MS & Me

I was diagnosed in October of 2016. The diagnosis changed me, it made me less confident, less self-assured, more self-conscious and very worried for my future. I didn’t feel like myself any more. I had always been very independent, I didn’t want MS to rob me of that. I wanted to be able to take care of my children, I wanted to be able to provide for them. I wanted my life to just stay the same. I didn’t realise back then that things would have to change to accommodate this new addition to our lives

To say my children are my life is an understatement; they mean the world to me and when I first received my MS diagnosis my thoughts turned to them immediately. They were 6 and 4 and a half at the time and they had boundless energy.  I worried that I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with them and that maybe I wouldn’t be able to look after them the way I wanted to. My mind immediately began to come up with worst case scenarios and I remember crying myself to sleep that night thinking about all they were going to miss out on because of me. My guilt was immense. In my shock and upset at the diagnosis I had catastrophised everything and it took me some time to realise that our world had not ended, it had simply changed.