Thoughts on lessons

I talk to a lot of people about MND, both those with it, those who care for someone with it & those who know or have known someone with it. I am starting to recognise a commonality with nearly all of us. We seem to without exception. ask the question, "WHY?" For some reason, this ailment seems to be selective. Without exception, all folk that I have come in contact with that devlop this illness, are nice people. I have yet to meet anyone with it that isn't a nice person, which makes the question "WHY?'' all that much more pertinent.

My spiritual faith says to me that the whole of our life consists of lessons that we have chosen to learn. Caring for someone with MND has seen some pretty big waves battering at the breakwater of my faith , as I have mentioned elsewhere here. It's very difficult to come up with something positive to be learned from coping with something like this.

I was talking to an old friend yesterday whose beliefs run along similar lines to mine. He is one of those eternal optimists who can find good in every situation. Well. nearly always anyway. I hadn't talked with him in a while & even he was struggling to find anything positive to say about MND. We chatted for a while, then suddenly, in a flash of insight, I came up with what I believe the lesson to be learned from MND & diseases like it, is. In a word, acceptance.

None of us really want to be in the situation of having to deal with MND either first or second hand. One thing that I realise now is that I deal with it in what is maybe a strange way. Other than finding out what the theory of MN is & how it affects the body, I have deliberately not delved too far into how it affects the body. Some may feel this to be a head in the sand attitude, but I don't agree. As each stage of the disease happens, I deal with it in my own way. Part of that is not worrying about things that haven't happened yet.

It would be very easy, under the circumstances to fall into the trap of the "Why me?" syndrome. It's a dreadful disease & it is difficult to understand why it should be inflicted on ANYONE let alone nice people. This is where the acceptance comes in. WE don't know why, we don't think its fair. But there it is. Right in your face. You need everything you have to deal with it. So... acceptance. you just have to accept that it's a huge part of your life now. You don't have to like it, just accept it. Save all your energy for dealing with it. You will sure as hell need it.