Natalie Caez shares her experience adjusting to life with MS, from relying on a foldable cane to rethinking what a full day looks like. She reflects on mobility, fatigue, and the quiet power of giving herself grace while learning to ask for help and move at her own pace.
Transcript
My name is Natalie Caez, and I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in September of 2024. So it has not even been a full year yet. But a lot has changed in my life in such a short amount of time.
MS affects everyone so differently — but for me, it really affected my mobility, and very early on. I’m doing a lot better with it now with physical therapy, but I’m still not back to where I was before my diagnosis.
MS has affected my mobility so much. I used the cane pretty much every day from October through April. And then — like I said — with physical therapy and treatment, I’m definitely doing better. But having a cane with me at all times, no matter where I am, is so important. So I have a cute cane.
It’s cute — little rhinestones on it — but it folds so I can easily put it into my purse, have it in the tote bag. I just carry it with me whenever I know something’s going to happen, and I might need extra support or something. It just makes me feel a lot more confident having that with me.
When my mobility was at its worst — and sometimes I still can’t stand for long periods of time — preparing food and cooking can feel really daunting, especially when you have a lot of fatigue and you don’t have the energy. I have a very tiny kitchen — but I do have a kitchen cart and stools.
So a lot of times, I sit down to prepare my food and just to make life a little bit easier — just pop stuff in the oven so I’m not standing over the stove and having to worry about doing that — because, again, standing up for long periods of time is definitely hard and challenging for me.
I’m living such a different life than I was before my diagnosis. I live in Hoboken now, but I used to live in New York City for five years, so I was very used to that fast-paced lifestyle. And I had jam-packed days — doing so much — and I just unfortunately can’t live that way anymore. So I’ve had to learn to lean more into slower-paced, not doing too much at once.
I go into an office for work three times a week, work from home two days a week. So that’s been a really good balance for me so far. Gets me out and about and moving — but also gives me some time to, like, rest and recharge at home.
But I really can’t have more than one big activity planned for the day — or it’s just way too much on me. And honestly, on a bad day — going to Trader Joe’s might be the biggest activity for me, doing my grocery shopping. I know that I’m going to be so tired after that. So I don’t want to plan too much.
Also, I’m learning how important it is for me to be moving in some capacity. I get a lot of fatigue — so obviously when you’re so tired and you just don’t have the energy, the last thing that you want to do is go for a walk or move around. But for me, personally, if I am still and stagnant for too long, I can see how it affects my mobility even more in a negative way.
So even if I just get up and do 10 minutes of yoga or 10 minutes of Pilates — something to get my body moving in my apartment when I’m home — that’s been really important for me, and it’s been really helpful.
Also, this is so hard to do — but having patience with myself and giving myself grace, and knowing that I just don’t have the capability of doing things the way that I did before. All of this has been really hard to accept and to navigate. I really do my best to take things one day at a time.
I get a lot of anxiety — and I tend to think really far into the future — of, “What is my life going to look like five, 10, 15, 20 years from now?” But as I’m working through in therapy — I’m really just trying to take each day as it comes. And again — just be patient with myself and give myself grace. But I can still do the things I was doing before — just in a new and different way — and just trying to adjust to that in, like, the best possible way that I can.
I think something that a lot of people don’t talk about is, there is a lot of grief that comes with a health diagnosis like multiple sclerosis. Grief for what your life was like before — the things that you’re not able to do in the same way — and grief for what you had envisioned your life to be — and you feel like you’re not able to have that anymore.
So that’s definitely something that’s been a really big adjustment for me. But it’s a work in progress. It’s not something that you just one day wake up and you accept everything. It’s, it’s just a process. That’s all I can say.
Also, having a support system around you is so important. I can’t stress it enough. I don’t think I would be able to have gone through these last nine months if it wasn’t for my mom and my sister especially — and just such a close group of friends that I have — who have literally and physically held me up and helped me walk to the corner on the days that I couldn’t do it on my own.
And I’ve learned that it’s OK to ask for help — it’s only going to help make me stronger throughout all of this. It’s been eye-opening, too, when it comes to friendships and relationships.
I think it’s important to just focus on the ones who are supportive and are there for you — and don’t waste your energy on anything else — because we have very limited energy as it is — and just keep focusing on the ones who show up. I think that’s important.
