IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, REALLY

            I often wonder what life would be like if I didn’t have multiple sclerosis.  Would I have been a major league shortstop player because I had speed and a strong arm? Or maybe a NBA point guard because I could handle the ball and I had an outstanding jump shot?  Or maybe a NFL quarterback because I had pinpoint accuracy.  But the military was where I wanted to go.  I was ready to go into the U.S. Air Force Officers’ Candidate School after graduation from graduate school. After all, I would only be 24 year’s old.  

            Well, now I know. I would not do any of those things because the direction of my life changed on that lonely day in August of 1990.  After going though a battery of test, it was a relatively a new device called the MRI that confirmed the diagnosis. I had multiple sclerosis. There was now a reason behind why my hand totally froze while taking a final exam in graduate school. There was now a reason why I had double vision while stressed out taking any test.  There was now a reason why I couldn’t finish any task without trying to get my eyes to focus.  I now had answers.

            Even though I had multiple sclerosis, I soldiered on.  After stints at General Electric and the now the defunct accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, I took a job at a great place, Quixote Inc.  Although, I walked to Quixote in the beginning, as time past, it was becoming more and more apparent that I could no longer embark on this endeavor. Then it happened. One summer, coworkers at Quixote were determining who would play what position on the company’s softball team. I posed and gestured like I was a great baseball player, and well, coworkers immediately determined that I would be on the team. For me, this was mistake. Running was now impossible to archive. But with some lame excuse of a hamstring injury, I ended being the head coach.

            Now, I was determined to hide my diagnosis but hiding it would be costly.  I wasn’t retaining anything new and because I did not know what I writing, my writing became suspect.  It was the summer of 2000, about ten years into my diagnosis; the cognitive impairments were becoming more and more apparent.  At the now defunct WorldCom Inc., which would be my last job, I became the butt of my boss’s jokes. He mocked me with my colleagues. I was the guy with the Masters Degree who could not complete tasks that someone with a Masters Degree should be able to complete. Maybe it was time to come clean.  So I slowly did.

            I first told a female colleague and it relived a lot of pressure.  I felt I knew what a gay person felt when they come out. I always felt like I knew what women felt about their biological clock because I had a physical clock that was ticking.  After further talks with my neurologist in Chicago, it became apparent that I could no longer handle high finance or pursue a Doctorate Degree.  My working career was over and now I was on disability.

            I thought my life could not any worse but it did. My wife of ten years divorced me. And after some time, she decided to move back to her hometown of St Louis, Missouri with my sons. But after they were in St. Louis for less than six months, my oldest son caught a nasty staph infection. It ate away bones in his neck to the point that his neck was going to collapse.  The best part, or if you can say that, is because of my disability from multiple sclerosis, I was able to move from Chicago to St Louis and be with him. In his hospital room, I told him stories of my athletic experiences that made him laugh.  He was concerned that he would no longer be able to put his chin in his chest but I simulated in my scooter, how a person would look if they walked liked that and he laughed. I told him how basketball coaches insist players always keep head up and how he was now a natural to do just that. We laughed and laughed all night and every night in that hospital room.  Maybe I put him at ease or maybe I did not but I know because of multiple sclerosis, I was the last person he would see when he went to sleep and the first he would see when he woke up. 

            The First Lady is from Chicago and her father had multiple sclerosis.  I grew up five blocks from where the first family lives in Chicago.  They overcame many obstacles to get where they are, so did me and now I hope my son will.

            Today, I no longer work or drive so money is an issue. I live alone in isolation.  My ex-wife and I are friends and that relieves stress.  She brings the boys by to see me but I have to depend on her.  I’m in St Louis and my family is in Chicago and my boys are not old enough to help me. Yeah, I can’t walk or play basketball or even attend basketball games my boys are in but I’m alive.             

            So am I bitter?  No.  Do I wish I didn’t have multiple sclerosis, you bet.  But I have accepted it and moved on.  It is what it is. I would not wish this disease on anybody though. Now, I look for breaking news on treatments and potential research. I spend my days writing in my blog or just writing. Along with my brother, I write screenplays that I hope one day, someone in Hollywood may show some interest in. But there is a positive thing associated with this dreadful disease; I was there in my son’s time of need. Can anyone really say it’s a wonderful life?  Well, I can.