Best Blogs

I was pleased to learn this morning that Everyone Here Is Jim Dandy has been included in Healthline's best blogs of 2018. 

In the last year, I have probably written more about MS than previously, given that over the past year MS has become increasingly intrusive in my daily life. In the past, I have dealt mainly with cognitive deficits, confusion, numbness, fatigue. Now I am dealing mainly with pain--unrelenting, occasionally debilitating pain. Even as I write this, I am finding it difficult to sit forward and to use my right arm. I have written of sleepless nights and attempts at exercise and massage therapy and I have written of my search for medications that might interrupt or dull the pain. 

In addition to the infliction of physical pain, MS has also been largely responsible, over the last couple years, for bringing my marriage to an end. The worse my condition became, the more unable I became, the farther away my wife drew from our relationship. It became a burden to her, and it was not something she had signed up for 11 years ago (at which time, I did not have MS). She saw no light at the end of her own tunnel, no future but one of deterioration, limitation, and hardship. And so she found her way out. On the one hand, I feel sorry to be so alone; but on the other, I feel relieved to no longer be a burden to her.

So, as you can see, MS has been taking a leading role in my life on a number of levels.

Nonetheless, I try to stay active and divert myself through meeting new people, learning new things, engaging in a world that is becoming ever more precious as one begins to see the dusk falling. Every morning, I arise at about 6 and take a long walk around the neighborhood, freshly amazed at the common things that I see. In the evening, I take a second walk, usually on the beach, and that, too, is somehow always new. 

In quiet times, I reflect on my life, remember things as best as I can, regret what is needful of regret, revisit what has been joyful, peaceful. 

And I write.