plus qu'hier, moins que demain.

I love my best friend and the lessons I’ve learned

For the last four years, I have been friends with a really beautiful, loving, kind, funny, smart and gracious person. Unfortunately, two summers ago, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (hereby known as MS).

MS is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (or CNS). Here is some background on it:

MS is caused by damage to the myelin sheath, the protective covering that surrounds nerve cells. When this nerve covering is damaged, nerve signals slow down or stop.

What this means is that when you go through an MS “attack”, you are essentially paralyzed or have difficult moving in whichever area you are “attacked”.

The nerve damage is caused by inflammation. Inflammation occurs when the body’s own immune cells attack the nervous system. This can occur along any area of the brain, optic nerve, and spinal cord.

It is unknown what exactly causes this to happen. The most common thought is that a virus or gene defect, or both, are to blame. Environmental factors may play a role.

My friend has been having a really rough time with it lately. She just turned 19 years old and is in university. It’s really important that she has support around her.

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Now, despite all this, I have a lot of hope for her healthy and happy future. And what I’ve learned from this is that even if your friend seems like a normal, happy, healthy person, they could be going through a great struggle in their life. Maybe not health-wise, but emotionally, spiritually, mentally. It is so important to be there for your friends in whatever way you can, and constantly reach out to them.

Am I always a good friend? definitely not… But I am going to keep trying until I get it right. When I lie on my deathbed, it’s not the accomplishments or the things I had I want to think about. It’s the lives I touched and the souls I connected with.

What I hope you take away from reading this is the knowledge that you CAN make a change in someone’s life RIGHT NOW by speaking to them and asking how they are and seeing how you can make their day better. RIGHT NOW. It feels so good and it pays back in dividends when you put that positive energy out into the world.