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Living with MS
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The World's Best Mother with MS.
My mother was diagnosed with Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis when I was the age of three, about the time when my youngest sister Emma was born. The worst form of M.S. is Primary progressive, and my mother is one away from the worst. You can do the math. It first started with extreme numbness on the left side of her body, tiredness, and lack of motivation. These three symptoms manifested as atypical characteristics of my mother, so they went into the doctor and after extensive testing they diagnosed her. She did not know much about it, or the extent that it would take bits of her very life away as the years progressed. She had gone to the College of St. Scholastica and gone through the nursing program and had a wonderful job working in Orthopedics at the Abbot Northwestern Hospital in the cities. She was outgoing, beautiful, hilarious, high energy-filled and fast-paced. She loved singing. She loved life and all of its challenges; she saw the beauty in everything. As years past after her diagnosis, she started seeing symptoms similar to that of Parkinson’s disease. She started to have bad optical neuritis (pain behind the nerves of your eye), and her upper body started to shake uncontrollably. Her eyesight decreased and she started having terrible back pain and numbness on her left side even more so than when she first experienced these symptoms. The list of shitty symptoms could go on and on.
In the past years, my mother has lost everything she loved. Since she started to shake and lose more and more abilities, she lost her drivers license. She can’t write anymore or use her hand for things such as that and her walking has declined to the point where she uses a walker and a cane for most things. Even a wheelchair is needed for long walking circumstances. She had to retire from nursing which was her passion in life, and felt shorted after all the hard work she put into it. She lost her beautiful singing voice and her memory is declining to the point where she is forgetting even my cousin’s names. I have heard her talk about how she wants to die so she would be put out of her misery. How she wishes she would of gotten Cancer instead. At least there’s treatment for that. That is the only thing I have ever heard my mother complain about. She never complains about the pain she is in or the extreme sadness she feels about the losses in her life because of this disease. Never complains. Since my father works and me and my youngest sister are both in school she spends a lot of time alone at home. It is as if life is passing my mother by in slow motion, and she can’t do anything to change the way things happened. She can only pray about things, and this is who taught me how prayer works in people’s lives.
Since my mother was sick, I have grown up learning most things on my own and it has taught me to be an independent worker, and a woman of God. It has taught me to cherish health and people around you, because you never know when things will be altered or taken from you in a blink of an eye. If you don’t know enough information about M.S. it is an incurable disease, there has been no cure or even close to a cure. They still don’t even know what really causes the disease. There are medications available but nothing has worked for my mother. It gives me a feeling of hopelessness. It is the feeling that I am lost in a crazy world, just hopelessly watching my mother decline. Watching a beautiful strong woman decline, watching, watching. With no words or thoughts that could make it go away. Nothing will make it go away. The only thing to ease the pain that my family feels is prayer. It is what gives us strength, something to look forward to, something to comfort me. I have been so mad at times that it makes me physically sick, I have cried so hard to the point of no return it seems. I have been struck with green jealousy looking at families with normal Mother’s who can walk, and sing, and be nurses, and play and love life. I get angry with people who have forms of M.S. that show barely any symptoms. “Why did my mother get this?” I ask God. God has never answered this, but I know one day there will be a reason and I will be content and can smile and look back and just know it was all for the big scheme of things.
Since my mother was diagnosed with this disease when I was very young, this is all I’ve known of my mother. I love her regardless of this disease. Despite being sick, she still loves life; and sees the beauty in all of its challenges. She is the best mother a Girl could ask for and has taught me life's lessons: Live life abundantly, be thankful, thank God.
In the past years, my mother has lost everything she loved. Since she started to shake and lose more and more abilities, she lost her drivers license. She can’t write anymore or use her hand for things such as that and her walking has declined to the point where she uses a walker and a cane for most things. Even a wheelchair is needed for long walking circumstances. She had to retire from nursing which was her passion in life, and felt shorted after all the hard work she put into it. She lost her beautiful singing voice and her memory is declining to the point where she is forgetting even my cousin’s names. I have heard her talk about how she wants to die so she would be put out of her misery. How she wishes she would of gotten Cancer instead. At least there’s treatment for that. That is the only thing I have ever heard my mother complain about. She never complains about the pain she is in or the extreme sadness she feels about the losses in her life because of this disease. Never complains. Since my father works and me and my youngest sister are both in school she spends a lot of time alone at home. It is as if life is passing my mother by in slow motion, and she can’t do anything to change the way things happened. She can only pray about things, and this is who taught me how prayer works in people’s lives.
Since my mother was sick, I have grown up learning most things on my own and it has taught me to be an independent worker, and a woman of God. It has taught me to cherish health and people around you, because you never know when things will be altered or taken from you in a blink of an eye. If you don’t know enough information about M.S. it is an incurable disease, there has been no cure or even close to a cure. They still don’t even know what really causes the disease. There are medications available but nothing has worked for my mother. It gives me a feeling of hopelessness. It is the feeling that I am lost in a crazy world, just hopelessly watching my mother decline. Watching a beautiful strong woman decline, watching, watching. With no words or thoughts that could make it go away. Nothing will make it go away. The only thing to ease the pain that my family feels is prayer. It is what gives us strength, something to look forward to, something to comfort me. I have been so mad at times that it makes me physically sick, I have cried so hard to the point of no return it seems. I have been struck with green jealousy looking at families with normal Mother’s who can walk, and sing, and be nurses, and play and love life. I get angry with people who have forms of M.S. that show barely any symptoms. “Why did my mother get this?” I ask God. God has never answered this, but I know one day there will be a reason and I will be content and can smile and look back and just know it was all for the big scheme of things.
Since my mother was diagnosed with this disease when I was very young, this is all I’ve known of my mother. I love her regardless of this disease. Despite being sick, she still loves life; and sees the beauty in all of its challenges. She is the best mother a Girl could ask for and has taught me life's lessons: Live life abundantly, be thankful, thank God.
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