Many Scars (Really)

This wasn’t how I pictured my life you know. I was going to be on the cover of Modern Drummer magazine. I was going to win Grammy awards. My music was going to echo through the ages like Beethoven or Lennon and McCartney. Yet here I sit typing mostly with my left hand because my right has a mind all its own now. You see, it is not solely the Jewish guilt fighting against myself. As it turns out my body isn’t too thrilled with who I am either.

Brief lesson #1
Multiple Sclerosis: –nounPathology.
a chronic degenerative, often episodic disease of the central nervous system marked by patchy destruction of the myelin that surrounds and insulates nerve fibers, usually appearing in young adulthood and manifested by one or more mild to severe neural and muscular impairments, as spastic weakness in one or more limbs, local sensory losses, bladder dysfunction, or visual disturbances.
-Dictionary.com

Do they know what causes M.S.?
Not really

Do they have a cure for M.S.?
Not really

Is M.S. hereditary?
Don’t really know

Is M.S. painful?
Really


The last month has been tough. We packed up the kids and the dogs and the cat and moved from L.A. to Rhode Island to be with my wife’s very generous and supportive sister and her family. The kids, sis-in-law (Sil) and I flew out on a Sunday. My wife and the animals chaperoned by my cousin in the moving truck would arrive behind us by a week or so.

The doctors all said that cold weather is better for M.S. It is supposed to slow the progression of the disease. While the snow was pretty and for the first few days I actually did feel better, the last few have kicked my ass.

Have you ever been so drunk or stoned that the floor feels like a rolling sea storming around the great white Moby Dick? So drunk that every time you stand up, and most of the time when you’re sitting too, the world spins so hard you have to hold on the wall so you don’t fall down? Vertigo is just one of the lovely added benefits of the version of M.S. that I have. Problem is that unlike being drunk, it doesn’t go away when I wake up the next morning. Oh, and if you think that it gives me a get out of hangover free card you are sadly mistaken. I’m pretty much nauseous like a first trimester pregnant lady 24/7.

WHEEEEEEE!!!!!!

So we came three thousand miles and everyone arrived safely. Not necessarily sane, but safe! Our dogs loved playing outside in the snow with Sil’s St. Bernard. The cat found a wonderful hiding place inside the wall behind the electrical panel. (Refer to the “not necessarily sane” quote above) The school was wonderfully supportive and adapting to the boys special circumstances and our oldest was even put into the same classroom as his cousin! Things were looking up.

It was early on a Saturday morning and I was sitting in the living room adjusting one of the boy’s pairs of socks when Sil noticed that there were some cars stopped with their lights flashing at the end of her driveway. I barely noticed that she was gone, but I guess it was a few minutes before she came back. Her hand gently rested on my shoulder and she whispered into my ear, “Ringo was hit by a car and he is dead. We need to get him out of the road and figure out a way to tell the kids.”

We had gotten Ringo about a year and a half ago as a puppy for my wife’s birthday and for my youngest son. But he was really my guy. A tri-color Pembroke Welsh Corgi that was so smart he just decided to misbehave all the time. Every single person who met Ringo loved him. He made people who absolutely loathed and detested dogs want to rush out and immediately get one just like him. He had the biggest heart in the world.

After I started having seizures and had to stay home from work Ringo was my partner. He was always at my feet making sure that I was okay. If I was sleeping, he was right there. If I was writing, he was on my feet. If I was in the bathroom he would try to push the door open to make sure he could see me. He was a great little pain in the ass.

As we walked down to the street, it was as if it was a dream. It hadn’t really hit me yet. Not really. My wife was about twenty five yards in front of me when I slipped on the ice, but I was in so much shock that the fall didn’t register. When I brushed the snow off of my butt and eventually made it out to the mailbox I saw him on the ground. Ringo was already on a blanket and Sadie, our younger puppy was licking at his face trying to get him to wake up.

I don’t remember when it started but I was screaming. I hit the mailbox so hard it almost came off the post. Fortunately it was still snowing and I wasn’t wearing any gloves so my hands were numb. I didn’t notice that my hands were hurt until I saw the red marks a few hours later. Maybe it was the stress of being sick, or maybe it was everything else in life. Maybe I didn’t want my kids to have to deal with this too. Or maybe I just really loved that dog.

The police officer on the scene offered to help us bring Ringo back up the long driveway to the house so we could figure out what to do next. That was the hard part. We had to tell the kids. It’s difficult for anyone to teach their kids about death I would imagine. But be seven years old, move three thousand miles away from all of your friends, replace the sunny beaches of Malibu with snow covered roads and freezing temperatures, get stuck in a new school with no familiar kids and have your dog get run over by a car two weeks later? Oh yeah, add to that the emotional distractions of Autism too. My youngest has had a rough go.

Sil and her family came to our rescue though. All the kids wrote notes that they put in with him. They put in drawings, poems and even some toys. One of Ringo’s favorite things to do with my kid’s was light saber fight. He would put a sword in his mouth and go at it with them just like he was Yoda! So when my middle nephew put a light saber in with him so he could always play I turned into a puddle of warm jell-o.

They found a beautiful spot on their property underneath a cherry tree where we laid Ringo to rest. Then we all took turns shoveling a little dirt in on top of the blanket he was wrapped in. That was the hardest part for me. I don’t think I will ever get the image out of my mind of dirt falling on the point of his ear sticking out of the blanket disappearing under the soil for the last time.

Sil even put a Buddha in the corner and surrounded his spot with branches to keep the chickens out. Every day I go out and spend some time with him and tell him that his little boy is doing fine. We miss Ringo a lot, but life keeps on lifeing right?

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