each day and appreciate the things I have and can do. No, I'm not saying MS has given me nothing worth noting. I would like to think what it has given me, I was already on route to possessing.
Let's say it all came down to where you lived when you were 13. Say you grew up in Arizona rather than on the East Coast. (The anti-MS time machine had your parents decide on a move west on your 13th birthday.) Would you rewrite everything after age 13 to rid yourself of this disease? Your adopted kids would not have you as a wonderful dad. You would have never met your amazing wife. You would have gone to different schools, had different friends, everything.
It's a huge tradeoff. And most of us would never make such a pact....
Humor makes dealing with all of the downsides much easier. I have learned to laugh off recovering for near falls as practicing for surfing. Don't let it define you and don't ever lose the sense of humor. Thx Dave for once again reminding of the brighter side of things. your are an inspiration.