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MS caregiver perspective: Faith, fun, and finding what works

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Christy Hoffman shares her perspective as a partner and caregiver to her husband, who has multiple sclerosis (MS). She tells the story of them meeting in high school, getting married, raising a family, and eventually adapting to life with MS.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Christy Hoffman. My husband of — will be 31 years of marriage on Friday — he was diagnosed with MS eight years ago in April. We had been married for 20 some years and have four children, and at the age of 45, he was diagnosed with MS.

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I had heard of what MS was, but we had no idea. He played football all through his life, and any type of discomfort he would feel around his neck or his shoulders, all we thought was from football injuries.

He was suggested to go to the emergency right away when he was experiencing numbness in both arms and hands, so we rushed him to the ER here in Pittsburgh, and that’s when the journey began.

It turned everything inside out, upside down, and just all we wanted to do was to make him feel better. So I had four children between the ages of 20 and 13, so our house was pretty busy. Plus, we had two dogs, so the life hacks that came along were trial and error.

With the way MS — what I have learned is no one has the same MS as anybody else. Everyone is completely different. You may have things that rhyme, but not necessarily is the same.

So one of those things was heat intolerance, and ice was — he found that to be something very, very helpful to him. So once he said that, I jumped into, I’m going to find everything that is ice-related that I could possibly do.

So if there is an ice bottle, if there are ice packs, if there’s icicles, ice cream — anything that was ice-related — I would get it, and I would get it as fast as I could.

He is very sensitive to different materials, so there is one T-shirt that makes him feel his best. So he ended up just getting many, many colors of this one particular T-shirt that he wears.

Whenever you would put your clothes away in cupboards and closets and drawers, he had trouble getting them out — like sifting through it. So we came up with a new system, which was an open cupboard system. So things were just stacked or actually aligned almost like an accordion. So you just pull, and you’re done.

Things like that were really, really helpful — was when I could hear what was bothering him and try to make life as easy as I could for him. What I have learned through this journey — I am a faith filled person.

I have and do rely very heavily on my faith, so that helps rejuvenate myself and our family. I also would say we try to keep things very lighthearted around here because life, we don’t want it just to be so serious all the time.

Mike is the funniest individual I’ve ever met in my entire life, and to have him as my husband is like the best thing in the world. So he always keeps us laughing.

We love dogs, and they’re a big part of our life. So he would find funny dog videos or cute dog videos or movies — that’s one thing we can share. Just being able to laugh is one of the most important things, in addition to our faith.

We were high school sweethearts, so we’ve known each other and dated since we were 16. So it’s a long time to get to know someone. And I feel like we continue to do that — because no one needs to be alone.

I think we all want that same feeling of, “Okay, this is really hard, but someone’s going to be there with me and we can do this together.” And that’s the beautiful part about life, if you can find that.

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