Hello, my name is Trevis; I’m 40 years old and a Leo. I’m a classically trained chef and writer. I like good wine and great food, gardening, films, spending time with my friends, and playing with my Soft Coated Irish Wheaten Terrier, named Sadie. I also have a progressive, debilitating neurological disease that has kept me from working full-time for the past five years.

This condition leaves me physically weak, cognitively unstable and can have very personal symptoms such as bladder and bowel “issues” and sexual dysfunction. It has an average adverse economic impact of over $50,000 per year in this country, may be passed on genetically (with evidence that men may pass it on more frequently than women) and has no known cause or cure…

Would you maybe like to grab a coffee with me sometime???

Not the intro I particularly like to use as I head back into the dating scene.

Many who read our postings are in long-term, committed relationships. Several of you have been coupled since before your diagnosis. There are a significant number, however, who are or have gone through what I am now attempting. How did you make it through?

I’m realizing that both women, with whom I have been involved since those fateful words describing my diagnosis were spoken to me, knew of my MS when we got together. Now, as I look to new potential dating partners, my symptoms are not as outwardly obvious. After half a decade in this city, I now realize that part of my new social horizon may not know I live with multiple sclerosis. When is the time to disclose? When do you mention, “Oh, and by the way…”?

One woman I was flirting with pretty hard about a month ago made it clear in no uncertain terms that MS was not going to be something she could be a part of. I have to credit her maturity and tact in handling that conversation; it still stung to hear it.

I have looked down my path with MS in the picture for so long that it is now my norm. But I must now imagine what that path must look like for others that may want to be close to me. It was pretty damned frightening for me the first couple of years, but I had no real choice but to look and keep moving on the path ahead of me. The women, with whom I now look to relate, do not have to choose that path.

Who would?

Advice? Ideas? Experiences? Who would like to share with the class today?

Wishing you and your family the best of health.

Trevis' Blog can be found at http://blog.healthtalk.com/ms/ For more information, articles and programs on Multiple Sclerosis please visit http://HealthTalk.com/multiplesclerosis/

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