Multiple Sclerosis won't get my mother down even if it won't let her stand up. by Megan Heffley
Tap... clunk. Tap... clunk.
Tap... clunk. I can still remember the sound of my mother's feet as she walked in front of me at Wal-Mart. The tapping sound of the foot of her good leg clashed with the clunk of the foot of her bad leg. It was just months after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Even then, as an 8-year-old, I was trying to lighten the mood; I walked behind her and mimicked the sound with my own feet. Tap... clunk. Tap... clunk. Tap... clunk.
When she turned around, I half-expected her to yell at me for making fun of her. Instead she just smiled and said,"Oh, shut up!"
The day my mom was diagnosed, she and dad picked me up from school. I sat in the back of my dad's beat-up mini van as tears stung my eyes, and my throat felt as if it might close. I stared at the bubble gum stuck on the back of my mom's seat and didn't make a sound. My mom was quiet and let my dad do all the talking. I waited for her to break down and cry, but tears never even glazed her eyes. That was when I made a promise to myself. I would never cry about the M.S. — not until she did.
My mom is one of 400,000 Americans who are currently living with Multiple Sclerosis. It is a disease that attacks the myelin sheath that protects the nerve fibers of the central nervous system, preventing nerve impulses from successfully transmitting. About two to three times more women are diagnosed with M.S. than men, and it is more common among people with northern European ancestry. My mom falls into this category. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50. My mom was 38.
My mother's first symptom was a tingling numbness in her left hand and foot. This numbness made her walk with a noticeable limp that could throw her off balance at any moment. The first time she fell was 13 years ago in the parking lot at Olive Garden. Our family had just had our Sunday dinner, and we were walking to the car when my mom lost her balance and hit the black pavement. We knew something was wrong.
My mother's symptoms have slowly worsened over time, which is the nature of the disease. She now walks with a cane, if she doesn't want to
I ONCE HEARD MY MOTHER SAY, "I HAVE M.S., BUT M.S. DOESN'T HAVE ME."
use her wheelchair. Our family avoids big places like malls and amusement parks. A trip to the grocery store to pick up milk will take all of the energy she has for the day. She needs me to help her put on earrings, put up her hair and, on really bad days, button her pants. It often feels like we're little girls playing dress-up.
I once heard my mother say, "I have M.S., but M.S. doesn't have me." My family has always kept its focus on what my mom is able to do rather than what she cannot do. It's almost as if we look at the disease like a constant cold. It keeps her from doing some things, but she's still a major part of keeping our family on our toes.
We often use sarcasm and humor to deal with the disease. I even once told a friend who had just met my mother that she swayed when she walked because she had a lot to drink that day.Mom just laughed at
me and said,"Oh, shut up!"
New "toys," as she calls them, have replaced my mom's ceramic painting and sewing because her hands cannot grasp small objects well enough. Her first toy was a cane.She wrapped its entire length in bright purple, blue and yellow pansy ribbon. It looked like she was balancing herself on a roll of wrapping paper.I cringed in agony when she proudly showed it to all of my friends.
Then, she got the Rascal. The Rascal was a motorized wheelchair, and my mom thought was fun to give children rides at high school football games. She called it her "scooter." I thought this was funny until the day she attached a large yellow flag to the back of the chair. The flag extended to the height of the top of our mini van and was about the size of a basketball. Emblazoned on the flag was a cartoon dog. It wasn't even a recognizable dog, and no, it didn't look like our dog at home. She just liked it. I tried to hide it in our garage.
The toys are still arriving. The other day, she called me to tell me about a new bathtub she
bought from a catalog. "You'll have to come see my new toy," Mom said when it first arrived. You'd think it was diamond-encrusted by the way she bragged about how she could just walk into it and sit down. She went into great detail about how the door to the tub has this seal that is so state-of-the-art that it will never leak. To her, a bath that she can get in and out of is better than any tub you'd see on MTV's Cribs.
If you tell her that she can't do something, she'll prove you wrong. That's how my mom is; she'll make a lemon merengue pie out of the lemons life hands her.
The M.S. is harder on the rest of us than it is on her. Nothing seems to get her down. She accepts what she cannot do and fills her time with the things that she can. She'll be the first to make fun of the bruise on her arm from where she lost her balance while doing absolutely nothing. It's as if she's had M.S. her whole life, and it is as much a part of her personality as her bullheadedness. She has M.S., but M.S. will never have her.
My mom still hasn't cried. Neither have I.
10. 26.2006 JAYPLAY < 15