Greetings good people, a wee question! Why does the anniversary of 2 years since the beginning of the rest of my life feel so important or rather so questionable?
Two years ago, all the sensory stuff that led to my diagnosis kicked of to the day. I have coped fairly well - really well considering the changes I have had to terms with including the loss of two of the activities that were so important to me - hill walking and badminton. There have been some relapses needless to say, none of them really drastic - touch wood but that slow and steady errosion of abilities leave their mark.
I guess I have a lot to be grateful for, that positive outlook and the other options I have made as replacement that almost fill the gap - my camera is my blessing and i have an opportunity to maybe make some pocket money out of it as well. I am looking at dropping a day at work as well to make it easier.
I guess what I am saying is the MonSter is a right royal pain in the butt but I have made some excellent new friends on the forum here and thanks to Facebook - I have also discarded some folks who offered nothing but grief - sol long suckers lol.
So lets raise a glass to the MonSter - happy birthday to you, as they say 'Slainte’
Im glad youve found a new hobby, but when i read it was your camera i was dissapionted as you dont have a little avatar pic yet, ive got one of my cat, so lets see a little picture youve taken. julsiexx
I’m glad to read you’re managing to maintain a positive outlook and I hope you continue to do so. I’m reaching the two year mark in a couple of months (two months tomorrow in fact) and I have to say a positive outlook certainly helps, as well as support from those around you. Looking back I can’t help thinking, two years already?
Anyway, heres to many more years of being positive, regardless of what the MonSter may throw at you.
I will never raise a toast to it, I’m afraid - though usually, any excuse for a tipple. I’ll drink to anything, just not that. You, your hobby, your continued (relatively) good health - anything else.
I had my first anniversary quite recently, but in many ways it’s rather arbitrary, because my neuro had told me months before that it was by far the most likely thing. And looking back, I’d had symptoms and problems stretching back years before that. Sometimes I wonder if it hasn’t been decades, because I feel there were things in my 20s that “weren’t quite right”: I’m now in my 40s! So who knows how long, exactly? I think I may have had many more anniversaries than the official one.
Touch wood, my experience has been of relapses that are few in number and/or rather minor. But like you, I’m conscious of the gradual decline. I’m much weaker and more frail than I used to be, and this makes me sad.
Still “Keep calm, and carry on”, though. I keep meaning to buy that poster!
Why are there no winky smilies? That’s a bit unusual, isn’t it? Two different types of happy, and two different types of scared, but no winks.
Happy Birthday to yours. Its my 18th Monster birthday on 25th November. I’ve got myself a first class honours degree this year despite it all, so why not celebrate. Fingers up to MS
I could never raise a glass to MS. My demise is much more drastic than yours - I’m in a wheelchair and still going downward. This positivity malarky does nothing for me either as it does not repair the damage nor stop the relapses. I have nothing to substitute the life I had and would dearly like back (I know that is impossible). I’m not a defeatest, I’m a realist.
I am pleased that you are having an easier time of it and really hope it lasts forever, but forgive me I cannot raise a glass to this horrid disease.
Well done Willie, Keep on going … We all do our best, day in, day out … sometimes it is easier, and sometimes living hell … but knowing other people (on this forum) understand is a comfort. It’s 25 years for me now… I checked up in my 1986 diary back in the spring and made a point of reflecting about the occasion on the due date. Goodness me, if I had known then what I know about MS now - but I have been lucky, I know.
and good luck to you with your own MonSter, Willie
Cheers mate! I’ll riase a glass with you. Whilst I will never be glad I have MS, I can be glad that it made me look at my life and change things.
On 8th December this year it will be 3 years since my first symptoms (well, the first ones that made me realise it wasn’t just something odd or old age creeping up). Back then when they first told me it may be MS I was devastated and never thought I would come to terms with it. I wasn’t used to being unwell myself, I’m usually the one who rallies around parents and friends when they are unwell and I just used to carry on rushing around and never sit still. It didn’t help that the only thing I ‘knew’ from TV etc about MS was that it puts people in a wheelchair so I had to find this site and start learning fast.
So, in a way, I’m grateful for the MS. Now, I have to put myself first and be a bit more selfish. It took some getting used to for me and my nearest and dearest buy we all seem to have got through it. It’s 2 years since my last relapse and despite some lingering symptoms I feel quite well in myself and I am still working and enjoying life. I don’t take things for granted any more, like the ability to talk properly, or being able to walk or use my hands properly.
Like you, I have reassesssed my friendships and certain colleagues, who I thought were friends, soon showed their true colours and I realised they were just colleagues so relegated them to that position. I have made good friends through my local MSS branch and through yoga which I love and which helps keep me mobile. I used to enjoy needlecrafts but had to give them up as I cannot feel a tiny needle any more and either dropped it all the time or stabbed myself, but I have found other things to fill my time and, thanks to needing an afternoon nap, I don’t have so much free time anyway.
I think you have found the best way to cope for you and it is certainly better than concentrating on the negative things. So here’s to all of us, let’s raise a glass to all of us MS survivors (I hate the term sufferers!) I wish there was an emoticon for a glass of bubbly!!