On this day ten years ago, I woke up with numbness on the entire left side of my body. If you have followed or heard my story, you know this isn’t the first day this happened to me, but it was the most intense and largest area of numbness. Later that day, I would have an MRI and by the time I went to bed, I had a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Talk about devastated. I had never been so scared in my life.
As I researched and cried and talked with my few trusted loved ones, I learned A LOT. I had hope from stories of fellow MS warriors who “only had one attack in 10 years” and I thought-what a dream, but I also felt that was rare. What I did not know at that time is how far we had come with medicine and research for MS. It wasn’t all that long ago that you would expect to see someone in a wheelchair within 10-15 years after an MS diagnosis. Yet here I am, working out almost daily, and apart from a few little symptoms or related diagnosis that I have gotten since, I live a fairly normal life.
This diagnosis would alter the course of my life in multiple ways. First, I had a crash course in fighting with insurance, copay assistance, multiple doctor visits, and learning to love the sounds of an MRI machine. I developed so much empathy for those with chronic health conditions and the hardships that they go through, outside of the disease itself. It is something you cannot fully understand until you are in it.
My husband at the time made a comment about “not being sure I am ready and able to care for someone with MS” which, believe it or not, was only part of what led to the eventual divorce. I would later realize what a blessing this was. When someone makes you feel the way I felt in that relationship, it is hard to imagine leaving and being good enough for anyone else. If the person who said “in sickness and in health” didn’t really mean it, why would anyone else jump on board with a chronically ill person? So, I left for myself, and my kids, with the plan to be single forever. I knew that if I put one step in front of the other, I would figure things out, and that is exactly what I did. Without my leaving, I would have never learned to love myself in the way that I have and would never have eventually met the love of my life.
I changed my mindset. I decided that I would stop chasing success and money, and live a life full of connections with people I care about. I decided that work would never be my identity, but something that I do to provide the life that I want now. I needed just enough to live and provide my kids with what we needed. I started to do the things that I was putting off, because what if when I finally get around to doing them, I can’t walk or do not have the energy to do them.
I decided to treat everyone I meet with kindness and compassion. I do not feel that I was a mean person before, but when you are humbled in the way that I was 10 years ago, you realize that a little kindness and positivity from those you encounter can make a big difference in your own mood and outlook. Very few people knew what I was going through in those first initial months after diagnosis, while I was recovering from that first attack. Every day was a struggle to just keep going, mentally. A rude cashier at Kroger brought me to tears over just the tone she spoke to me in. While I am sure she left the encounter believing I needed psych help, she had no way of knowing that she just taught exactly what they mean when they say “you never know what someone else is going through.” To this day, I choose to be kind and seek out the positives in any situation I am in. What if your kindness is the only good thing to happen to someone that day?
I also started to take care of my body. This is definitely a work in progress, but I know that I feel better when I eat well and move my body. I have done various elimination diets, tried fasting, tried to cut out certain things from my diet completely, and made fitness more and more of a priority. I work out 4-5 times a week now, and when I don’t my body will truly start to hurt. I have learned so much about how what we put in our bodies and expose them to has a significant impact on our bodies ability to function properly. With mine already trying to attack itself, I figured I might as well do what I can to help it work optimally. *FULL DISCLOSURE—I have A LONG way to go here, but I am on the right path.
For the past 10 years I have been living with MS, and learning to roll with the punches, rise up to the challenges, smile through the chaos, and treat my body how it needs to be treated. In turn, I have made some of the best relationships, experienced so much joy in the world, and had no true disease progression (three MS drugs along the way). I can truly say for all the terrible things that happened to me 10 years ago, I am thankful for each and every single one, and all the days and experiences I have had since.
-MS Andrea Jackson
