![]() ![]() But I couldn’t help noticing when they bought their first house, there was no bedroom on the first floor. My oldest son at the time very gallantly told me if there ever came a time I needed a place to live, he and his then girlfriend, now wife, would have a place for me. My husband died when the kids were little and I have misguidedly tried to shield them from pain ever since. I have always been The One In Charge, strong, bossy, doing it all. But I have done both them and myself a disservice by not forcing us all in the beginning to sit down and talk about what MS is, what might happen and what we were going to do about it. They are good people with good hearts and I know they love me. I have four children who were ages 18, 20, 28 and 29 when I first got sick. MISTAKE # 3: Not having an honest discussion with my children about my illness in the beginning. And now the market is horrendous, I will be lucky to get any equity out of it at all. But the stress of trying to maintain it is sucking the life out of me. Yes, I will miss my house and mourn it forever. If I had made plans early on to move to a smaller home or apartment, one that would be easy to clean and could accommodate my wheelchair, my life would be so much simpler. I, quite simply, cannot take care of it anymore. Or paint or do any of the things I so reveled in when I bought my house. There are even more steps in the front.Įxcept for those three, which I have to slowly, painfully drag my feet up one step at a time, I can no longer do stairs. I never anticipated that one day it would take herculean effort to get up the three stairs from the back door to the kitchen, which is the only way into the house from the back. While dragging garbage out to the garage. While setting the sprinkler out for the garden. I could blow through the house in an hour cleaning it. #Real ms iconquer ms full#It is a relatively big house, four bedrooms, three baths, sunroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, full basement, patio, side yard, front yard, separate garage. It is a lovely, sunny, charming place that people settle into and are reluctant to leave, it is so comfy. I pulled up ratty carpet, painted every room in marvelous colors, pulled down vertical blinds to let in the sun, spackled, planted, repaired, you name it. When we moved in my girls were still in grammar school. I bought it completely on my own with no help from anyone and I have been inordinately proud of it. MISTAKE # 2: Not immediately looking into more accessible housing. I am finally looking into disability, now that my savings are gone and I am in dire financial straits. My condition has significantly deteriorated and I cannot walk any distance unassisted. Huge red flag for hiring managers, though of course there is almost no way to prove that.Īfter a year and a half I am still out of work and, realistically, unlikely to ever return to the work force. Now I needed assistive devices, cane or a walker, to get around. After almost two years in that job, their mismanagement caused a huge layoff. I got another job, still pretending I was going to work until retirement, just like I had always planned. So, now I checked into disability, right? No, of course not. Ramp up the stress factor! They also eliminated my position within a week of my asking for an accommodation. I found another job within a month, this time commuting into New York City. So did I pursue disability then? No, of course not. Unfortunately, that did not stop them from eliminating my position the week after I applied for intermittent Family Leave for my MS treatments. For almost two years I worked like a dog, twelve hour days, on call 24/7, determined to prove I was going to be the best director in the system despite having MS. I should have learned everything I could have about it.īut because my benefits hadn’t kicked in yet, and because I was in complete denial (more about that later), I went back to work way too soon and focused on keeping my job instead of maintaining my health. ![]() I should have looked into disability right away, even if I wasn’t ready. I was eight weeks into a brand new job in 2005 when I was hospitalized with Transverse Myelitis, which would subsequently lead to my diagnosis of MS. MISTAKE # 1: Not immediately making long term financial plans. I thought if I listed the top five, it might save someone from repeating my blunders. A lot of the dumbest of the mistakes came after finding out I had MS. I am a relatively smart person, but I have made some pretty dumb mistakes in my life. ![]()
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