Take your hope and shove it! (Part 2)

       
Those of us who progress on a steady slippery slope are the minority of MS patients. Some have a less aggressive Multiple Sclerosis and live mostly 'normal' (I use this term loosely), productive lives. But even the majority who live semi-normal lives have to consider their disease on a daily basis, and work around it to some degree.

       “There’s always hope!” they say. Say the doctors, neurologists, nurses…..who don’t have MS. I’m smiling patiently now, trying not to chuckle…or scream (or high five someone....with a  chair...to the face).

Of course there’s always hope…however....

       When you almost, or do, shit your pants on a regular basis (including in front of a customer where you are picking up some shifts at an easy very part time low impact job), hope is hard to come by. A sense of humor is hard to drag up too, because usually you’re crying because you made it to the toilet, but not ON it, before the inevitable happened, and now you’re cleaning yourself up.
      When you gobble meds for pain, or sleeplessness that never truly goes away, hope is faint. When you often can’t drive due to neurological symptoms, and can’t walk or do chores due to fatigue, hope is something of a smug smile in the background.
      When you look in to your dogs’ hopeful eyes on the second day of the third week of the second month they’ve been stuck in the house with you, without a walk or park outing, because the fatigue and or pain and or neurological handicaps have been too much, hope can pretty much kiss my ass.  
     When you have to save yourself, thus neglecting your dogs (MY kids) for the one or two days per week of work, you can manage so you can afford (ha ha, afford….funny) your one income household… well, hope seems distant.  
     When you have a mood swing that’s so beyond your control  you have the desperate compulsive need to cut your arm open and see bright red blood well up and spill over, and all you can do is cry, chanting in your head, ‘it will pass, it will pass, it will pass, work through it, work through it, it will pass’ while rocking back and forth...
    Yeah, how bout you get back to me on that hope stuff. Actually, no don't. I'll probably walk away.

       Sure, there’s always hope, for those of you without a debilitating disease that utterly changes every nuance of your life, and if you’re fortunate enough to have one, also your spouse’s life. But some of us are a little too busy with days like this to entertain hope. We’re trying to survive mentally and emotionally through this day, so we can face it all again the next.

       So, those of you who don’t actually have this (or a similar)disease, and know very little about it (lots of info out there)(just sayin', if it isn't on Google, it doesn't exist)(reading is a good thing, especially when someone you love would really appreciate you understanding them better)….
Well...
You and your, "There’s always hope," "Stay hopeful" "They’re so close to a cure" can immediately and vigorously...
SUUUUUUUUUCK IIIIIIIIIIIT!