Who I am.

Well I can hardly believe that it is already the beginning of December. It's been two whole months since I last posted and it feels like a lifetime has occurred during that time. When I saw my neurologist in September he warned me that the extreme fatigue which accompanies MS can be the most debilitating aspect of the disease. I have always been a "tired" person but I thought it was my fault and over the past two months I have been struck almost useless by this fatigue. There have been days where I have woken up, moved from my bed to the couch but would not be able to move from there. At times I would call different friends to get them to tell me to go and shower because I was coming over to their house for dinner. Having this type of encouragement and incentive helped to make these almost impossible chores bareable, because someone was counting on me to accomplish them and at these times I could not count on internal motivation to accomplish these things so I had to rely on the external motivation of my friends.
This is not how I imagined my life going. I did not ever expect to be nearing 30 and feeling like I am not able to fully care for myself or support myself to the extent that I would like. I definitely did not ever think that I would be living with a debilitating, progressive and unpredictable disease. This has been a difficult pill to swallow. When I first experienced problems with my back almost 10 years ago, I got through that and really hoped that would be the end of my physical difficulties, at least until I was at least 80 and some health problems would be expected. Alas, my life has not conformed to any social norms thus far so why start now?
I am happy to say that during this really difficult time I have not missed any work and have retained my full employment. At the times when I drag myself out of bed at 6am to go to work this feels like an immense accomplishment. But, I do not want to leave this post on a dark note. As I said, the past two months have been really difficult, I have been experiencing great grief and sorrow over what having MS means for my life and my future as well as dealing with the physical aspects of the disease. But two weeks ago things started to change for my physically. I have been speaking with different people who have been living with MS or similar diseases and they have all recommended the same things: vitamin D supplements and vitamin B12 shots or supplements. I thought I would try the vitamin D and have been taking twice the recommended dose. I started taking the vitamin D on a Wednesday evening and by Friday I felt like someone had started turning the lights on inside of me again. Now two weeks later, I feel almost normal again. I have seen a remarkable change in my energy levels and my daily functioning. I still have to be very cognizant of how my sleep I get, making sure I don't let myself become over tired, but at the same time I am not struggling to make it through the day because I am so tired, even after having an afternoon nap. Yesterday I drove to Vancouver and had a lovely afternoon with some girlfriends, then I came home and made dinner for another friend and then proceeded to go to the movies. By the end of the movie I was ready for sleep but it seems like a miracle that I had that much energy yesterday to do all of those things in one day and to thoroughly enjoy it. I have even started going to the gym again which has been amazing. I still have to be careful but it has felt like a miracle that with two little pills a day I could see such a change in my daily living and functioning. I have begun to see glimpses of my former self again and that makes me feel happy. This is my journey and I am happy to say that today I am doing well.