Survivor's Guilt...Subtitled: Should I feel BAD about feeling GOOD?...

I seem to be in the second "R" of my RRMS diagnosis at the moment...the "Remitting" portion of the show. I am 3 weeks out from my last Novantrone dose and I'm feeling the burst of energy and wellness that has often come following the infusion of the blue dye. I have lost 9.5 pounds because of a commitment to a new intake plan, I am up to walking a distance of 2 miles at a time again, the tight banding around my waist and chest is all but a slight pressure, my gait is steady, I am less fatigued, and I only have the minor annoyance of pain in my left arm and shoulder and stiffness in my calves...the only remnants I have to remind me I have holes in my brain and spine that have given me the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. I feel as *normal* as normal can get for me and it feels good.

So, why do I feel a tinge of guilt telling all y'all this? Should I shut my pie hole and just keep this flight into wellness a dirty, little secret? Am I rubbing salt into someone else's wounds who DOESN'T feel as good as I do right now with their MS?

In so many of the MS blogs I read, I witness the many difficulties faced and the adversities we each deal with every hour of every day. Some of us can't walk at all while others can barely walk 2 blocks let alone 2 miles at a time. Some of us are in constant, excruciation pain and others have lost hearing/voices/sight. And still others are urinating blood clots, dealing with medication side effects that are nasty, and fighting each day with overwhelming fatigue.

When I feel this good in my life with my MS, there is a part of me that worries my MS club membership will be revoked! Sounds absolutely silly, doesn't it? I should be REJOICING and PRAYING for that to happen...to be kicked off the MS team. If we could all be THAT lucky...

And when I feel this good, I LOOK this good, too...absolutely no one would ever know what lies deep inside my noggin when I am in the remitting phase of my MS...sometimes I even forget for periods of time that I have a chronic, progressive neurological disease. It's NOT denial...it is just the absence of relapsing symptoms. Without those acute reminders thrown up in front of my face, it's relatively EASY to forget...until the symptoms return to remind me.

I imagine these times are sort of like the psychological experience of survivor's guilt. The person who remains alive does not have a WISH to be dead...just like I have NO WISH to experience some of the horrible symptoms many of you are dealing with currently or have dealt with on a daily basis for a long time. It all boils down to my sense of wanting to FIX what you are having to go through...to be able to give each of you a small piece of the *normal* I feel...because YOU deserve to feel this good, too.

There certainly seems to be enough of the "feeling bad" to go around...such is the nature of an unpredictable disease. I just wish there were equal amounts of the "feeling good" to be distributed...evenly and fairly...amongst everyone with MS...