Easy questions

I had a conversation with a co-worker yesterday... a very nice conversation, and one of the topics was my MS experience (the first time he had ever asked me about it, actually).

I gave him the usual short-but-sweet answers... I mean, who really wants to be deluged by the litany of symptoms? "How is it?" he asks. "The same every day, different every day," I reply (my usual seven-word instant answer).

Then he asks something nobody else has ever asked me: "How does your day start? What's the very first thing you need to deal with?"

That one requires no deep philosophical pondering or explication: "I stand up, and then wonder whether I'm going to fall over--whether my feet and my legs will stay under me."

I talked to another MSer about this yesterday, he had a similar "first question of the day," whether in rolling over he might pick just the wrong angle, or just the wrong something, and summon the spasticity that sometimes afflicts him.

The MS road is one that's fraught with... well, fraughtness, frankly. Sometimes, it's nice to have easy questions that receive clear answers, isn't it?