MS, marriage and kids

My wife and I were dating when I was diagnosed with MS. We were pretty close to getting married and had already talked about it. I asked her to think long and hard about the worst-case scenario of me with MS before we got married, and I told her she should walk if she had hang-ups. She didn't, of course, but I've always thought that was unfair of me. She'd already been seduced by my charms. She didn't have much hope of being able to walk away :)

I won't say much about dating, as I didn't have that experience of meeting and determining when to tell. I suppose it would be much like what I do with employers, though. Once they can see the value I bring, they should know what the whole package is. I suspect single parents have the same issue. Perhaps we should ask one of them. If you're a single parent with MS, you've got a fantastic set of filters to weed out the undesirables.

Kerri and I were anxious about having kids. Of course, the odds are a little higher that they may contract MS, but it's nowhere near certain. The prognosis for someone diagnosed with MS today is also really positive. By the time they're of the age to get it, I'm thinking their story would be much different.

We were also worried about whether I'd be physically able to parent. There's already some things I won't ever do with them, such as playing basketball or teaching them to downhill ski. That's pretty small potatoes, though. We decided that parenting and the joy of children had a lot more to do with being present than being physically capable. We haven't regretted this choice for a moment and we never will.