MS ... many sides, making sense ... of Multiple Sclerosis. I received my diagnosis last month after a week in the hospital with optic neuritis ... 2 spinal taps, 3 MRIs, IV steroid therapy, and a rest from all of life. In a way a blessing, because 2011 was a tough year. And just when I thought I was coming out of the tunnel after my husband of 30 years walked out ("I guess I never really loved you ... why, yes, there is someone else") on me and my two daughters -- BAM! The MS makes its appearance. The diagnosis is a blessing in some ways because it finally makes so many strange things I have been experiencing over the past few years make sense. It gives a name to the electrical current sensations, the intolerance for heat, the extreme fatigue, struggling with short term memory issues, not being able to find the "word" for a noun, the numbness and tingling in my feet (did I mention the fatigue?).
It's interesting to me that as I look back at so many things my ex-husband was angry at me about, many of them stem from the MS symptoms. The fatigue was not laziness. The memory loss was not indifference. The intolerance of heat was not an excuse to control the a/c...
This blog will hopefully help me navigate the next steps of live and MS. I am trying to make sense of it -- physiologically, psychologically -- and spiritually. How does God fit into this "new normal" of fatigue and hints of depression? My faith is strong -- throughout my life I have seen God meet me in hard places and He has upheld me and my daughters through the separation and divorce. I long for my girls to know Him as the God who is present, the God who is really there for them ... and I want to know Him as being there with me in this next adjustment of my life. A lot depends on me -- being ready and willing to listen to Him (since this did not take Him by surprise) and to receive from Him the love, support, care and guidance that He has for me.
I was wrestling the other day with thoughts about just how "personal" is God willing to be with me? How close? How intimate? How relevant? And I thought about how He gave us Jesus -- how through Christ, God put on this suit of flesh and showed us Himself at our level -- through human (although God) eyes and hands and feet that walked here, lived here, loved here and died here. Even though He, as God of the Universe doesn't need to validate Himself or His right to call the shots -- He became flesh so that we would know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He understands what it is like to be human. And since Jesus didn't commit any sin, lived the only holy life that was ever lived, it might be easy to think - that He doesn't understand the pain of our sinfulness. But the Bible says that "He became sin" on the cross. He turne into all the sin that ever was or will be committed. That's heavy. That's amazing. That's pain. And that's why I can trust Him to walk with me. Because He already "proved" His commitment to me -- and to you, if you are reading this. (I don't know how anyone would even find this to read it ...)
MS of MS ... the many sides of living with MS. Making sense of my new normal and my attempts to feel good again. I want to feel good again. To wake up rested and have the energy to get through the day without having to push myself with everything I have. I want to experience healing of heart, soul, mind and body ... Someone recently told me that God doesn't waste pain. So maybe through writing here, my pain of this past year won't be wasted. Maybe it will be poured out, waded through, run off ... and in its place a new life, a new hope will be born.
By the way ... I selected the background because it reminded me of the things I "saw" when my optic neuritis was at its worst. I have a lot of ideas for paintings now ... if I only had the energy to paint them.
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