My Fight With Multiple Sclerosis

"You can't stop me," I screamed, fighting back tears, as my legs buckled underneath me on my running trail. I don't think anyone was around to hear, but I was blind in one eye, so I can't say for sure.


Not long ago, the picture of being half blind while my legs struggled to support me would have only been a nightmare, but today it's my reality. I'm in a lifelong cage match with multiple sclerosis.


I don't know if MS heard me yelling at it that day, but I won round one of my fight against it regardless. I finished a couple miles at a decent pace despite my newfound limitations, and wondered how many more rounds there would be before the odds turned against me.


The thing with MS is that you can win rounds against it, but it refuses to stay knocked down. As an MS patient, all you can do is pledge the same. There is no cure for MS, so you can never fully put it behind you. You might feel good one day, like you've defeated the obstacles in front of you, but MS is lurking behind the corner waiting for a chance at a rematch.


It might be impossible to ever fully knockout MS, so I'm just hoping to go the distance and win the fight on the judge's scorecard.


I've been touched by the number of people who have reached out to me with encouragement, telling me that I'm strong enough to handle this. I really do appreciate the support, but I'm frankly not so sure.


I go from moments of thankfulness and peace, to moments of fear and panic. The scariest part is the unknown. For many people, MS is merely a lifelong annoyance, a sentence to random sore muscles or a bad week here and there. For others, it becomes the debilitating disease I pictured in my mind when I first heard my diagnosis. I don't know which path will be mine.

A few days after my diagnosis, my legs started wobbling, my hip started hurting, and I couldn't stay warm. I started drenching my sheets every night in sweat. Most of those things have stopped for now, and the vision in my left eye is coming back but it is all too easy to think of myself going downhill further.


I try to stay in the moment, and not to think about a future that may never come. It's no different, and no more productive, than imagining yourself in a car wreck tomorrow. But then I go pout because the doctor's appointments ate up my vacation time, my hip hurts, and I can no longer have ice cream.


My first attack has mostly passed now, but here's something I learned in its worst days. As the life you knew starts to slip away, there comes a point in every disability where you stop defining it by what you can't do, and start focusing on what you still can. There is still joy in life if you can read a good book, watch your favorite tv show, or chat with a close friend. 


Amidst the constant struggle to make things perfect, I don't think we often enough stop to appreciate the good.


I used to take pretty days for granted. I hardly ever thought to be thankful just for the fact that I felt physically well, or that I could still walk myself to the bathroom. I used to be thankful only when something really new and exciting happened. I didn't stop to taste my breakfast.


I try to do better about not taking things for granted now. On my last run over the hilltop trails through the Livermore vineyards, I almost cried at how much beauty that surrounded me. I'm often in too much of a hurry to notice.


I can't always stay focused in the moment, but life feels better when I do. Even if my disease stays in remission, I hope I never forget this lesson. And I hope you learn it too.



It's been a few days now, and I'm feeling a little better. My vision is getting better. I get really tired at times, but my biggest other remaining reminders of my disease are a sore left hip and unpredictable nerve pain, which most people tell me will likely get better, at least until the next attack. There's even a good chance I can still run the half marathon I signed up for next March.


I long for a day when my vision is fully back, I have a normal energy level, and my legs feel good. If it ever gets here, I know I'll appreciate it in a way that I never would have before.

And if that day doesn't come, I'll still be ok. MS can take certain things from me, but there are others that it can't have unless I let it.

And when the day comes and I go running and feel like myself again, I hope that I'll remind MS that it couldn't stop me. It could only make me take a detour.