Hello everyone 🙂
First off, I suppose an introduction is in order. For the purpose of this blog, at least at first, you can call me Little Miss Pharmacy. Why so shy? It has taken me a lot of courage to even write this first post! For a lot of people with MS or caregivers of people with MS, I have found that one of the hardest things I have grappled with after my husband’s diagnosis (About a year after we first got married) has been putting myself back out there. After my husband was first diagnosed, I had a lot of friends who dropped me, a lot of friends who asked me “Oh, he’s still dealing with that?” As a result, I withdrew, withdrew to my little bubble of myself and my husband where I felt more safe and in control. Honestly, I just don’t think I could handle anything else. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was suffering way more than I ever knew. Your so shell shocked that all you can handle is immediate situations and nothing else. As a result, once I did start to recover, I felt so isolated, so lonely, so lost. Once you have withdrawn to a certain point, it’s like you all of a sudden don’t realize how to re-engage. It has taken me over two years to even start slowly reaching back out, and even then I am tentative and skiddish, afraid I’ll get hurt again.
I tell you this because if you’re reading this blog, you most likely know what I am talking about. As my husband and I have learned to live with our new day-to-day, I have realized that there are a lot of things that I wish I had known when my husband was first diagnosed.There are lot of resources out there, but so few for people that are a.) young and b.) caregivers of someone and c.) caregivers for someone who is not your parent or older relative. I hope to create a safe haven where you can find all the resources you could ever want and the reassurance that you are NOT alone and how you are feeling is OK. While most of the topics and resources here will be focused around Multiple Sclerosis, I have found that the themes that people dealing with a serious illness face are universal. We all have the same hopes and fears whether you are dealing with MS or breast cancer.
I was motivated to start this blog by an incredible group of women, who took me under their wings for a few hours and made me feel more at home and understood than I have felt in years. They got it. Most of them were also young and had been diagnosed young and knew what it was like to feel way too old for your years. I literally start to tear up when I think about them.
Talk to you soon! If you have a resource that you are passionate about, please let me know and I would love to add it to the information I am putting together. It dosen’t matter if it is about MS, caregivers in general or another issue, all is welcome.
-Little Miss Pharmacy
youngcaregiversunite 