from urick to becoming jennifer digmann

yesterday i went to a reunion luncheon with some of my sorority sisters. it’s been 12 years since i have graduated from college and at least that many since i had seen most of them. during my college days, i was quite different than i am now. even my name was different. throughout college. i was known as “urick”, my maiden name. that was the price us jennifers paid for being born in the seventies when jennifer was such a popular name. we all went by our last names. there were five of us when i became a member of delta phi epsilon sorority. and we were silly, occasionally drunk college girls, so going by our last names kept us straight. until i graduated in the spring of ’97, i was known mostly as urick, a name i wore with pride!

only six short months after i graduated from college, multiple sclerosis entered my life. and as awful and unkind as the disease has been, i will admit that my ms diagnosis was one of the best things to ever happen to me. no, seriously, it was!

november 14, 1997 was one of the worst days of my life. but on that day–my ms diagnosis day–i began to put my life in order. my order began with 2 sentences, commands really, from my neurologist. “stop drinking for a month and stop smoking … forever,” he told me. it seemed cocktails were not going to help me deal with my disease. and he thought, i didn’t need to smoke and potentially add cancer to my already full plate.

those were the first 2 steps i took in the right direction. i quit smoking and really, i’ve quit drinking. because when i walked, i didn’t need alcohol to make walking any more of a challenge. and even now that i don’t walk, i don’t need alcohol to challenge my ms compromised bladder.

multiple sclerosis was also forcing me to grow up, stand up for myself, become, as my friend diana puts it, “my own best advocate.” doctors could help me deal with this disease but i learned if i was educated about new treatments or medications, i could ask the right questions and engage in useful dialogue during necessary medical appointments. plus, doctors always called me jennifer, urick was just my last name .

also, i quickly was seeing that family and friends mattered to me the most. and i learned which ones of both were going to be there for the long haul. learning how to not focus only on me and my disease has taken a while but i hope i’ve learned it. and i hope i’m a better daughter, sister and friend because of it. again i, begrudgingly, have to credit my ms.

ms has also taught me or forced me to stop sweating the small stuff and  to find joy in the simple, little things, like how dan and i finally figured out how to help me sit on and get up from the couch.  and to be proud of small accomplishments because really they are not small. it is a big deal when i ride my arm bike for 11 minutes.

and it is a big deal that i’ve lost over 100 pounds since i was diagnosed. sure, i never hit the gym and it was my ms depression that made the first 60 pretty easy to lose. but without discipline, a supportive husband and weight watchers, this recent 55 lb. loss wouldn’t be possible. and really none of it would have happened without ms motivating me.

but hands down, the number one reason i’m thankful for my ms is because multiple sclerosis was what brought dan and me together at the “finding our buried treasure” program. and since our wedding day september 10, 2005, i’ve proudly been known as jennifer digmann.

p.s. what’s really cool is that one of my sisters didn’t even recognize me because i look “so skinny!” and i thank ms for that.