Not Enough Players On The Team!

I love football.  As all who do, I have a favorite team……my team WAS NOT in the Super Bowl! 

A football team consists of offensive and defensive players.  Each set of players have specific goals.  The offensive players want to score touchdowns and the defensive players want to keep the other side from scoring touchdowns.  When the team is successful at doing this, they win the game.

I was thinking that having MS is like having a football team that is completely unorganized.  My offensive and defensive players have no clue as to what they are supposed to be doing.

The offensive players in our bodies are supposed to keep us up and motivated.  They help us walk, talk, think and go about our daily lives.  With MS, the players just wander around the field and forget what they are doing.  Instead of helping us walk, they sit on the sideline and drink Gatorade and tell jokes. 

The defensive players in our bodies are supposed to keep us from falling, forgetting what we are doing, helping us get words out correctly and live a normal life.  With MS, the players are standing around watching the ball get caught by the other team and score touchdowns.  They don’t even try to intercept the ball or tackle the other players.  They are looking at the fans and waving to their families.

Many diseases resemble this description.  It is not only MS that totally disrupts a normal life.  But it is MS that I am dealing with and can only speak from experience on.  My “team” is totally unorganized and tends to not care what is happening.  The players don’t practice and don’t have a clue as to what they are supposed to be doing on the playing field.

With MS, as with many other diseases, the doctors who treat us often dismiss things that we go through because it is “not in the play book”.  There are a certain set of symptoms and problems that are THE NORM and nothing else will penetrate their brains as having anything to do with our disease.  It is very frustrating to try and explain something to a doctor that has a closed mind.  Most of them do, and miss the opportunity to really treat and help  their patients because of this.

Anyone who has ever had a cold, to having cancer, know that there are more “plays” in the game than the ones set down on paper.  Each of us is different and our bodies react differently to whatever happens to it.  My “players” may go one direction while your “players” may take off in an entirely different one.

I hope one day the medical profession will come to realize that everything that happens to someone is not just “in their mind” but is being lived out every day in their bodies.  I also hope that all of us reading and going through this will live to see that day.

Until then, I need to get my players back on the practice field.  They have really let me down lately.  They need more discipline and direction.  I am hoping to get them into the next Super Bowl……. Are you listening Green Bay Packers???!!!!!!!!! J