I just came from a wake.  I hadn’t seen the woman in a good 15 years but since she was the mother of a close friend of mine I couldn’t miss it.  It brought up a lot of memories; most of them surrounding my multiple sclerosis.

I first met Chuck in 1987.  Though we had both worked for the same company since 1979 it was quite large and we were in separate locations.  Our groups were merged in 1986 but since I was always working at distant clients we didn’t meet until the department threw a party for him celebrating his upcoming wedding.  At the end of the night he ended up giving me a ride home.

In August of 1989 I was sitting in my office when suddenly my eyes unfocused.  They actually felt like they moved in different directions.  My left eye went left and my right eye went right.  It was scary.  I went to the hospital and they wired me up, doing EEGs, EKGs, and MRIs.

The end result was they believed that I might have multiple sclerosis.  But their decision didn’t come from their testing even though they thought they might have seen an old lesion on my brain; MS lesions tend to come and go.  They based the diagnosis on the following:

1. My sister was diagnosed with MS in 1987.  Hers has always steadily getting worse.  At the time she was using a cane to walk.  MS can run in families.

2. In 1974 when I was in college I was getting a strange feeling in my fingers and toes which I thought was numbness.  My then girlfriend took me to the infirmary where they stuck pins in me to see if I could feel them.  Because I could they decided it wasn’t numbness and put my problem down to either resulting from fatigue or I was imagining it.

In 1989 they believed that my MS actually appeared in 1974 but it is a disease that doctors will sometimes watch for a few years before they make their diagnosis.  I later went for second and third opinions before I accepted it.

A year later I lost the use of both my hands and this is where Chuck came in.  It happened in the middle of a work day and I needed to get to my neurologist.  Since I couldn’t get there on my own I needed a ride.  Without hesitation Chuck volunteered to take me.  He didn’t know what the problem was; I had only told my boss about my condition.  On the way back from the doctor’s office I decided to let him in on my secret.; I felt he deserved as much.  He told me he had guessed that was the problem while he was in the waiting room.  Several weeks later my hands recovered but until then he was my chauffeur.

From then on he couldn’t do enough for me.  If he called and I happened to mention that I was on my way out to mow the lawn I would find him already doing it for me.  This was no simple thing; he would drive the 5 miles from his house after loading up his lawnmower.  Everything he has always done for me has been for free.  He would never accept gifts or cash for anything.

If you ask him today why he will do all of these things for me, he will tell you that it is because I got him a job.  The problem is that I did this in 1996 when he was out of work and needed to support his wife and kids.  But he has actually been going out of his way to help me since 1988.  I don’t push it; maybe he doesn’t consciously know the reason.

I am at times grateful for what he has done for me.  At other times I get irritated.  Unlike my sister who is now wheelchair bound my form of MS is all internal.  I get the “funny you don’t look sick” if I even mention that I have it.  It bothers me at times to have other people doing my work for me.

Whatever, Chuck has been a very good friend.  Missing his Mom’s wake was never an option.  It was 3 hours round trip to the funeral home but it was worth it.  He even seemed surprised to see me.  We hugged, his wife and I hugged, and she made me promise that our families would get together.  I said some prayers for his Mom and then headed home feeling good that I could give a little back to him for all that he has done for me.

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