Running

So a few days ago I ran for the first time in months.

Let's just say it wasn't quite as happily blissful as I thought it would be... :)

I mean I was over the moon to feel like I could do that. But then there's the coordination that I seemed to have lost a bit of, and the fact that I am just slightly out of shape at this point in my life.

Other than the fact that it was less than comfortable, it was the best run I have been on in my life. Not the longest, not the fastest, and surely not the one where I felt like I wanted someone filming me, but I guess I have come to realize that that is how the biggest moments in real life are... They are just real. No romance or happy background music or airbrushed qualities about them. And that's what makes them perfect- their imperfections, and the fact that it sometimes takes work to only focus on the moment and not all the other problems or setbacks happening at that moment in life.

I remember the day in the hospital when they told me they thought I had MS. Multiple Sclerosis. Not the worst diagnosis in the world, and surely nothing close to a death sentence. Let's be real I had no idea what MS actually was anyways. But I quickly learned. And in that moment, my future was different than I had ever planned or dreamed it would be. It was a game changer.

I don't know how many of you have ever had something like that happen to you, on a small or large scale. Here I was, 20 years old and ready to take on the world. I had medical school, a marathon, and a very large family all mapped out into my future. Sure I had some problems. But everyone does, and I was learning how to maturely deal with them.

It hit me hard that I wouldn't be able to run my marathon.

And then people started to say things like, " I know someone with MS who still has been able to live a successful life. She is a mom with 3 kids."

I wanted to crawl away and not come back- I wanted 8 kids.

I am in no way diminishing those who have less than 8 children, or those who have circumstances like MS that affect their every day life.

I must also add that we had no idea how severely I would be affected, or if what plagued me was any number of other neurological diseases that would change the level of difficulty of every day living.

All I am trying to convey is what it feels like to have your future re-shaped in a matter of minutes, with dark walls that seemed to be folding in and pressing on your lungs as they block the way to the tunnel that led to your future, in a way that means you must utterly change the major scenes you had often painted in your mind, without giving a second thought as to whether they would be possible or not.

Like, walking every day with my kids. Or finishing a degree after attending school full time for a couple more years. Or being able to actively raise a large family and play with those kids i had dreamt of having. Or ever having the hugely fulfilling, active social, academic, and religious life i so enjoyed.

I found it ironic, that here I was at age 20, supposedly in my prime, and that second Saturday night I spent in the hospital I took my walker out into the hallway and walked up and down the l-shaped floor, escorted and stopping to rest at either end, while the elderly all around me greeted me with smiles and comments like, "Don't walk too quickly now!"

I smiled in return- I felt more genuinely happy about my little outing than any other Saturday night party I have attended in my life. Perspective changes everything.

Laughter changed my life at that point.my hospital roommate, Taylor, was exactly who I needed. She was facing the same thing as I was. Career gone, family relationships seemingly changed. Here we were laying side by side and snickering every time ANOTHER 77 year old man would walk in with his hospital gown on backwards and open in the front and hit on us, finishing with the flattering but irrational invitation to 'hit the ski slopes' the next day with him. We positively rolled around in our beds when her kind but slightly socially inept neurologist came in and presented her with the eye patch she was to wear for the foreseeable future. And as we both clumsily moved around our space, her awkwardly dragging her 'Wilson' with her (the little rolling machine that holds the IV and steroids). Or the moment when I should have been crying out of shame, but instead we laughed our heads off,because yet again I had to have help taking care of my basic bathroom needs, and simply a curtain separated Taylor and I, and she sweetly asks, "So, how'd it go sweetie?"

We laughed our way through the fact that all the nurses knew us because we had been there so long, and that neither of us had the coordination to walk more than a few feet, or the fact that we were now being held in a hospital against our will, both with post spinal tap headaches and neither of us with concrete answers or any direction for the future that suddenly seemed foggier than an overcast day near the sea when the clouds all but touch the sand.

Laughter was my sunlight. I also found myself singing the song,"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" more often than not as I huddled in that percolating bed with the yucky smelling sheets, clinging to the stuffed elephant my missionary friends had sent me and I had named 'Ofa Atu' or 'I Love You' in Tongan.

Now was the time to recognize the miracles I had believed in for so long. And they were present. Each time they came back with another negative test was yet another manifestation of the fact that God answers the prayers of His faithful. I had people, blessed friends whom I may never meet, all over the world who fasted and prayed for me. And I love them, my brothers and sisters.

So I guess as I write this, the lesson I am learning from my past, is that when it seems you have nothing, you can still laugh. As ridiculously and loudly as you want to, and at things that other people may find horribly disturbing, like requiring your own mother to hekp you after using the commode because you must use both arms on the bars in order to stand. I almost laughed at that one ;)

So yes. Laughter really is the best medicine- because not only does it produce happy brain chemicals, it also seems to bring an at first wary but slowly undying hope that although nothing is as you would choose, and the future is completely uncertain, unbridled joy through humor will ALWAYS be possible, and always my choice. I guess, in that way, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" can always be right where we are.