I was the picture of health. I practiced what I preached as a family doctor: daily exercise, healthy diet, 8 hours of sleep, no drugs or tobacco, rare alcohol. I rarely got sick. I thought I would live to be 100.
Of course I knew that disease was unpredictable. I saw patients every day with chronic disease and mental health challenges. Sometimes I diagnosed cancer. But somehow, I thought I was immune.
Then I woke up dizzy one autumn morning in 2009. It wasn’t the flu or a cold or an ear infection. It lasted all week, and nothing made it better or worse. I kept going to work. I kept seeing patients. But I felt terrible, and I started to worry, especially as new symptoms began to surface.
Eight days later, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I was shocked - and SO humbled. At age 36, I was suddenly stuck with a life sentence of a disabling neurologic disease.
I was now the anxious woman in the doctor’s waiting room, the patient on the exam table.
I was furious with the sudden role reversal and more vulnerable than I ever could have imagined.
Becoming a patient, facing a potentially devastating diagnosis, shifted my perspective in a big way.
I didn’t know if I would be able to work, raise my kids, travel, or exercise. I faced a new uncertainty that clouded my future, but also forced me to live in the moment, to embrace each day.
When my symptoms started to regress, I felt my anger subside, and I developed gratitude for abilities I used to take for granted. Returning to work, I embraced a new connection to my patients with chronic illness.
I am doing well now, nearly 10 years post-diagnosis. I still don’t like being a patient, getting MRIs, taking medicine, fighting with insurance companies, worrying about what will happen next. But I appreciate the wisdom that I gained in the face of my life’s greatest challenge.
-Lisa Dogget
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