Of course denial is a river in Egypt, silly!

The worst part of this journey has been my family. Wait, scratch that; they have been the worst part of my life's journey; starting with my mother. Every time I talked to her all I heard was that "we do not have enough information. MS is a manageable disease, just like AIDS. Wow, that was encouraging. My brother Richie called and the first thing he asked was, "is it hereditary?" Always so self absorbed. My brother John acts as if no one exists. He said the same thing my mother said, only he did it more dismissively. And he wonders why he can't get a date! My brother Marc did his best, considering we were not there for him when he got cancer and he has a wife and two children.

My father has been the rock. He learned what he could and started looking for long term care plans in August. We found one but it was too expensive for me. We are still looking a year later, and I found a man at the Rocky Mountain MS Center who deals with these things. His wife died due to complications related to MS and he had no coverage and was working night and day to take care of her.

Dad calls every day, even if the super bowl is on. Even if he has a super busy day, he calls. He loves me unconditionally and all I can say is that I HOPE I can find a man in my life that treats me the same way. Minus the shut up and stop talking and the irritability. He can't help it though, he has type one diabetes.

One thing I can tell you in this blog is I have no resources or advice on family. All I know is that they can be brutal. Some may be understanding. But no matter how many therapists, neurophsychs, doctors and lawyers tell my mother I have a serious illness, she refuses to acknowledge it. She is a therapist herself and knows everything about everything. No matter how much material I give her on my disease and tell her they are from my doctors, the top doctors in the nation, she dismisses them with ignorant statements such as, "this is just a reason for you to be taken care of. This is just attention getting. This is ACOA stuff. She has no idea that doctors are diagnosing children at 18 months now. It is more than a possibility that any behavioral problems I had as a child were due to this disease.

I have to end here, but will add more tomorrow.