It's been a year!

It's been a year! One year is a real marker. Here's what was happening this week last year:

July 3, 2011

 I gave my car away yesterday. It was a logical decision – I’m not able to drive right now, and probably won’t be able to again. It’s just been sitting in the carport for 2 weeks, and my son needed a car. It was a very short leap, a “duh” thing, really. But I gave my car away yesterday, that’s a big deal, isn’t it? Why don’t I care more about what that means?

The walking debacle yesterday was much worse than the car thing. Freaked me right out when I realized how much trouble I was in. I mean, going up and down steps was a challenge and I knew it would be, but the realization that I needed to sit and there was nowhere to do that, and what that meant to my legs? That was bad. And that it happened so fast, it’s not like we had walked a few blocks, even. My legs get rather mule-ish when they’ve done too much – they just freeze up and won’t move. That it was all happening in front of my mom and my son was especially bad. The enormity – how would I feel if I was the mom watching this happen to her child, or the child watching it happen to his mom? At least I really cried about it at the time, instead of trying to hide it.

This is enormous. I can’t work, I’m not mentally processing the way I’ve always been able to, I’ve asked for assistance from my family. And I’ve noticed I can’t stand the 2 minutes required to brush my teeth with my electric toothbrush. I’ve known what MS can do to people and I’ve considered myself lucky thus far. I didn’t know that it could change so quickly. It feels like I just woke up one morning and everything was different.

It’s kind of like getting a terminal diagnosis with no chance to fight it. In this case, though, my previous way of life is what’s dead. I can’t work, which means I’m not going to make a difference for my company through promotions to other positions. I’m not going to be respected for my abilities to write for Farmers. I’m not going to advance to making a comfortable amount of money. I’ve made the call to get the “I’ve fallen and can’t get up” button. And, I’ve had to ask my sibling to help me think and do paperwork to get on assistance programs. The real Susan would be irate over this.

Maybe my lack of emotion regarding everything that’s happening to me right now is indicative of how overwhelmed I am. I have thought it was a sign that the MS has messed with that part of my brain – the apparent inability to process what’s really going on. That could be, too. In a perfect world, it would be a sign that I know what I control and what I don’t, and that I easily trust God for all things I can’t fix. I don’t think that’s entirely it.

I had a miscarriage once. I was suddenly bleeding from a place that meant only one thing – that I was losing the baby that I was still getting used to existing. I went to the hospital and let the docs do what they had to do, but it took months to process how I felt about it. You know what? That’s where I am right now. I’m doing what has to be done and I’ll feel it more fully later on. And it’s gonna hurt.

At the same time, though, I realize that I will be able to use my God-given talents in ways that will glorify Him – blogging about MS and my faith, for example. So there are some truly wonderful things on the horizon, too.