{"id":6077,"date":"2007-03-06T12:05:14","date_gmt":"2007-03-06T17:05:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6077"},"modified":"2010-07-16T11:02:16","modified_gmt":"2010-07-16T15:02:16","slug":"ms-awareness-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=6077","title":{"rendered":"MS Awareness Week"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 5 to 11 is MS Awareness Week. <\/b> I thank Stefanie for the reminder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last year one of my best friends was diagnosed with MS – and naturally the diangnosis came at the same moment that her husband lost his job, and she also was searching desperately for work herself. They have two kids. Since the diagnosis – some unbelievable transformations have occurred. She got a job that she had basically been campaigning for for YEARS. A job that is perfect for her. One she waited for, one she paid her dues for. Her husband found a new job which suited him much better. He’s much happier. And the whole family (not to mention us – her group of friends) adjusted to this new reality – of Multiple Sclerosis. When the news broke – I remember having tearful conversations with some of my other friends about it – what did it mean??? It was terrifying. Just the name of it, too: Multiple Sclerosis – has such scary implications. But our friend with the diagnosis led the way. She handled herself with such calmness and acceptance (not always – she’s human, after all!) – but in general – that she prepared the ground for us to be okay with it. We watch her give herself injections – the first time I saw it I felt nervous … but now it’s like, “Oh, whatever. Injection. There’s her ass. Okay, whatever … pass the wine.” I still have my moments of fear, fear of the future, being pissed (I recently sent her an email damning her “new lesion” to hell and back.) – but seriously: she has led the way, for all of us, in how to accept this new reality, and to be able to talk about it, ask questions, be aware. I am so in admiration of how she has been through this whole process.<\/p>\n

And recently I got the news that an old friend of mine was also diagnosed with MS. I haven’t spoken with him – so I don’t know how badly he got it, or how he is doing …<\/p>\n

I spoke about it with my other friend (sorry to be cryptic – my friend can identify herself if she feels like it – I just don’t feel it’s my place) … and she said, “You know … it’s not a death sentence.” It’s so good to talk with her about this stuff. It was like the lead-up to the diagnosis was almost scarier (as Stephanie so eloquently describes). The symptoms can be quite freaky, and intermittent … and also, they could be harbingers of so many other diseases, or tumors, or what have you. Not knowing what the hell is wrong with you is, of course, a tremendously upsetting experience.<\/p>\n

Please go check out Stefanie’s blog <\/a>for more information, as well as a video put together by the MS Society.<\/p>\n

Also: Stories of MS<\/a> Very inspirational.<\/p>\n

More information here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

March 5 to 11 is MS Awareness Week. I thank Stefanie for the reminder. Last year one of my best friends was diagnosed with MS – and naturally the diangnosis came at the same moment that her husband lost his … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[600],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21749,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions\/21749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}