It is well nigh impossible to image how it is when ill health comes into your life and home and steals away slowly in tiny pieces the person that you love with all of your heart. We all say glibbly "I can image how you feel" but to be honest, you cannot. Until you have walked in the shoes yourself you can never image the devastation and sorrow that a disease like Multiple Sclerosis leaves in its wake......
My dear Reubs has now officially had the disease for seven years now, it will be eight years in the spring. I can still remember the dread and fear that locked up my stomach for days on end and did not let go. When my husband was in hospital for the very first time I can remember standing in the kitchen of our home trying to force down half a weetabix. I had always thought of myself as a comfort eater but when real tragedy struck I could not eat a mouthful let alone a meal. Head spinning I wondered where we would go from this point on, little did I know how the disease would progress and how quickly. We both tried to put a good face on it and sat in the hospital talking about how for some the disease moved really slowly. Oh, God let it be like that I prayed!
But no, my husband was to prove to be one of the very small percentage that plunge off a cliff to never to climb back up the other side. In the seven years since his diagnosis he has progressed at an alarming rate. My once tall handsome husband has been ravaged by the disease and there seems no end in sight......
We tried not to get too excited by CCSVI and hoped for a small miracle with at the least a slowing down of the disease. It is funny when you are first diagnosed you pray for a cure and a miracle, but as time progesses and the disease takes its awful path you change and pray for just the little things. Please let him be able to hold the strings of a guitar down again so that he can have the joy of playing. Small stuff in the midst of big things but a great loss for him none the less. One of life's little pleasures that made the day just that little bit better and easier to bear......
I am sorry to say that the CCSVI treatment is not going to be any use for my dear, dear Reubs. When they went into his veins they could not find anything to correct. What a blow, I cannot begin to tell you the depth of our despair and grieving, this last thing taken away......
We have all talked about our husbands on our blogs but my Reub's is beyond measure. We struggled greatly when we were first married and everything came by the sweat of his brow. Our first home was a little rental two up, two down that had been derelict and vandilised for a year, we moved in as is and were very grateful. We had cardboard boxes cut up on the floor for carpet and also had it nailed to the bottom half of the bedroom window so that we could get dressed and undressed in privacy. My husband walked to work which was about ten miles round trip each day because we could not afford a bicycle. He did this rain hail or shine and never and I mean NEVER complained. One year we upgraded to a bike for him that we bought from a catalogue and paid it off in monthly installments for two years. Luxury indeed, he could now ride the ten miles and not have to walk, we had arrived. We finally at the age of THIRTY got our very first car, think about it, THIRTY......
We lived in our little rental house for eight years and bought a truly ugly second hand carpet that I laid myself up the stairs. The design could only be called paint ball splodge and it was thread bare. There was only enough carpet to go to just around the bend of the stairs but we did not mind because anyone standing at the front door would think the carpet went all the way up to the top. That carpet was still there on the day we left eight years later, I was pleased to leave it behind. There was no toilet in the house but there was an outside loo so whenever it snowed or rained you had to remember to put your coat on. This is were we started from and I would gladly go back there today if I could heal my Reubs, the footage of this tiny postage stamp house was about 600 square feet......
Thanks to everyone who has been kind enough to contact me with wishes for him, I am so sorry that I cannot give happy news. It seems there is not any left for us just now, we will get our act together and put smiles up on our faces once again, but not just yet. I want to have a moment to feel very sorry for us both and have a private cry in the solitude of my home......
I also want to take a moment to thank Motorola for cancelling medical insurance coverage for their disabled ex-employees and their dependants beginning January 2011, this includes ourselves. This is a move that they can feel very proud of as they accept their large bonus's and stock options. Well done guys, it must have been a great year for you, have a wonderful holiday season......
