Since diagnosis my life has changed dramatically. It had already begun it’s trajectory before diagnosis (I had just changed jobs for the first time in a decade), yet with the worsening of symptoms and eventual diagnosis, life crystallised and suddenly changes we’d been subconsciously yearning for were thrust upon us.
We were forced to give up our dogs (I couldn’t handle their boisterousness nor the terrain and maintenance of our property) and move to somewhere more urban, closer to amenities and medical facilities. We went from a life comfortably capital rich and debt free to our biggest debt ever, yet in a job and lifestyle place we’d never have dreamed ourselves liking.
Our lifestyle now is more akin to how a New Yorker must live. And yet we like it. The convenience of it all, the low maintenance lifestyle. And while our debts are as never before, so is my capacity to pay it. If MS just lets me work as I am for another decade, we will likely have paid off our biggest ever capital investment. So much is uncertain, yet upon diagnosis I embraced my current credo – “any day you wake up, maybe you die. Any day you don’t die, make it count”.