Today I went to my firs MS support group. As I listen around the room, I can’t help but think, feel, SO grateful for my support at home. My support thru my church family. There are SO many people that their families don’t understand, believe, or care. It is astounding to me how uncaring and ignorant people can be to their own family memebers (ignorant= 1. Lacking education or knowledge 2. Unaware or uninformed).I am so grateful God has provided me with this many caring, loving and understanding people in my life. I thank them all.

I wrote this as I am in the meeting, listening to all the different people there. Like a snowflake, all of us are different (in our symptoms), yet so much alike in them too. As one person talks about any given symptom, 5-10 or more of us are shaking our heads like “yup, me too. Gotcha”. Some are newer like me; others have been diagnosed for 15 or more. Men, women, mothers, daughters, fathers, husbands. Some caregivers were there (I asked mine to stay at home because I didn’t know what to expect). Some were struggling alone, only the internet to supply support. I was just so moved I had to write what I was thinking, otherwise I would surely forget it (as happens so often). I am grateful. For my husband who recently has become more aware of how real this is (as an invisible disease it’s hard to wrap your head around when you don’t experience it all firsthand), the struggles I face, his role in our new reality as opposed to what we “signed on for”. My mother who has retired and been such a help to me, is there to help with my daughter when I can’t be up to be mommy (again, not what I signed on for!). For my daughter, who at 8, is trying so hard to really get what MS is, wants to make it go away, but still wants to help me when I need it (hard when she just wants to go and do and mommy can’t. It is an obvious struggle for her, and that kills me inside), even when it’s me being frustrated because for the 20th time in the morning I for the life of me cannot hold onto a piece of paper no matter how hard I tell my hand to do it, she picks it up and says things like “It’s ok Mommy, it’s just the MS. Breathe in deep….”. Ahh, what a kid. For my church family, who are always asking how I am feeling, with prayer, and I was so moved by the huge turnout for a bakesale I put together for my MS Walk team. I am truly blessed by all this. I really, really am.

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