{"id":272,"date":"2025-07-01T11:19:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/07\/01\/seeing-through-the-woulds\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T11:19:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T11:19:47","slug":"seeing-through-the-woulds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/2025\/07\/01\/seeing-through-the-woulds\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing through the woulds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\"><em>Last week, Bruce Springsteen released his epic collection of previously unreleased songs, \u201cTracks II.\u201d Listening to these recordings reminded me of how much his music has supported me through my journey life with Multiple Sclerosis and as Jennifer\u2019s primary caregiver.<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><em>This led me to think of an essay I wrote that was directly inspired by one of Springsteen\u2019s songs from his 2014 album, \u201cHigh Hopes.\u201d I originally wrote it as a guest post for Donna Steigleder\u2019s blog, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mscaregiverdonna.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">MS Caregiver Sharing<\/a><\/strong>. I am grateful she gave me the opportunity to share it with her readers then and that I, in turn, can share it with you on Jennifer&#8217;s and my blog today. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n<p class=\"\">Birds are chirping. Breeze is blowing. Mourning doves are \u2026 mourning. And I\u2019m that man sitting on the deck typing.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignright size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"762\" height=\"770\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acoupletakesonms.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Woulds.jpg?resize=762%2C770&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11077\" style=\"width:485px;height:auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Artwork by Trevor Grabill<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"\">Having free time to write like this is what I hoped for more than 17 years ago when I was first diagnosed with MS. Back then, I feared the unpredictable nature of the disease. I anticipated the worst when I first took a walk through the woulds:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Would my MS rapidly progress?<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">Would I still have a job?\u00a0<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">Would I remain able-bodied?\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"\">Over a decade and a half later, here I am.&nbsp;I\u2019m that man, typing on the deck \u2026&nbsp;and I\u2019m drinking a beer after a long day of work at the same place I was employed when I was diagnosed in 2000 \u2014 a workplace that has promoted me three&nbsp;times since then.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">I\u2019m on the deck of the house I share with Jennifer. She\u2019s my rock in fighting this disease. This isn\u2019t only because she is my spouse who vowed to love and support me in health and in sickness.&nbsp;Jennifer also has MS and understands my reality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">But she&nbsp;is nowhere near me at this moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jennifer is at the&nbsp;pizzeria with her girlfriends for their monthly book club meeting. They\u2019re meeting&nbsp;there&nbsp;because The Cabin&nbsp;serves some of the best pizza in&nbsp;town, and it\u2019s also&nbsp;because it\u2019s handicapped accessible to accommodate Jennifer\u2019s wheelchair.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The wheelchair is the last thing they see when they look at Jennifer. They see her, not her disease. Looking at the two of us together, people often think I\u2019m the caregiver in our relationship. That\u2019s only half true. For as much as I care for her, she cares for me equally as much.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Together we continue to help each other wander through the ever-changing woulds of MS.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">In addition to braving the \u201cwhat-if\u201d woulds, we are in the thick of the \u201cin-our-faces\u201d woulds; such as: would you give me my shot? Would you skip this event because I don\u2019t have the energy to go out tonight? Would you get the Hoyer lift to help me off the floor? Would we be able to manage our life together if we got any worse?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">These are our everyday questions and realities. But we\u2019ve discovered that you never know the answers until you\u2019re in the thick of the woulds and are required to respond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">That\u2019s the beauty and the key to caregiving, whether it\u2019s as a spouse. A parent. A child. A friend.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">We always are serving as the helping hand when the other falls \u2014 both literally and figuratively. Blazing ahead and warning of the potential pitfalls we experienced when facing similar situations on our own journeys.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">So I\u2019m that man sitting on the deck typing as my wife is at the pizzeria with her book club. And I\u2019ll go pick her up in about 20 minutes \u2014 not just because her MS makes it so she can no longer drive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s because I\u2019m her caregiver, and I said I would.<\/p>\n<p><em>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/acoupletakesonms.com\/seeing-through-the-woulds\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=seeing-through-the-woulds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acoupletakesonms.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week, Bruce Springsteen released his epic collection of previously unreleased songs, \u201cTracks II.\u201d Listening to these recordings reminded me of how much his music has supported me through my journey life with Multiple Sclerosis and as Jennifer\u2019s primary caregiver. This led me to think of an essay I wrote that was directly inspired by&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11,15,9,8,13,14,12,10],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multiple-sclerosis-research","tag-brain-repair","tag-marburg-type-ms","tag-ms","tag-multiple-sclerosis","tag-myelin","tag-neuroregeneration","tag-oligodendrocyte","tag-remyelination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wickedsister.evit.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}