I did well yesterday My words are my actions. I managed to use the walker until after 2pm. I completed 3 sets of 10 squats but I can admit I pulled myself up on the last few. I was done!!! I’m happy to say that I recovered and had strength to get myself up into my bed without assistance and without lowering the bed to the flat position. I was proud of myself. My daughter comes into my room every night to make sure I don’t need help. It’s been very sweet.

We had a talk about my multiple sclerosis again a few days ago. I was diagnosed with MS the year before I became pregnant. She only knows me with the disease. Since I was divorced when she was 7, it was always her and I. She is a frontline witness to my progression and disability. She has seen it all. I don’t think anyone knows as much as she does, even though they think they do. She hears me bitch and moan when I get frustrated doing small tasks. She hears me cursing when I drop things on a daily basis. She is called to plug in my charger because my hands can’t get the cord into the phone. She is around on a day to day, hourly basis, for all those little things that my MS has made difficult but I don’t talk about.

However she started doing something that annoyed the heck out of me. This is why I had to discuss my MS again. Every time something happened or I complained, she’d say “I’m sorry mom”. She’d do it so much it became rote. To me it became insincere and dismissive. I told her she hears me bitch more than anybody because she’s around me but my comments aren’t necessarily to get a comment back. I might say “my legs are tired today”. This isn’t really even me bitching, it’s more of a statement. To hear her say, “I’m sorry mom”, was very irritating. So we discussed the fact that I make comments about my MS that she’s going to hear and she doesn’t need to comment every time. She could ask if I need help if she sees me struggling. She could check on me if she hears me coughing. She could pick something up that I dropped. She doesn’t need to say she’s sorry every time.

The proof it became an automatic thing for her to say is the five or six times we’ve caught her saying it already. Now that she’s conscious of it hopefully we could stop it. I certainly am not looking for anyone to feel sorry for me. She is almost 21 years old and still doesn’t know how to deal with my disease sometimes. I forget that even though she has grown up with me having MS, she doesn’t see me as disabled, she sees mom.