MS Tip Jar: #2

I can be a bit of a control freak. I like things the way I like them. I make plans in advance. I’m a girl who’s an organized son-of-a-gun, and I’ve been that way from a very young age.

Insert into my life: Multiple Sclerosis, an unpredictable diagnosis which guarantees lifelong uncertainty.

It’s almost like I’m supposed to be learning something here.

Well, guess what? It has in fact been a hugely enlightening experience for me to FEEL that loss of control which came with my diagnosis, because for the first time in my life I realized I have NEVER had control. It was simply an illusion of something I thought I possessed. Think about that for a minute as it applies to your own life. It’s so true, right? A diagnosis like mine simply shines a light on that truth nugget, and because of this newfound realization I’ve naturally started morphing into someone who goes with the flow—someone who accepts bumps in the road with a big ol’ heap of peace in my heart.

It’s awesome and I like it.

Here’s an example for you. I got an MRI last week. Long story short, between my MRIs last September until now I’ve been in a relapse without treatment (even though I thought I was getting treatment… long story and totally my bad). Anyway, my doctor found out about my mix-up and wound all the silver lining right out of that cloud, letting it loose it into a new MRI order so that we can see the rate of progression with my brain lesions. In other words, I’ll have a clearer prognosis and idea of what’s actually going on with these brains in my noggin. We’ll now have a the best possible baseline to work off of, and that’s a pretty valuable thing.

Valuable indeed… but also kind of scary because these results might not tell me what control-freak-me wants to hear. What if my MS is more progressive than initially believed? Luckily go-with-the-flow-me is pretty gosh darn calm about it. In fact, I’m supposedly getting the results today, and this morning I made a conscious decision to tell God that I’m good with whatever they come back as. So that’s what I told him, and then I went to work.

I’ll end by saying this: losing my illusion of control initially felt like my prison, but it’s evolved into my freedom from worry. Not like 100% worry-free, but like 95%. I think that’s pretty good.

So que sera sera, people! Whatever will be will be, and it will be fine.

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