Tag: support group

the Last Night; my Support Group Part III

Last night was the final session of the workshop.  The group is going to try to keep it going informally just so that we can meet and keep in touch with each other. 

  • Last nite, 1 of the chicks said that this was the first workshop/seminar that she’s been to where everyone was at the same level. She’s been to other workshops where people were in wheelchairs or the MS was so advanced that she didn’t feel as if they were “like her”.
  • This was the first time EVER for me that i have even been around other people with MS…I know now FOR SURE that i’m not alone.
  • We’ve found that many of us have had doctors who insisted that whatever we were going thru at the time was not the MS but at the same time, couldn’t tell us what it was.  That’s most frustrating!!!  Now we can bounce ideas, symptoms and thoughts off each other. 

U know they say that “misery loves company” and for those reasons alone, we are definitely going to meet informally going forward.  The “official” workshop is over, but we all live in the area and have exchanged numbers and email addresses so that we can make it work.

I now have Support Group Part III.

My Support Group Part II aka My family

“the ‘rents” are not here; they are still at home in Trinidad.  I know that my mother wishes that she were here to be with me while i was being tested and the diagnosis, but I had the next best thing; Gib was here.  Many times i also wished she were here too, i dunno bout allyuh, but when I get sick, she is the first person I call…but it is what it is and she lives at home.  I’ve also called her to be “talked off the ledge” a time or 2 and as I mentioned before she has told me that i cannot return the disease, i have to live with it.

I have to credit them both for my positive outlook on this situation.  Anyone who knows OB knows that he is the life of the party without even trying too hard and Learls, even tho she is more reserved, eh too backward herself.  I know that i have their support – even across the ocean and they are just as “in this thing” as Gib is.  As I’ve mentioned before in tru Trini stylin, there is never a dull moment when we’re together.  Laughs/jokes/picong (trash talk) cyah done…that is the best way we know how to deal with difficult albeit serious situations.  “S” calls it “my caribbean/Trini way of thinking”.  We really try to make the best of a bad situation and i don’t waste time on things I cannot change or control.

My Support Group part I aka My Friends

I couln’d t do this without my “support” group.  In tru Trini style, we make light of a difficult situation.  If I don’t laugh, i certainly will cry and that is NOT acceptable; as I was once told, “MAN UP!! MAN UP!!!…we have NO time for crying/tears right now!!!”.  In their defense, G and T, it was on Georgia Ave in the middle of DC carnival!  :-), but i think their reaction made me cry some more.  It was 2008 and the gravity of the situation HIT me like a full BUS (It was the first time that i’d actually cried since being diagnosed) …oye!  I will not be able to play mas ever again! 

I had actually spent my last carnival at home sleepign on top of a speakerbox on top one of the trucks…if only i knew then what i know now!!!

dem…and a few others

Anyhoo, I digress.  My friends; they keep me going…

  • G; my rock – I’m not sure if i could have even gotten this far without her.  She will bouff (who really knows how to spell that word) anyone into submission to ensure that they take care of me when she is not around.  I’ve had to call her to talk me off the ledge now and again
  • J (W?) heeheehee – in Miami this year, whichever fete we went to, the chair was slung on his shoulder  like a shoulder bag.  He drives a HUGE truck and it has no footladder to climb in and I ketch my ass alot trying to get in (but that’s besides the point)
  • K – She always ensures that she is available for me to hold on to; even when i say that i’m okay…because she fears G’s roar.  She also was arrested (okay, she likes to say detained; but it makes for such a better story when we use arrested) because she was arguing with one of Dekalb County’s finest outside a party about a small situation that we were in because of the MS.  I was standing next to them and the next thing i knew, he was hauling her handcuffed ass to the backseat of his car!!!  WDF!?!? 🙂
  • D is no longer in Atlanta, but he is missed…even tho he did watch me fall twice(!) in one party.  In his defense, he was ah lil tite
  •  A is somewhat new to the crew, but sometimes i feel like she is my BIGGEST supporter.  In FL earlier this year, I had a lil fight with the ocean and she was there to ORDER me out – lest the ocean became victorious!
I could go on, but suffice it to say that i really have the best “support group” that someone in my situation could ask for.

I have to mention this…I was raising funds for the MS Walk of Atlanta and I was soliciting funds from someone…The conversation went like this…
Me: Don’t u want to donate?  it’s for a good cause…it’s the MS Walk
C: What??  *$%@** MS Walk?  Why I must give dem my money??  Who we know with that…I not donating to that…
Me: Well….actually I was diagnosed last year
He’s ah red man and he turned even red-DER.  I had a good laugh, he – not so much!  I reassured him that I/it was okay…we had a long talk about it/my daignosis etc but poor fella…to this day, I’m not sure if he has totally gotten over that!

Laughter is one of the best medicines! (No prescription req’d)
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