How to ask for help — and offer it

Just three years before I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), I was on what was to be my last overseas tour with the U.S. Army. One day while dozing during a lull in a mission, I was awakened by the sensation of someone standing over me. It was my interpreter, who upon seeing my eyes open, pointed at the unofficial team patch on my body armor.

“What does that say?” he asked. “A couple of the Iraqi troops were wondering, but I don’t know because it’s not in English.”

“It says ‘mereo et cotidie,’” I replied. “It’s Latin for ‘earn it every day.’”

He nodded, then walked over and told the Iraqi guys what it said. A brief discussion followed, after which he walked back over to me, pointed to the grinning soldiers, and said, “They want to know if a nap is what you’re trying to earn?”

I shared this with the rest of my team and mused that maybe I should have a patch with a cool-sounding Latin motto all my own — something more befitting of the prestige of being the team’s senior medic. They smirked and said that given my bedside manner, I should use “aegrescit medendo.” This phrase is usually translated as “the cure is worse than the disease” or “I worsen with your treatment.” But their crude, ungrateful rendering was, “Ow! You’re making it worse!”

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After 10 years with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, and given the onward march of MS symptoms and disability, I often find myself thinking that exact thing. I almost never say it out loud because I don’t want to seem ungrateful when someone is trying to help, but sometimes it slips out anyway: “Stop helping me, you’re making it worse!”

I’m aware that, even on my best days, I probably look like I need help. With no use of my legs and increasingly limited use of my hands and arms, it takes me longer to do things, or I do them in an unorthodox way. Disability drives creativity, and while it may look like I’m making up some of my workarounds as I go, I’m usually not.

But doing things slowly or in an unorthodox way seems to attract unsolicited help like nothing else. People — who usually mean well — seem to assume that I’d rather do things the same way they do, and they rush in to “help.”

If folks are going to assume anything, I’d prefer it be that I’ll ask for help when I need it. At the very least, I’d prefer to be asked if I need assistance. One should assume that I didn’t just wake up like this today, that this isn’t my first time outside my own house, and that I know my own capabilities.

I’m not absolving myself of responsibility here. I have to know my actual capabilities and swallow my pride when they’re not what I think they should be. I don’t want to need help, but I also can’t be too stubborn to ask when I do.

I suppose I could still use “aegrescit medendo” as a motto, but I think I need a new one, too. How about: “Qui temptat lassatur” — “He who tries, tires.”

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