This is like driving with a blind fold on!

Well, here goes….. So in an effort to save my sanity, and actually give myself a chance with this “blogging” thing, I am going to TRY not to re-cap my whole life story in one post. Here we go…
Since we moved to Texas 2 years ago, our lives individually and as a family have been completely altered (for the harder,but better). I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis over New Years Eve of 2012/2013. I don’t just want to blog about that, but it is becoming one of those defining events of life that cannot be ignored or compartmentalized into anything but a very significant, and constant, part of my life. It affects my family, my daily experiences, and my view on what is important or worth the effort that I have to put into everything now. I am a wife of an amazing husband, and a mother of 3 incredible kids, so this MS business reaches far beyond just my daily struggles with symptoms. Sometimes I think about what my kids will say about their childhoods when they get to be my age, “My Mom always felt bad”, or “Mom was sick all the time, so we didn’t get to do a lot of the stuff we wanted”. I try not to let my mind go there, but I’m a Momma, so it does. Although I think we are mostly done with the “adjusting” phase of the diagnosis, I feel like the whole process has been very similar to grieving the death of someone who was close to you. My Dad died when I was 4, and I remember how unsure and chaotic it felt in the couple of years after because we had to figure out our places in the family without him there. I watched my Mom re-shape herself into a new version of what she had to, and needed to become. She could not stay who she was because the circumstances simply would not allow it. That’s how I have felt, and I have seen my family going through this same adjustment. It’s not easy. I grieve the Bente I know I used to be. I grieve every time I know in my soul that I can’t handle doing something that I want to, or would have been able to do in the past. I grieve when in my rebellious moments of, “I can do what I want! I feel fine! I’ll be fine!”, and then I pay for it with new symptoms that just make life that much harder. Some days I just grieve. Full on pity party, woe is me, ball baby my day away, and give up into a book. That was the first 6 months, and then the next 6 got better, and the next, and now I feel like “You got this”.
So, we turned it into a joke. “No, it’s OK, I have MS” can be used for EVERYTHING! (I’m going to make T-shirts) “Honey, why are you dancing with the mop and singing at the top of your lungs with your head-phones on?” “No, it’s OK, I have MS!”, “Mom, you’re jokes aren’t very funny” “No, it’s OK, I have MS”. It works for when it actually has to do with MS or it can be used as a go-to, blanket response, unless you don’t have it, and then it’s kind of wrong. Like don’t do that.
When I got the diagnosis my doctor explained it like this (I’m totally paraphrasing(benteversion)): Back in Egyptian times the people used cats in the home to keep out pests, but over the years they became more domesticated, and homes less likely to have the same type of “pest” problems. As homes started filling with more modern things like electronics, and cats became more pet than pest control, they started to get confused, and the things in the home (wires, shoe strings, curtains, feet) started to look like targets. So, the cats started to turn on non-pests; essentially attacking the home instead of protecting it. That’s MS. The immune system turns into (what we affectionately refer to as) “crazy cats” and starts attacking the Central Nervous System instead of just attacking the germs and pests. If a cat chewed on a wire, the rubber coating would wear away and expose the wire, which causes the electrical current to be disrupted. When my immune system turns on itself, it starts eating the myelin coating of my nerves, thus disrupting signals and causing symptoms: pain, problems with my speech, walking, breathing, memory recall, muscle weakness, numbness and tingling, and fatigue, holy moly I’ve never been so tired in all my life! My crazy cats! Sometimes my kids call me a crazy cat lady!
So, this is a little of the background, since it will most definitely be referenced in future posts. I am a sassy, fun-loving, at times hyper and completely immature, try-to-be funny, think I’m funny, active as I can be, sarcastic, yoga stretching in the park, quirky little Momma. I like to have fun, so this is definitely a more serious post than will be normal, as I enjoy telling stories that make people smile! I’m also super new to this…..please don’t be rude. If you don’t like it don’t read it.