You’re Not Going To Get Better

    When you’re medically retired/discharged from the army it is done in several steps that sort of make sense, but in typical army fashion, are long and unnecessarily complicated. I didn’t really mind since I was very close to 20 active years and the longer they took to decide my fate, the closer to an active duty retirement I got, but my case is not the norm. 

    While this was going on, I still went to work and one fine morning at the 9:00 staff meeting, the S3 Sergeant Major announced that he would like to send me to the Senior Leaders Course so that I would make the promotion list prior to retirement and be retired at the next higher grade. I said that it was a moot point because I was in the medical evaluation board process and had a profile. He retorted that people go to SLC with a profile everyday, to which I replied, yes but with a permanent profile. Mine was temporary as all are while going through the medical retirement process. “Temporary?!!”, he said, “Why would it be temporary? You’ve got multiple sclerosis. It’s not like you’re going to get any better”. 

    I regret to this day that I didn’t have the wherewithal to immediately bury my face in my hands and exclaim through fake tears, “You’re right!!! I know you’re right!! Waahhh!!!”

    I wasn’t offended in the least. This is actually pretty typical from my small circle of friends. My wife is occasionally appalled by our conversations. “I can’t believe you guys talk to each other like that!”. Maybe it’s just guys, but then again maybe it’s just us. It doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t have it any other way. We can make crippled jokes or talk about pulling me behind a truck on a trailer rather than leave me behind on a camping trip, but, on that same trip, I know for a fact that one of these rough men would have cut my steak if my hands weren’t cooperating, or lifted me into bed if I was too tired to transfer myself. By the way, I got to ride in the cab of the truck after one friend (mis)used a slide board to get me in there. I won’t elaborate right now, but a slide board is not meant to be used as a shoehorn or a pry bar. There’s a learning curve, but we’ll get there.

    Was my friend right? Am I really never going to get better? I’m fairly optimistic when it comes to advances in bionics and medications, but really, I don’t know…..no one does. I might get better, I might not. What I do know is that hope is not a course of action and in the time it took for the realism to dawn on me, I wasted a lot of quality time sitting around waiting until I was better.  

    Don’t misunderstand. Obviously I have to listen to my body and act within the confines of the disease, but I’m only doing myself and my loved ones a disservice if I try to set my own set of confines. “I’ll do that when I feel better.” was my go to line in the early years. True, I had no way of knowing how fast the disability would progress, but the time when I could have been doing what I was capable of is gone. 

    Don’t have a multiple sclerosis crisis in either form. Don’t rush out and spend your life’s savings on that Ferrari just so you can drive one before the ability is gone, but don’t sit in a chair and stare out the window with no hope either. You don’t know what the future holds and neither do I, but I do know that we can’t live there until it becomes the present. In the meantime, do what you can, while you can. You’ll be glad you did.

I can’t promise that I’d have listened if someone had sat me down and told me this right after my diagnosis, but I sort of wish someone had.