Coping with Multiple Sclerosis
I know how it feels to have to give up doing the majority of what I loved to do previously - almost over night - because of how severe my particular case of Multiple Sclerosis was when I was first given the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I didn't realize at the time that the very mild symptoms that I had as my initial symptoms of MS, that appeared within the 2 years before I was actually diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, were actually signalling that I had a much more severe health condition than I could have ever imagined.
I didn't realize until about 2 weeks before I was admitted to the hospital and then given the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, that something was severely wrong with my health. My case of Multiple Sclerosis was fast moving, after the initial subtle systems first appeared and my health quickly went down hill. After I was given the Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis, and my life was turned upside down, I was constantly being asked how I could handle the drastic changes that Multiple Sclerosis had brought into my life? "How can you cope with Multiple Sclerosis?" was said to me so often, within the first few weeks after I was diagnosed, but I don't really registered at the time as to how sick I really was at the time. But even after I was first diagnosed with MS, my case of Multiple Sclerosis kept getting worse over the next 2 months (as if it could get any worse for how terrible I looked when I first went in the hospital).
In spite of all that I went through in such a short period of time, because of the effects of Multiple Sclerosis on my overall health, I made a choice to choose not to give up, at least that sounded like a good plan at first. Thinking back on it all now, I had decided, at the time, that I had 2 choices to choose between. I could either allow myself to be extremely depressed (which would not help me to get better at all) or I could find a way to deal with the way that I felt inside (at least initially). I had remembered that in the past, before I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis whenever I had any kind of adversity or bad thing, enter my life, I would find some way to look on the bright side of the situation or look at the silver lining, in spite of any of the terrible things that were actually going on in my life at the time. I have heard the saying, "when life gives you a bunch of lemons, you just make lemonade" -- but this wasn't like having the flu or some other short term illness. This was a much longer term illness than I ever could have imaginged having to learn to "cope with".
After I was first diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I wasn't really even sure what MS was at the time. But after I found out more about it, I made up my mind that I wouldn't let the news about me being given the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis get me severely depressed, since I was bound to just get sicker if I let myself get too depressed all of the time. One thing that helped me at first is that quite a few of my friends came to visit me, when I was in the hospital, when I was first diagnosed. I was so sick at first that I was kept in the hosipital for 6 weeks. After the first 2 weeks, my friends stopped visiting me and being by myself in the hospital made how severe my health condition had become start to sink in more.
So, I decided that I would meet people, while I was in the hospital. I have always found that if I can find a way to cheer up other people, that it helped me to feel better too. The first week that I was in the hospital, I was in intensive care, until they "figured out" what was wrong with me. After I was diagnosed and my condition was down graded, I was moved to the rehabilitation floor.
I still didn't understand much about how Multiple Sclerosis can make you feel extremely fatigued by everything that you do. I didn't know that Multiple Sclerosis can make it so that many MS symptoms can appear that are very strange to say the least. I didn't know anything about ms numbness, ms nerve pain, ms vision problems, or anything else that was part of the "package deal" when it came to having Multiple Sclerosis.
I had used the adversity in my own life to help not to give e up when things were also very upsetting and maybe even depressing.
To read more click on the link - coping with ms .
