The Small Things in Life that make it worth it

Talk about laughing through my tears. My son says the only benefit he gets from MS is the monthly air miles he racks ups as a result of the exhorbitant cost of his copaxone. So far he has turned those air miles collected over the last couple of years in to a nice 40" HD TV. Today he figured out a way to rack up even more every month. He calls it "airmiles inspired living to the max". He says it's the only thing that makes him jab himself with a needle every night......the crazy things in life that keep us going eh? Whatever works as I told him. The MS walk is this Sunday here and I always find it to be such a rough day as I'm forced to face reality in a big way. It will be even tougher this year as I go it alone without my family there with me. Not always sure this move was a good thing even though I'm trying to consider our future and where we can afford to be when all is said and done.

MS strikes again!

Mostly this is about life as a mom who has a son with multiple sclerosis and what that feels like. I remember very clearly the day we were told. My son symptoms presented with his left eye. It had stopped moving. The first thing they did after the initial exam was send him to see a neurologist who scheduled him for an MRI. We were sitting in his office as he went through the results and when he was finished, he asked what we thought when we heard the term multiple sclerosis. It took all I had to keep it together and not break down. For Dustin's sake, I did not want to do that. I was trying my best to be strong and positive. He kept asking what we thought and all could say was, "I need to go home and process this". All Dustin could say was he was glad it wasn't cancer that he could live with a wheelchair at some point but he has since changed his thinking. He had no idea at the time what he was up against. What was going through my mind was a friend who was diagnosed when we were in our late 20's. He was an electrician with his own very busy business. My thoughts went to all of scrambling to help him out as he was quickly admitted to hospital where he was bed ridden and couldn't even feed himself for weeks. Back then they didn't have MRI's and CAT scans so after ruling out other illnesses, the decided he had multiple sclerosis. I have lost touch with them due to all of us moving to different areas but I often wonder how he is doing.