The first snow is supposed to fall today in New York. I always loved the snow. I never liked driving in it but I loved to look at it. I love when it’s quiet and everything is white. You look outside the street the world just seems transformed and peaceful. Everything appears so different. However after that snow, what a mess. There are huge piles of snow because the plows. There are always parking spots that are taken because of where the plows had to put the snow. There’s always ice from where the snow melted and then it froze over. Snow becomes just a complete nightmare after. Anyone that lives in a warmer climate, I’m letting you know it’s pretty to look at, but that’s about it.

I remember one time after this tremendous snowstorm a couple days later, I was parking in a parking lot right across the street from my doctor’s office. The mounds of snow that covered the pathway to gets the doctors office was tremendous but for me with multiple sclerosis to walk all the way around would’ve been almost as hard. I was left with this obstacle either try to get over the mountain of snow or take a mile long walk around the entire parking lot to find a way that might be less high. I decided to try the mound of snow. I basically sat in it and shifted my feet from a sitting position up over this mound. Mind you this is when I was able to walk unaided. Now that task would be impossible. No Walker could go through snow. No Walker can help you on ice. Once snow falls walking is extremely difficult. I basically become housebound until the snow is melted away enough and pathways are clear enough that I really can walk safely. Winter which I’ve always loved have now become a dangerous time of year for me. I am a fall risk on dry-land, on carpet and in my every day world. Add snow and ice and that risk goes from 4 to 20 on a scale of 1 to 10. Unfortunately, that’s the reality. That’s what life is like with this disease. Even if I had a scooter, The scooter wouldn’t grip on ice or go over mounds of snow. It will be ok over some parts of snow but not if the snow was icy. It would be no different than when your car gets stuck in a snowbank and the wheels just keep spinning and spinning but going nowhere. The scooter would do the same thing.

So now I mostly watch winter from my window. It’s still pretty, but not only does the world get quiet outside, it gets quiet inside too. This is how MS feels more for most of us, or at least me