Friday, April 8, 2011

Daughter Asking Hard Questions About MS

The other day me and my daughter went to the gym to shoot baskets. While at the gym, she and I were talking about how my wife has been struggling some and how she wasn't able to go with us that night due to her leg's being tired. So, during our conversation I really didn't think about any of it too much, but just tried to be as open and honest as possible with her. She asks questions periodically, but usually it is short lived and she doesn't dwell much on it. After we made it back to the house, she made an off hand comment that really got my attention.

She walked by me and told me to never let her get paralyzed. She had been thinking about how my wife has been numb a few times and how she didn't want to be that way. I talked to her for a minute about it, and she asked me if I thought she was going to have MS. We had talked about this before, but for some reason it was really on her mind that night. We talked for a short time about the chances that she had it, and she went on and didn't talk about it again. I know she is concerned about it, but I also know that she doesn't think about it much until my wife has been having issues.

I guess I feel a little more comfort right now in talking to her about all of it since there are some strides being made with CCSVI and the testing for vein issues. If and when we get to the point of testing my wife for vein issues, we will go ahead and test my daughter to see if she has any blood flow problems. I guess I'm pretty paranoid because lately she has been talking about being light headed and having some black out spells where she says everything goes dark. I pray that she doesn't have Multiple Sclerosis, but I have to be real and know that there is a chance. That's the last thing I would want for my little girl, to have to struggle with this dreaded disease like my wife has. I am sure she will talk to me about it again, and I'm sure I will have to answer some hard questions, but for now she just needs to be a teenage girl loving life.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Unquestionably the MOST poignant aspect of spouse caregiving and well told. In our story of living with MS our daughter has never seen her mother walk so it's a bit different. You mentioned modern strides and that is so important because something I discovered was that 'in school' unfortunately educational text books and information taught directly and indirectly is sadly dated.

Caregivingly Yours, Patrick

Unknown said...

I really appreciate this blog. I have MS and it makes me proud because of how my husband cares for me....we are in the very beginning stages, I have no idea what things will look like, but I am grateful there is a great resource of support for my husband. We are also about to move, so it is interesting to see....looking forward to your next update!!