The day after I was officially diagnosed with MS, I went back to work. I was leading a meeting and began going through the agenda as if nothing was amiss. Everyone was staring at me oddly. I realized I had to come clean. That is what it felt like. I knew I was simply sharing my situation, but it felt like I was revealing a secret. I explained what happened with me. I explained my sagging face, the MRI and the official MS diagnosis.
I got a lot of prayer and sorry messages from everyone. They were so kind and encouraging. I only had one person tell me about someone else she knows who has been doing fine on MS for many years. I realized people say those kinds of things to make them feel better, they want to imagine everything will be okay and not have to worry. They forget that at this moment I feel terrible so it doesn't matter if I will be fine in a month or not. Their words only show me how far they are from knowing me.
Since I was talking funny, I had to tell my students what was happening. They handled it as well as 9 year-olds handle news like that. A few of them would continue to worry about me for the next few months.
It was exhausting to talk and walk and move so I left at 1:45. My principal had made it clear that he would do whatever I needed, I just needed to tell him. So, I walked into his office at a quarter to two and said, "I'm ready to go home now." It took every ounce of humble pie to admit I was finished for the day.
I had tried lying down under my desk for a few minutes to rest, it only brought tears so I figured I should go home. I bawled all the way home. It is frustrated to be halted by your brain. I tried to do things without realizing I couldn't actually do them. I was uncontrollably dropping things or running into walls because I didn't know where the left side of my body was. I tried to scrape food off my plate into the trash and dropped my entire plate in the trash instead. My daughter and I laughed. She finished the job for me. In the upcoming years she would continue to help me. I'm as grateful as can be that this happened to my left side and not my right side.
I cried over the loss of what I had. My dog, sensing my grief, licked my hand. I would choose to venture down this path one day at a time just like all the other times.
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