The Change of a life time, why getting Multiple Sclerosis was one of the best things that has happened to me

My story by Diane DeVillers Why getting MS was one of best things that happened to me.

I worked in service to people with disabilities for thirty-five years and then ironically became disabled myself, when I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I used my knowledge of the disability field to help navigate myself through health systems,and durable medical to get the equipment I needed at home. All the decades I worked in the field gave me a great advantage over other people who find themselves suddenly disabled.
I was forced to retire because of my health complications and at first was upset that I had to give up my life's work. But I soon discovered that my life still had purpose.
I use canes, walkers and a manual wheelchair, when I travel on the ride source bus, I have chronic back severe pain and my right leg is partially paralyzed. II get fatigue even when doing the simpliest things.
So one day I started leaving out one of my closets and found a box all my old journals from the early eighties. I thought to myself as I read chuckling “this could make a good story, and it’s funny too." So I wrote and published three fictionalized memoirs in ebook called “From the Waters of Coyote Springs”, “Felix and Eve” and “The Arrangement”. All three books are now available in apa perback book and is called “The Eve Chronicles” which tells the tale of a young woman who moves across the United States to Oregon and begins working as a forester in the remote Wallowa Mountains of eastern Oregon. She continues to Gold Beach Oregon and then the retired baby boomer buys a house in Eugene Oregon. I never would have found the time to write these books unless I would have gotten MS and had the chance to retire and one day when cleaning my closet came across my box of journals.
I have become an advocate for people with disabilities and post articles that ask for continued support for programs and legislation that will help people with all kinds of disabilities. I read all the information that The Arc, MS Society, and MS World sites have to offer me. They are my “go to” organizations that provide me with legislation alerts, that I send off to my Senators and Representatives in Salem and Washington DC. I post articles on several blogs then, every now and then; post about my book, hoping my followers on my blogs will buy my book.
I now have the time to do the advocacy I always dreamed of doing, as I was too busy working in the disability field. For twenty-years I was an outreach worker for disabled adults living in their own apartments. My job taught me the skills that I would one day need for when I was disabled myself. . I am able to navigate through the systems like social security and health care systems, because I did it for so long with my clients. They taught me how to be a survivor and how to lean on others when I needed to, and most important, how to ask for help.
I would say it was the change of a lifetime.
Thanks for letting me share my story.
Diane DeVillers