"I learned to see life in a different way."
Sharing My Journey—My Life with Relapsing MS
MS LifeLines® Ambassadors chronicle their thoughts and feelings about living with MS. These journals reflect the personal experiences of two people and others can be different. It is best to contact your doctor to discuss what's best for you. Michele and Tim are MS LifeLines Ambassadors and have chosen to share their stories with other people living with MS. MS LifeLines and MS LifeLines Ambassadors are sponsored by EMD Serono and Pfizer.
Recent Posts
- Managing Relapsing MS - What Has Worked for Me So Far
- Tips for Managing MS
- Friends
- Personal Life - Friends
- Doing the Things I Love
- Hobbies - Doing the Things I Love
- Being a Husband and Dad (with MS)
- Single Life
- Planning for the Future
- Choosing a Healthy Diet
- Changes Big and Small
Posts by Author
Author Bios
Managing Relapsing MS - What Has Worked for Me So Far
February 21, 2008
One of the best things about being an MS Lifelines Ambassador is that I not only get to hear a lot of top-flight experts speak on the subject, but that I also get to meet a lot of people just like me - those living every day with relapsing MS. It's an incredibly supportive community in which fellow MSers swap tips and root for one another. ...read more
Tips for Managing MS
February 14, 2008
Coming from the queen of denial, I would strongly recommend paying attention to your body. For many years I would feel symptoms presenting themselves and I would do everything I could to NOT go to the neurologist. I would rationalize that the symptoms would "go away" and I'd just let time pass by. ...read more
Friends
February 7, 2008
You've gotta have friends, or so the song says. Like many things people often say, it's true. For sure, it certainly helps to have all the people you can in your corner when you're dealing with this disease. ...read more
Personal Life - Friends
January 31, 2008
I think that I expected my friends to react to my diagnosis a certain way. I felt like they should have understood how I was feeling without me sharing those feelings with them. They should know how upset I was and to reach out for me. I had so many expectations and when my friends didn't do something that I expected, I would get so angry. ...read more
Doing the Things I Love
January 24, 2008
In a couple of weeks, I'm competing in a regional Tae Kwon Do sparring competition. I am not telling you this because I want you to be impressed. I am not a black belt. (I'm somewhere in the middle of the belt range). I don't consider myself young (I turned 40 in May) or healthy by any traditional measure. And trust me, if you saw me compete, you certainly wouldn't mistake me for Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan. However, when I competed in the same competition last year, I won all my matches. ...read more
Hobbies - Doing the Things I Love
January 17, 2008
The winter is approaching us soon and that means that snow will be near! The nice thing about where I live is that we can enjoy all of the seasons. The winter season is so much fun because I love to snowboard. I started snowboarding about ten years ago during a family trip to Colorado. I went skiing all the time growing up near Yosemite and I was hesitant to try snowboarding especially since I always saw most people on their bottoms while I'd fly by them on the slopes. Three professional snowboarding lessons later, I've never skiied since. ...read more
Being a Husband and Dad (with MS)
January 10, 2008
I'm going to start this journal by asking you to indulge me and take a closer look at its title. Do you see where I put the part about MS (at the end)? The problem is, putting MS as an aside on how you define yourself is much easier to do on paper than it is in real life. ...read more
Single Life
January 3, 2008
I've been living with relapsing MS as a single woman now for over seven years and throughout this journey I've learned so much about dating. I think this is the one area that has helped me learn the greatest lesson of my entire life. Immediately after the diagnosis, my self-esteem suffered tremendously. There were times that I would feel sorry for myself because nobody could possibly, "knowingly", choose to be with me. I mean who would do that? Then there were the days that I would feel like somebody will surely feel "sorry" for me and choose to be the "hero" and rescue me. ...read more
Planning for the Future
August 10, 2007
A couple years ago, my husband and I decided to build a new house... our growing family was simply running out of room. It was a leap of faith for us and we soon realized that this move was an opportunity for us to plan for the future. We planned to live in this house for a long time (forever I hope) so it was important for us to make all of our decisions with MS in mind. ...read more
Choosing a Healthy Diet
July 27, 2007
It seems like every book that I read about MS contains at least one section about diet... there are so many different theories about what is best. The one point that can't be argued with is that eating a well-balanced diet is healthy for everyone, and it is especially important for those of us living with a chronic disease such as multiple sclerosis. ...read more
Changes Big and Small
July 13, 2007
I didn't know anything about MS when my doctor first diagnosed me back in 2000. I can remember sitting in his office wondering... ok... just exactly how is this going to affect me?? I am a "bottom-line" kind of person and I wanted "bottom-line" answers. Unfortunately, he was not able to tell me how MS was going to affect my life... "It is different for everyone" was all he would tell me. I left the office that day with a lot of unanswered questions but one thing that I knew for sure was that this diagnosis would more than likely mean big changes in my life. ...read more
