A Day With MS

It’s been awhile since I talked about living with Ken’s Multiple Sclerosis, so for those of you out there who are serving the same sentence as Ken, I thought I’d share what happened this morning.

I didn’t hear him get out of bed, but when I woke at 6:30 a.m., I knew he was up because the kitchen light was on. I fully expected to stumble out to our little bistro to find him eating a bowl of cereal–his breakfast of choice.

However, he wasn’t in the kitchen. He was curled up in a ball, sleeping in the hallway. I wasn’t alarmed because this has happened several times. All of a sudden, a wave of fatigue hit him and he became too weary to go any further, so wisely he gave in, took a nap, and then woke up about a half an hour later. His little nap gave him enough strength to get to the couch to take a longer nap.

For those of you who don’t struggle with this mean disease, fatigue is one of the things you must endure. Ken fights sleeping at odd hours; I think he sees it as a sign of weakness and to give into fatigue’s demands it is difficult for him. So when I saw him this morning, I knew today would be tough. We wouldn’t be leaving the house today.

But that’s okay. It’s frigid outdoors again today, and this afternoon the Football Conference Championships are on television. As avid football fans, we’ve planned our snacks and look forward to an afternoon of hooting and hollering for our favorite teams. We have become expert at taking a small event and making it something special. The little things that come along have become special. We have had to slow down and search for happiness as we struggled through the bad days.

Looking forward is a much better than dwelling in the pass. But living in the present is where its at, even when the days starts with a nap on the floor.