“Hope” is one of those words you hear a lot in the world of chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS). We hope for the good days, we hope to be able to afford the best care, we hope for our families’ wellbeing, and we hope for an eventual cure.
Hope is an ethereal concept. Nearly an emotion, partly a state of being, hope is marking time in the parade of life.
Surely it seems about as wishy-washy a verb as there can be in our language. But this small word can have much bigger implications.
Hope Is Best When Paired With a Plan
A number of years ago, when pressed into service to help announce the National Multiple Sclerosis Society’s Fast Forward initiative, I turned a phrase I still contend is one of my best: “Hope without a plan is just a dream.”
We can hope for something all we want. But without a plan and subsequent action taken on said stratagem, hope is not only expecting to hit the lottery, but it’s also writing checks on your winnings without purchasing a ticket.
But there is a power in hope.
Hope is the spark, the idea, the proverbial mustard seed that can grow into a great tree of possibility. That spark must be fanned, that idea must be thought through, that tiny seed must be planted and tended. With that work, hope is the unseen wind that drives the waves and the invisible force of gravity that raises and lowers the tides.
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The Best Place to Witness Hope Is at the Bottom of the Curve
In the late 1990s, under the Clinton administration, I was named as a goodwill ambassador for the United States Agency for International Development to the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine. On my way there, I laid over for a couple of days in Budapest, Hungary.
The Hungarian economy had been through decades of bloodletting with only the sparsest of attention to the wounds such siphoning leaves. The people had been through decades of harsh rule after centuries of on-again, off-again splendor.
The past had been a string of bleak years, and the people of Budapest had reason to be down about their lot. But they were not. Although things were bad, they had been worse, and that made all the difference.
‘It Isn’t Getting Better Yet, but It Has Stopped Getting Worse’
When I asked about the dichotomy I was witnessing between the upbeat mannerisms of the locals and the reality of their situation, my translator gave me the best interpretation of hope I’ve yet to hear.
“We are at the bottom,” he explained to me. “We have been through the falling, and we have survived. Now we look up, and though it is a long way to climb, we know that we are no longer falling, and even if we do, we know that we can survive the fall. It isn’t getting better yet, but it has stopped getting worse.”
How can we apply this way of thinking to living with MS? Here are some ideas:
- Hope is the end of an ordeal, when the symptoms stop getting worse, and we wait to see if they get better.
- Hope is getting approval for a new MS disease-modifying therapy, and anticipating the first dose.
- Hope is the moment we stop seeing assistive devices as detrimental to our persona, and start seeing them as beneficial to our well-being.
- Hope is the moment when flint meets steel, and the intangible takes form.
- Hope is the most personal of coping strategies, and each of us will tend to it in our own way.
On its own, hope is nothing. But with the perspective of history and experience, and a plan to see things through, hope brings with it the knowledge that we can survive the fall. Sometimes, that’s all we need to get us through the long climb from the bottom.
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis
