Living a fulfilling life with MS

Transcript:

Hey, thanks for joining me. My name is Charlie and I was diagnosed with MS in 2011, and I’m here to tell you, being diagnosed with MS was a life-changing moment for me. But I want you to know and understand that you can live a fulfilled life with multiple sclerosis.

That’s right, no matter how you may be feeling, or no matter how this disease affects you, you can live a fulfilled life with multiple sclerosis. But there are going to be several keys that I would suggest that you pay attention to and that you try to implement in your day-to-day life for you to be able to live the most fulfilling life that you can with MS.

And now these are in no particular order: learning to let go. The next would be being creative. And the last one would be having a burning desire and a purpose. And I’ll just start with let go. When I say let go, I’m not talking about letting go of, you know, what you used to do to the point to where you allow MS to continuously win, to continuously get you down and continuously hold you down.

No, I’m saying let go of the things that you can’t do anymore. If you used to take the steps at work and you now need to take the elevator, take the elevator because learning to let go of taking the steps is going to help you be able to have a longer day, for you to have a positive day.

Being creative, there’s another one. MS will take things from you, so you now have to learn how to take back. And when I say be creative, I mean be creative in a way that, if you want to go to the movies and you can’t do the Friday night anymore, you might have to do the early Sunday morning, catch the first show.

But what I’m telling you is that you can still go to the movies, just like with traveling. You can still travel. I just came back off a West Coast trip. But what I’m telling you when you travel, you just got to be prepared. You got to call ahead. You got to make sure that they have your reservations in order. You let them know that you’re traveling with a wheelchair, a walker, a mobility scooter, whatever the case may be.

But you can still travel. That’s another way, like I say, being creative. And the last one would be having a purpose, having a burning desire, having goals. Right there, if you’ve got goals, it’s going to help you get through this MS thing, because there’s going to be days where MS is going to want to hold you down, where MS will hold you down.

But if you’ve got these goals and you’re doing the things that you need to do, you will be able to get through. You will have what it takes to keep moving, but you will need to set goals. You will need to know that you need to stay focused. Things will change day to day with MS, but I’m here to tell you right now that you can live a fulfilled life with multiple sclerosis. I’m living proof. I’m doing it.

Reinvent yourself. Stay focused and learn to let go of the things that may be holding you back, which could be the things that you could do before you got MS. If you learn to let go and implement some of these things into your life on a day-to-day basis, I promise you, you will be on your way to having the best life you can and living a fulfilled life with multiple sclerosis. Thank you. And until next time, keep moving!