I'm in a super fab writing group called Hot Girl Writing House and this prompt, "The moment everything shifted, but I didn’t tell a soul" was given to us to write on the spot...
PART 1:
I wrote and thought about this day many times. It plays on repeat. It’s a moment I’ll never forget.
The feeling of terror and relief filled my existence. Both emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum, yet they interjected at the very same time, causing a collision so catastrophic, I wondered if I’d ever come out of the wreckage from the reality-bomb that was just dropped on me.
The haze left me confused, leaving me to walk out of that doctor’s office as if everything I had imagined my life to be was demolished, and I was seeing a new world for the first time. Apprehension in every step to my car. Thoughts blurred. Sounds muffled. My vision compromised with the weight of my tears.
How the hell was I going to drive home? 30 minutes away felt like a cross-country road trip and I was not prepared. At all. I didn’t actually think this day would come so I hadn’t asked a copilot to accompany me for a ride, or forward think what would happen if I did finally get an answer to my medical mystery. It took so long, the realization my diagnosis was actually detonated shocked me right out of my safety bubble and into oblivion.
Three years is a long time to wait. I’d gone to so many specialists, had so many tests, it no longer gave me anxiety to go to appointments. After a while, you just start getting used to the unknown. Accepting the inconclusive was now an automatic outcome I’d just come to expect. The term “ignorance is bliss” was a coping mechanism I adopted in order to protect myself from let down after let down of being in the dark about what was wrong with me. I adapted so I could find a comfortable state of being amongst the discomfort of unanswers.
But what happens when you finally figure out what you’ve been searching for after all this time? All that build up coming to head in a 1-hour appointment. That’s a long train of uncertainty to abruptly come to a halt. No wonder the damage was so devastating. I hadn’t prepared for this day. Nothing could have braced me for impact. How am I going to begin to tell people I have a disease with no cure? How will I explain what this illness is when I don’t even understand it myself? The outcome of that day changed the course of my future and lives of my loved ones. MS is just two little letters, yet its meaning and unpredictability has so much behind it to decipher....
