I said it in an earlier post that when you want to accomplish something, you need to think about it carefully. You need to decide how badly you want it and consider what you are willing to sacrifice to achieve this goal. Remember that most times in life there is a give and take no matter what situation you are involved in. However, with most medical conditions this choice can be detrimental to one’s health and well-being.

Do you want fashionable athletic shoes or the hideous Velcro footwear? The favorite sports shoes are stylish, but it takes your fumbling fingers longer to tie them then Thanksgiving dinner. Do you want those spectacular high heels that make you look breathtaking along with that dress? Or do you want to stand without continually falling because MS weeble-wobbles we are not.

There have been numerous losses in my recent MS life. I have sacrificed plenty to accomplish all of the swimming that I have achieved. I have lost the ability to stand and dress using the grab bar in my bathroom. I now get dressed on my bed while pulling, rolling and generally playing tug-o-war with my pants until they are on correctly.

There are other battles that I seem to be losing as well. The first is between my feet and me as my outside ankle muscles are weakening by the day. This deterioration causes my feet to rotate upward when in a spasm or a tired state. I have specific exercises to aid my fight in this battle of one step forward and one step back. I suppose that the good part is that my feet are not getting worse. Sadly they are also not getting better.

Secondly, my hourly leg squats routine has diminished significantly. I have great trepidation in doing these because of falls in the past. It is great that I live alone because when I do fall it is not in front of anyone. However, I will find a wife someday, and this solitary and secluded life of mine will change.

I would guess that this lessening of my routine is also partly due to the size of my new house. My new home is over 1500 square feet compared to my old house at 1000 square feet. Every point in my old house was extremely close to where I did my exercising as I did them in a central location. Currently, the place that I spend the most time and where I exercise these points are at a considerable distance from each other.

The definition of a loser is a person who losses. In this case, I know that I have lost some things and could technically be called a loser, but I have gained more than I have lost. My losses though significant have been well worth the sacrifice. At the same time, there have been several substantial gains as my body has become stronger. My new upper body power helps me with everyday tasks and complications that I face both expected and unexpected. Also, the emotional gains have been tremendous, and in turn, they too have been worth these losses.

If you do not sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice.

It is well known that I was once in a dark place filled with loneliness, heartache, and desperation. I was in a position of solitude that forced me to contemplate and question everything and even think about the final curtain call. I quite literally had nothing in my life except for my television for needed entertainment. My desperation desired social interaction that was filled by telemarketers who cannot hang up and must wait for you to disconnect first. Many of my days were filled not with unloading my issues onto these phone salespeople but forcing them to drag out their sales pitch. I got entertainment in any place that I could.

I kept my blinds closed, and my long days would meld into long nights blurring the lines between days of the week. I ate so little and lost so much weight that I thought that I might fall through a sewer grate and felt that I should routinely carry spelunking gear. I wore an emaciated bodysuit like it was Prada, and I was walking out of Sax Fifth Avenue in New York.

It took me many years of sad solitude and seclusion to land in this destination filled with desperation. To find my new torturously tormenting position in life, I needed to stew in a bath of boiling anguish and hopelessness. It did not happen overnight, but I marinated in heartache for years until my melancholy turned into misery. However, this is in the past, and I am working hard to make sure it will never again return.

In the past several weeks, I have felt like some people around me are walking on eggshells and watching what they say. It is like people just learned of my horrific history and fear that I could backslide into my pitifully punishing past. These individuals seem to be attempting to keep me from slipping down the dark rabbit hole called depression by giving me unexpected praise. It is like they are trying not to say the wrong thing and avoid upsetting me, but they can rest assured that me spiraling back into that dark place is unimaginably unlikely. I understand that these actions mean that a lot of people care about me and want an impeccably engaging life for me, and that means a lot. On the other hand, the eggshell walking is not needed and should only be done after making eggs.

I now have things going on in my life that were only a dream back during my dark days. For example, I swim three days a week, which I could not objectively do four years ago. The pool is great for me physically, but also mentally as I interact with my classmates, and sometimes we even go to lunch together. I also talk with many other community center members who know me from us talking whenever possible. I am in the water exercising for two maybe three hours a day and have seen more positive results than negative ones.

I attend a weekly contemporary church service and have made many friends expanding my social circle. I periodically participate in plans pertaining to the church and various outreach programs to help others. I am a member of a small group affiliated with the church that meets typically one night a week. This action once again helps me to enlarge my group of friends. I am also a member of a men’s group that meets once a month in a public restaurant for breakfast once again, raising my list of friends.

I have a blog that genuinely takes about a week to complete each entry, and I make sure to dot my t’s and cross my eyes. There is also a substantial amount of research that is involved in some of the topics. All of this means that I do not watch the TV that I used to make my life does not revolve around the television schedule, but my schedule.

I am now the proud owner of a brand-new house in a new neighborhood that is close to nearly everything. My new residence is actually wheelchair accessible, whereas my previous house was pretend adapted. An entry ramp for wheelchairs and no carpeted floors does not make an acceptable house for those in wheeled chariots. It is also a connected home that absolutely helps me with all of my daunting daily duties in various ways making my life much more comfortable.

There is a new paratransit system that is so much better, making it extremely convenient to get from one place to the next. No longer do I need to plan for hours of extra time before and after every appointment. A fifteen-minute meeting could not happen as there was a two-hour minimum, yet that time restriction was lifted. This new paratransit system has unlocked a whole new and undiscovered world that allows me the freedom that otherwise was impossible.

The last positive task that has become massively important in my life is mobile food procurement. This tasty transport technique gives housebound homebodies access to the plethora of food options available. Simply said, delivery is king for both groceries and restaurant meals making food more attainable.

Not to mention the personal physical challenges that I have faced and defeated. The list is two down and more to go as I do not know yet what they are. I completed a 5k in my wheelchair that several said that there was no need to try as honestly I could not do it. I swam to raise money for the MS Association several months after learning to swim without the aid of my legs. I set a challenging goal to swim two and a half miles and crushed that target by swimming eight miles using my upper body only. I do not know yet what these future ambitions will be, but the possibilities are endless and my tenacity relentless.

So as you can see, I had nothing going on before causing crushing contemplation. My life and in turn, my brain was empty so many years ago, and that allowed torturous turmoil to take hold in my mind. I currently have so much going on that visiting the darkness of my past is an impossible imposition. Sure, just like everyone, I have sad times, but nothing even close to the mournful moments of my history. All in all, I am a happy person who has way too much going on to follow the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole.

Sometimes a sad face is just a bad day.