My husband’s MS diagnosis changed everything — and nothing
An answer isn't a cure, but it gave me a helpful framework
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I had never known anyone personally who had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Walking my husband, Rhead, through those doors was one of the strangest moments of my life — not strange in a dramatic way, but strange in the quiet, disorienting way of realizing your life has become something you could not have predicted. I kept thinking: How did we get here?
By that point, the mood swings, the personality changes, the arguments that cycled back as if they had never been resolved — I had been living inside all of it for years without a real explanation. The man I married had been changing into someone I barely recognized. I loved him and I was losing him, and I didn’t have a single word for what was happening.
What the doctors told me that day gave me that word. Multiple sclerosis (MS), they explained, causes scarring throughout the brain. These scars — called lesions — form when the immune system attacks the protective coating around nerve fibers, interrupting communication between different parts of the body and brain. That interruption was behind Rhead’s short-term memory loss, mood swings, and personality changes. His brain had been quietly misfiring in ways neither of us could see.
A frame for the chaos
I was elated. That is the only honest word for it. Finally — an answer. A reason that had nothing to do with our marriage, nothing to do with who Rhead was as a person, nothing I had caused or could have prevented. Research has since confirmed that lesions in specific brain circuits are directly linked to memory problems in MS patients. In that hospital room, I didn’t have that research. I just had a doctor telling me the truth, and I held on to it like something solid.
In that moment, I was certain of one thing: We would find the right medication, and things would get better.
What I hadn’t yet fully absorbed was the word progressive. I knew Rhead had been diagnosed with progressive MS, but I had not yet let myself sit with what that meant. This was not something that would stabilize and then improve. There was no medication that would return him to who he had been. I was not a temporary caregiver waiting for a recovery. I was his permanent caregiver. Full stop.
That understanding — the one that settled in quietly after the relief wore off — was its own kind of grief.
But it changed something in me all the same. I stopped trying to reason with the anger or argue with the mood swings. Instead, I learned to speak past the disease to the man underneath it. “This isn’t you,” I would tell him. “I see you.” I became more patient, more deliberate, more able to hold space for what MS does to emotional and mental health in ways that are invisible to everyone on the outside.
It didn’t make the roller coaster stop. Rhead still had hard days. I still had moments where I sat with the full weight of everything and wasn’t sure how I would keep going. Understanding the “why” does not make the “what” any easier to live with.
But it gave me something to hold on to. A frame for the chaos. And when you are a caregiver navigating progressive MS, some days a frame is the most important thing you have.
An answer is not a cure. But it is a place to stand.
Note: Multiple Sclerosis News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Multiple Sclerosis News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to multiple sclerosis.
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