Roll-up... Roll-up... The World Famous Emotional Rollercoaster Ride Starts Here...

Oh my fucking God! What a weekend it has been. Emotionally I have been up and down like a sodding yo-yo on a runaway rollercoaster.

In a somewhat large nutshell... here's why:

On Friday I was getting ready to go see Keith and his kids for the weekend. His Mum is staying with him and I'd not met her before so I was a little nervous. Meeting two key people in his family in a week. That's stressy enough without all the rest of the shit I am dealing with!!!

Dropped kids off at their respective places and took stuff to the hospital for Nick at the last minute when he called to ask for things. Got to the hospital and Nick was fully dressed in his chair. Momentary panic that he had been discharged and was expecting me to drive him home.

And then Nick calmly asked me to sit down before dropping a bit of a bombshell.

Nick has MS. (Multiple Sclerosis).

Just for info, there are four main types of MS:

1. Benign MS that starts with a small number of mild attacks followed by complete recovery.
2. Primary progressive MS, affects around 12% of people with MS. From the start, the pattern isn't of relapses and remissions but symptoms gradually develop and worsen over time.
3. Relapsing-remitting type is the most common type. About 80% of people with MS have this type at onset. This means the person has relapses (a flare up of symptoms), followed by remissions (periods of recovery). These tend to be unpredictable and their cause is unclear. They can last for days, weeks or months and vary from mild to severe.
4. Many people who start out with relapsing-remitting MS later develop a form known as secondary progressive MS. About 50% of people go on to develop secondary progressive MS during the first 10 years. This means that the disability does not go away after a relapse and progressively worsens between attacks, or that the cycle of attack followed by remission is replaced by a steady progression of disability.

For those of you who have successfully trawled their way to the end of that lot, Nick has been told that he has had MS for more than 10 years and it would seem that although he started at stage 3, he is pretty much at stage 4 now.

In fact, looking back, I can't remember the last time when he would have had a remission - I think over a year ago at least and he has been getting steadily more unwell since. The condition is no longer just affecting his limbs. the MRI scan showed that he has multiple lesions (scars) on his brain and spinal cord and that at the moment it is attacking his internal organs - his digestive system is the latest in line. He's currently on a steroid IV to reduce the inflammation in his brain and spinal cord.

That was a shock.

It was a huge shock actually which resulted in a whirlwind of emotion and guilt and confusion and a number of other emotions I can't even begin to label. And from there started the battle in my head - do I continue with the divorce or do I stop it now?

So after a weekend of tears and talks and hugs from Keith and his kids and pep talks and hugs from my Mum and other friends and my manager and my colleagues, then feeling OK and then feeling shit again, I have come to the conclusion that it would be wrong and hypocritical for me to change my mind about the divorce now. The MS is just ONE OF the contributory factors in what has gone wrong in the marriage - it doesn't change the fact that these things have happened and has no impact on my reasons for wanting the divorce. So I am proceeding.

Now I fully expect to be the bearer of a humungous pile of shite from his family because I suppose I will now be the bitch wife who buggered off when he needed me most. But at the end of the day, as my Mum has so wisely said (thanks Mum) what does their opinion matter to me anyway? They aren't important in my life.

Tomorrow may prove to be interesting. The neurologist will be meeting with Nick and I will be there and that is when we should get some sort of proper prognosis.

But whatever happens, Nick will now be registered disabled and he will have to move as this is a three-storey house and he needs a ground-floor, wheelchair accessible flat.

Emotionally, after this weekend, I am feeling a little flat. Too tired to think about it.