Been taking my mom for her PT(she had a concussion) at the big PT place lol.
She has balancing problems and has to do brain execises.

Anyways while sitting there yesterday this really really young girl comes in riding a power chair...I'm talking late twenties early 30's, beuatiful.. Well I just asked her....is it MS? She says yes...
I was embarrassed to even say I have been Dxe3d with it as I don't appear to be effected...hell I can still do single track on my bike.

I'm older and fine shape, she's a lot younger and totally disabled....

I don't even need a cane to walk with..yet...

MS must of taken her down with a couple of years! She was going in for water therapy as I saw her mate had a wheelchair made of plastic tubing....I assumed it was for water.

Also saw some quads and paras.......wow....I feel bad for them.

One guy has a bone disease and has broken his leg 4 times in the past 4 years!...... he walks with a walker and rides a chair....looks around 50 years old!

I feel lucky all of a sudden! and MS seems so random....some are lucky some are not right from the start!

I feel lucky!!

Weird and random are good words for MS!!!

I've noticed some stiffness in my fingers that is irritating sometimes....it's the left hand I can't move my fingers as fast with it than my right.

Yes very random and weird...... that girl was in a power chair and she is younger than me!

I know that when I was walking with a walker at 23 people would treat me horrible, like I was using it for attention or something. Luckily that was a flair that I "mostly" recovered from. Now it's just progressing Yes this disease is very random. I have a friend who has been diagnosed for over ten years, I have been diagnosed for almost five years and she is always telling me that she feels bad that I am so much worse off than her.

There are many better off than me and many far worse off. Just the way it goes I guess. But everyone has some kind of struggle.

Just yesterday my daughter used that word, random, when we were talking about MS--my symptoms and progression compared to my dad's, etc.

She said, "I don't know how you can explain MS, it's just so random." I told her, "I think you just did."

My dad was diagnosed in 1957, when he was 39. He voluntarily gave up driving a few years later following an absence seizure (blackout, he called it) and because of issues with his right leg--he was afraid he wouldn't be able to apply the brake quickly enough in an emergency. He never had a second seizure, and if he'd had hand controls for the car, he probably could have kept driving.

He walked the mile each way to work until he retired at 62 (he was a boiler fireman). He mowed the lawn, worked in his wood shop, shoveled snow, invented gadgets. If you didn't know he had MS, you wouldn't have guessed. He had invisible symptoms. He died of COPD just shy of his 80th birthday, and was still going up and down stairs under his own steam three days before he died, though he did use a cane the last couple of years.

However, we always lived under the cloud of "tomorrow morning your father might not be able to get out of bed." I've had MS for maybe 10-12 years. I hope my course is like Dad's. But because it's random, I know tomorrow might be the day I can't get out of bed. MS doesn't play fair. But as nemsmom said, everyone has some kind of struggle.

The thing that scares me is that like you said "tomorrow may be the day I can't get out of bed"

So far so good with me with minor ailments, but I am still fully able, ride bike ect. I do everything they tell me to do, take the meds on schedual and eat well....plus exercise....

Still scary thinking it might hit hard one night though....I try not to think about it.

My MS hit me out of nowhere on Oct 5, 2011. Ive had MS for 20 yrs and had small flares over the years until then. I worked midnights at the hospital doing 12 hour shifts. On my last rounds of vitals at 5am, I went to get up out of my chair and fell to the floor. I got up and sat down for a minute to collect myself and got up again and fell to the floor again. I couldnt walk well, very dizzy and legs didnt want to hold me up. Somehow I was able to finish my shift and make it home. I fell a total of 7 times that morning and dh ran me to ER. Flare in Oct and again in Dec. Im now disabled. Using walker and cane and motorized carts in stores. Overnight I went from working full time to barely able to walk. I thought after all those years maybe I'd be spared, but no. Random is right!

Thanks for sharing your story KittyLady. I'm sorry that it changed your life so profoundly and so suddenly .

What a cruel and unpredictable...and yes, random disease this is.

If only it could leave us with a bit of solid ground to rely on. Yet it takes that away too; seemingly when we are most in need of something solid to hold on to.

With love, Erika

Thanks for this as I know this was difficult for you to write. I won't lie, that story scares me a lot. Guess I've been putting off just how this disease is and while I feel pretty good right now it could turn at anytime and that is really disturbing for me and now I am worried when I shouldn't be, but can't help it lol. Canes walkers, scooters and all that.....it scares me...... Not sure if I'll be able to deal with that when or if it comes to me.

I'm a pretty strict individual on myself in that I do not let people do stuff for me or like having people do stuff for me, invading my space ect ect..... I hardly like to be touched!. I know I come off as some sweet guy on here, but know I am a pretty grumpy person IRL.... When people I know cought on that I have been DX with MS, they treated me different....and I hate it. I'm asked all the time if "it" is getting worse or anything new about "It"?

It sets me off.

I try not to think abou tit and things are ok right now, but knowing this **** can take a turn to the worse at any time really ****** me off. I can't deal with all that rehab BS or babying crap yo uget when yo ubecome very disabled...I'll probably shut myself in my room with a big GO AWAY! sign lol...

I mean....When I had to be in the hospital for onset of the MS symptoms of head spinning and dizziness BS double vision Only my mom and sister I'd let in and even then I hated that.

I honestly will be the guy the nurses and staff are going to hate!

Hey Eric, don't let us sweet peeps kid you. We have our grumpy days, when it's best to leave us da hay alone.

Who said "the only thing to fear is fear itself"..