Nancy, at first the only hard thing to do was to reassure all the staff that I was OK and to answer all their questions. Since I had been in the hospital as an emegency for a week, they all knew my dx. One of the things I liked the most about nursing was the education. So I never held back anything about MS. I thought it would just be a wonderful teaching experience.

When I found out I had it, I was on the nuero unit and I asked the nurses for a neuro book so I could study up on it. They had the most archaic book I had ever seen. Then when I got home I got out my old med/surg book. What a mistake!!!!! So I went down to Barnes and Nobles, sat myself down with several books, got on the internet and found out that it wasn't all about preventative bedsore and aspiration pneumonia care. See, I went to school in the ealy 70's and that's all MS care was. So I found out it wasn't a life sentence. I also used my experience in my teaching of my patients. When my newly dx cardiac patients thought that their life was over, I gave them a litle of my hx.

I did fine for 2 years. Then I started to realize little things like not being able to remember some of the very basic cardiac drugs and then the cardiac surgeons names. It's kind of hard for your patients to trust you when you can't even tell them the names of the cardiac surgeons after their cardiac cath. Luckily, one day after a couple of days off, one of my legs went out and I called in sick. I never went back. So I never had to make that heart wrenching desision to have to quit work. God took care of it for me.

I had good benifits from the hospital. Between family leave, unused sick days, vacation days and everything else, I was paid for another full year!!!!! Then I went on Short term disability and then SSD. My SSD check is stillll bigger than my husbands monthly income. But he is just a pharmacy tech. So nursing has taken care of me and when I turn 62 I will be able to draw my pension from the hospital.