~My Mother of Moms

According to the National Multiple Schlerosis Society, Multiple Schlerosis is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system. In the United States this disease affects more than 400,000 people, with 200 more people diagnosed every week. In 1978, this disease would change my life forever.

In September 1978, my mother was diagnosed with Multiple Schlerosis. The disease would take our family on a journey that none of us imagined that life would bring. The symptoms began with stiffness in my mother's hands. My brother had to shift the gears for her because she no longer had the dexterity, and by month end she could no longer walk. In 1978, no one knew what the disease was or what it was capable of doing to the human body. During the time that she had the disease, she spent a considerable amount of time in the hospital. She had periods of remission in which she would regain her ability to walk and would sometimes be allowed to come home, but for the most part she "lived" in the hospital.

The outcome of the disease is different for each person. Some go on to live fulfilling lives and manage their symptoms with medication. However, for my mother her diagnosis for this disease was a spiral into further health issues and finally her death in 1982. The final stages of this disease were the most difficult. The disease had ravaged her body to the point where she could no longer walk and had no hand dexterity, she underwent the placement of a pacemaker to keep her heart beating with a normal rhythm, and finally blindness once the disease attacked her eyes.

In 1978 when my mother was diagnosed with this disease I was a month shy of turning twelve. At that time we had no idea that the woman who had been the pillar of our existence would slowly waste away and die at forty-seven years old. When she died, the amount of grief that our family experienced would be debilitating for the rest of our lives. No one imagined that since we were kids that we needed grief support. No one knew that the grief of a child for a parent can be debilitating. You grow up afraid to grow bonds with other people as there is always the fear that they will "leave". The thought of losing someone that you care about is overwhelming and it scares you your entire life.