I was scrolling through my facebook feed today and came across a blog post that MS Moments shared. The title of the blog was, "If you're Wondering If I'm Really Sick After Seeing My Vacation Photos" and the author goes on to share about the things she deals with on a daily basis that people can't see. It was a blog that for some reason really resonnated with me today and so here I am writing my version of the same blog. I have said it before, but MS is considered an invisible disease because a lot of our symptoms are symptoms that aren't visible to the every day passer by. When I think about my blog posts I think I can sometimes contribute to keeping MS an invisible disease but if I am doing that then what is the point of me writing these blogs? I set out a little over a year ago to shine a light on a disease that many people don't truly know or understand. So, with that being said I want to share the daily obstacles that I have to climb over that you don't see.
As crazy as it sounds but sometimes I feel guilty that I have MS. I sometimes even question if I have MS. Not because of what doctors have told me or how people have treated me but because if I look at myself from the eyes of the every day person I don't see someone with MS. I see a person that goes on 15+ mile bike rides, wakes up at 5:00 in the morning to do CrossFit workouts, can jump off the couch and run a 5k. If I look at myself from the outside I see a normal person and even get to the point where I question whether I have MS or not. But after a few brief moments of feeling guilty I snap back to reality and am reminded of all the things that you don't see.
You see me walking around work like everyone else, but what you don't see is that if you ask to look at something on your screen over your shoulder I am not going to be able to see what the words say. You don't see that as I pass you in the hall I usually don't say your name. If I have been walking around and my body temperature has increased you don't see that the signals from my brain to my eyes don't get through as well and I can't pick out all your facial features. I can't see your facial features and figure out who you are fast enough to be able to say your name as we quickly pass each other by. You don't see that at around 2pm every day I hit a little bit of a wall as fatigue from MS hits. You don't see that the hotter it is in the room at that time the worse the fatigue hits me.
If you were to run past my house this evening you would have seen me out jogging. You see the world from your eyes, you don't see them from mine. You fail to see that as I run the vision in my eyes starts to get blurry. While I ran a 5k recently you didn't see my stop in the middle of the race and let the person behind me pass me. You didn't notice that I stopped because I couldn't see which way the arrow was telling me to go on the course. You don't see how quickly I get into the A/C after a run, or the number of popsicles I consume, or the cool shower I hop into to cool off. Not to mention the random tingling throughout my body or the muscle weakness in my legs after exercise.
I don't do share this as a way to get attention or make people feel sorry for the things I battle on a daily basis. I say these things to shine a light on MS. As mentioned above I don't want MS to be the invisible disease anymore. I want people to truly know how it effects me and the thousands of others that live with this every single day because with awareness comes support. With support comes a concerted effort by the community to find a cure and end this thing forever. At the end of the day that is what I am striving to help accomplish!
John 16:33 Take Heart.
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