I am not writing an advice blog, even though sometimes I feel like I do offer things as advice and feel like it is pretty decent advice… to me… from my experience. So take all of this with a grain of salt. My main purpose in doing any of this is merely to inform… to bring some fill lights into the shadows in order to provide perspective to what someone you know with a chronic illness might be going through. Or if you know me, what I am going through. I make no guarantees that anything I do is the best way to approach things or the “right” way to deal with things. I know that it is the best that I can do in this time and space equipped as I am. All that said, lets dig in.
I am on so many mailing lists about MS. I get lots of writing, so I do lots of reading. One that I have been sitting on and contemplating for a while is this thought: “Can we ever get back to ‘normal?’” This became very complicated to me. A man who I have great respect for once told me as we were talking about the concept of tradition: “Tradition only goes as far back as you [the observer] can remember.” And so it is with the ideal of normal. “Normal” is a rolling scale… a shifting reality.
I understand the idea behind the thought. “Normal” is meant to indicate the time before your Dx. Days when you were, if you’ll excuse the phrase, “able-bodied”. This is fine. It’s great to remember. To look back on going “Damn I wish I had done better when I could have done.” This one isn’t unique to the chronically ill, though. We all will get caught by this thought eventually, for some reason. It could be age or illness or injury or any number of things. I digress.
Like spilled milk or the proverbial genie (or whatever else features in your favorite metaphor), once it is out of the bottle, you don’t get to put it back. I have lost a lot… and until science finds a way to regrow Myelin, it will stay gone. The dye is cast. SO… my normal now is a sensory neuropathy in my left hand. Gait challenges in my left foot. An almost allergic reaction to direct sunlight. A desire to be warm and cozy but an almost psychopathic need to not be warm and deal with the exacerbations that come with it.
Whatever “normal” was before that is immaterial. The question of “can we go back” is no. Physiologically there is no way. All the desire for that or hopping on that mental train ultimately does is create an avenue for frustration, irritation, depression. I have enough challenging to work through on a daily basis (illness-related and non-) that I don’t need to open that door. It is a purely thought exercise that drains valuable emotional resources. I could use those maybe some day. Sometimes you can reapportion that energy into physical energy to get something done which will in turn reap some return in more physical energy from the attainment of getting something useful done.
“Can we go back to ‘normal’?” No. I don’t even want to consider it. The premise itself is flawed. I have to exist in the “normal” of today and try to exist with it the best that I can.
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