Some days everything anybody says bugs me, I'll admit it. But most of the time, I can let things go. Hey, we were all there once, not "getting it" and saying stupid things. Or if not stupid, at least well-intentioned but hurtful or annoying. I've certainly said my share. Maybe more than my share.

That's why I bite my tongue. I'm not given to snappy comebacks anyway (well, maybe in my mind...) but there is one "helpful" comment that tests my patience.

That's when somebody says some version of, "Well, NONE of us knows what the next day will bring. ANY of us could get hit by a bus."

Well, no kidding. And I KNOW the "guilty" parties are sincerely just trying to help me avoid a fatalistic, gloom-and-doom trajectory. Trying to make me feel better.

But I grew up with it always in the back of my family's collective mind that tomorrow could be the day that Dad went blind or couldn't get out of bed. It never happened--he had MS for over four decades and never had that big, incapacitating relapse.

Don't get me wrong--we had a happy life, lots of laughter, no constant woe-is-we atmosphere. But we knew what could, and often did, happen to people with MS. We knew the odds were not in our favor. It was always there.

I very seldom talk (to non-MSers) about having that same thing always in the back of my mind (and sometimes in the front). My leg feels funny--will it be totally numb in the morning? My eye feels weird--could this be ON? Even though my disease progression has been very gradual thus far, could tomorrow be "the Day"?

No, I don't dwell on it. Totally unhealthy. And it's obviously true that man knows not his time--something bad could happen suddenly to anyone, not just someone with MS. The person ahead of me in line could get hit by a bus. The person sitting next to me in church might have a time bomb (brain tumor, blocked artery, DVT) and not know it.

The thing is, I know it. I KNOW it. I know it all the time. And sometimes I feel compelled to share that with somebody. When I hear, "Hey, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow...", it feels dismissive to me. I know that's not intended, I know it's (usually) prompted by a pure motive, but you know what? It pushes my buttons. And I have to bite my tongue.