Life is what happens
while you are busy making other plans. John Lennon
Patti’s neurologist
first raised the issue of ‘more’ than homecare, the pre-dawn of the care facility era.
Ten years earlier when I
asked this same guy about moving to a one story house to facilitate living
with Multiple Sclerosis he had said, “Oh! I wouldn’t do that.”
OK, maybe neurologists
are not psychic and not financial planners but they are ‘first responders’ to
living with MS.
Over those ten years we
seemed to live getting one step ahead only to fall two steps behind always remodeling and adapting. What if –
we had originally and simply moved to a one story house?
Of course this is ‘retrospective’
planning - certainly we would have had less stress and more money – yet life
does not include any ‘do-overs’. You get one chance.
In as sense you are torn
between hope driven living or worst case scenario planning. Yet the simple
truth is that when the resulting plan is driven by reaction to symptoms and/or
progression then reality ricochets.
Complicating any formula
for planning for life with MS is that every story is unique. Some people with
MS climb mountains, some cannot even get out of bed, most are somewhere in
between.
Living with MS is also often
about the families that surround and are part of each story – or not part.
Ripples affect either way.
Believe me there have
been more times than not that I have wondered if planning is an illusion or a
delusion.
Regardless you have to
come up with something and then MS does what it wants – the proverbial “busted
play” of American football. Mesmerizing when it works … ‘what were they
thinking?’ when it does not.
Caregivingly Yours, Patrick Leer
videos: www.youtube.com/daddyleer
