LATE INTO THAT FALL MORNING in 2007, I remained in bed, my body weak with pain and fatigue, my spirit worn-out too.
I was living alone in a townhouse outside Celebration, Florida, my life a shell of what it had been. Sixteen months earlier, in June 2006, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My marriage ended. My body failed me. Things really fell apart. I needed physical help every day. I was no longer Superman: successful, in amazing shape, strong in every sense of the word.
I couldn’t work anymore as a television producer. The daily pain and fatigue of my MS meant I couldn’t keep up with grueling production schedules. I was trading stocks to make ends meet, but I couldn’t take care of my family the way I used to. MS had also given me a limp. I had to drag my left leg everywhere I went. It was mortifying.
I barely left the townhouse. Not to go to work. Not to see my friends. Not even to go to the gym, as I had done habitually six days a week for years. I’d gone from a self-made millionaire to a depressed, sick recluse.
I lay there and stared at the ceiling. God, is my life over? Really?
This story is from the May 2020 edition of Guideposts.
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This story is from the May 2020 edition of Guideposts.
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