I want to start off by apologizing for how long it has taken me to write another blog. It has been a crazy last couple weeks with Lauren going back to work, preparing for the MS Bike Ride, and then partaking in the MS Bike Ride.(which was awesome). Hopefully this post will find whoever reads this at the perfect time.
One of my goals for this blog was to help spread awareness of MS and how it impacts my life, hoping that my experience will somehow speak to someone reading this. I have posted mainly about positive things and how I try to have a positive attitude about my situation but that isn't the full truth. I do try to have a positive attitude about life and I have been doing really well but there are still things that are hard, things that remind me on a daily basis that things just aren't quite as they should be. We all have struggles in life and hopefully me being open about my tough days can help you get through yours.
I have always been a big time sports person who loves to be physically active. I played a sport nearly year round growing up, I played soccer in college, I started coaching after college because I couldn't leave the game and the physically active lifestyle. Unfortunately doing the things that I love to do and have done my whole life is what lead me to my diagnosis. I would consider myself a sneaky athlete. Someone that wasn't going to blow anyone out of the water with my speed or jumping ability, or quickness, but there wasn't much athletically that I couldn't do to some degree of success but as MS started to impact my life, that ability to do just about anything started to diminish. I would periodically join in on practice with the women while I was coaching them and this last season I started to trip every once in awhile. I played pickup basketball with other NWC faculty and I had trouble controlling my body to be able to do a layup, something I had done for nearly 20 years with no problem. I completed a triathlon in the summer of 2017 and then less than a year later I couldn't successfully run one lap around a track without tripping over my right foot.
For someone that has been physically active all his life this has been incredibly hard for me. I went for a run this evening and planned to run roughly 3 miles. I had to stop and take a break half way through because my legs were feeling weak and it was hard for me to stand up straight while I ran( something that is a result of MS). Every day life isn't really effected by my current state of MS but I am reminded about my health every time I go for a run or try to do something I absolutely love and it is really hard for me to get used to. I am blessed to be able to go outside and run or bike 25 miles with friends and family but I can't do it like I used to. I have such a high expectation for myself that makes this transition to my new life difficult. I was able to run a 5k at the end of my triathlon significantly faster than I can now. Was I in better shape at that time? Sure, but that isn't how my brain works. If I was able to do it at one point I expect to be able to do it currently.
This was something that I talked with Lauren about quite a bit before I was official diagnosed. What is God trying to teach me through these hard times? Do I put too much emphasis on my athletic ability? How do I adjust to a life where exercise is a necessity to stay healthy and mobile versus something that I just did because I loved doing it? These are questions that I have wrestled with over the last couple months and don't yet have the answer to and I think that is okay. We live in a society chalked full of instant gratification. We can quickly flip out our phones and see what the weather is, we can find where the nearest starbucks is, and we can watch a video that will show us how to do just about anything we want to attempt. The amount of information at our fingertips is crazy and I think it has pushed us to a point where we no longer sit in silence and just think. No longer sit in silence and connect with God. No longer just sit in silence and reflect on past experiences and figure out how we have grown because of it. I have a little different life situation than I did in college but I used to absolutely love going to bed at like 7pm when I wasn't even tired and just lay in bed and think about life. How I could save the world. One of my best thoughts was a way to create clean drinking water by building these large structures that were tall but skinny that would pull the moisture out of the air and store it in the structure. Then whoever needed water could stop by that and get it out of a spout at the bottom. How awesome would that be!
One thing that I have learned so far is to have patience. There is always something to learn from the tough times you run into in life. It may take you a decade to find out what those answers are or how you grew while going through that situation but there will be clarity you just have to have the patience and desire to find out what those answers are. As I mentioned before , I don't know the answers to the questions I have above but I do know that God has been with me this whole time and if I continue to be patient and connect with God I will find out those answers and get clarity so that is what I do. I push through those struggles, the frustration with not being able to complete physical activities in the same manner I used to, or the vision problems I have while I exercise because I know there are better days ahead. I know that I will one day understand everything. I will be able to look back at these hard times and see how much I have grown and how they have helped mold me into the man that I am. As Dory said in finding Nemo. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.
"I tell you these things so that, in me, you will have peace. In this world there will be struggles. But take heart. For I have overcome the world." John 16:33