My life is good at the moment in fact it has been good for a while now but I know this will change; it’s not IF this will change but WHEN. I’m not fatalistic I’m realistic.
I am enjoying my ‘up’ time immensely. Jean and I have done a lot together recently. We’ve been to Brighton and Berlin, the Pro 12 Final in the Aviva and Dáil Eireann over the past few months and being honest I couldn’t have done them without her.
We both know that MS can rear its ugly head at any moment and without notice.
I have undertaken a personal project at home; we moved in here 2 ½ years ago and it is only recently that I felt physically able and motivated to clear out the shed, to prepare my ‘Man Cave’. Even though the shed is not big the clean out has taken a few weeks, which in MS time isn’t that long, but it isn’t quite finished yet. A run to the dump and another few hours will see it complete. An old farming adage is my guiding tenet at the moment; “make hay while the sun shines” and when translated into ‘MS Speak” it simply means “do it today because you may not be able to do it tomorrow”.
We both know that ‘tomorrow’ will come maybe not exactly tomorrow but someday.
There was a slight dip recently when the uninvited and unwelcome Mr Unthoff came to visit but thankfully he didn’t stay long. The weather over the past few days was not officially a heat wave more like a ripple but it took a lot out of me.
My Multiple Sclerosis (MS) seems to have taken a back seat for the moment and hopefully will stay back there for a long time. MS has been part of my life for more than 29 years and has left its marks and scars where they can’t be seen, except with an MRI scanner. Those marks and scars have placed limitations on my life but I have learned to live with them. MS has not gone away; it never will. It is just waiting in the shadows for the opportunity to pounce and re-impose old restrictions and maybe introduce a few new ones.
Life is good. Of course good is relative and I still have pains and aches in various parts and I am less able than I was a few years ago but I have learned to work within my limitations. My ‘time window’ for getting ‘stuff’ done is short and any effort to extend the time will be met with staunch resistance. MS is unpredictable and I celebrate the good times and every achievement and live in the here and now. Change will come but I will deal with it then.
This blog is not about boasting about how good I feel at the moment when I know of so many other People with Multiple Sclerosis (PwMS) whose disease course has been much more turbulent and destructive than mine. It is just to say appreciate the better times when they arrive and deal with the less good ones when they follow. “One day at a time”.
I know that when this good period is over, which I hope will not be any time soon, I will be less able; so I say Carpe Diem and MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES.