Rainy Tuesday Morning Musings

Fun baking today, I get to start on a batch of decorated sugar cookies for a Dr. Seuss birthday party on Friday.  I LOVE making decorated cookies.  Watching them go from butter, eggs, sugar and flour to these beautiful finished cookies gives me a sense of accomplishment.

But as I am digging through the jumble of cookie cutters looking for the ones I need, I remembered a poem I saw on a Multiple Sclerosis site.

A little back-story here…My husband of (almost) 26 years, has Multiple Sclerosis.  He was actually diagnosed 3 years ago, but when I think back, he had been showing symptoms for the last 10 years, I just  didn’t connect the dots.

Our journey, and I include myself in this because this disease truly impacts the entire family, has been particularly rough.  With Wade’s diagnosis, our life changed, subtly at first, but like shifting sands of a desert, the changes rolled in one after another; until the whole landscape of our lives has been forever altered.

This disease is insidious, it creeps into every corner and aspect of our lives.  It affects our day to day, but it also makes our future very hard to plan.

Wade is diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis (PPMS), which is, in a nutshell, the most severe form.  He is the strongest person I know, and it is his strength to fight even when he is exhausted that makes me determined to do all that I can to get the word out so we can defeat this MonSter.

From the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website,

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/What-is-MS/Types-of-MS/Primary-progressive-MS

PPMS is characterized by worsening neurologic function (accumulation of disability) from the onset of symptoms, without early relapses or remissions. PPMS can be further characterized at different points in time as either active (with an occasional relapse and/or evidence of new MRI activity) or not active, as well as with progression (evidence of disease worsening on an objective measure of change over time, with or without relapse or new MRI activity) or without progression. Approximately 15 percent of people with MS are diagnosed with PPMS.

From the National Multiple Sclerosis Society website, http://www.nationalmssociety.org Approximately 85 percent of people with MS are initially diagnosed with Relapsing/Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS). RRMS – the most common disease course – is characterized by clearly defined attacks of new or increasing neurologic symptoms. These attacks – also called relapses or exacerbations – are followed by periods of partial or complete recovery (remissions). During remissions, all symptoms may disappear, or some symptoms may continue and become permanent. However, there is no apparent progression of the disease during the periods of remission.

So, on this rainy Tuesday morning, I will go back to creating Dr. Seuss cookies, but I hope maybe to raise a little awareness about MS.