The name of this blog.

12 December 2008 was the day that my life was changed forever.

That's the day I was told that all the strange things that my body had been slowly and steadily doing, making my life increasingly difficult had a reason.

Eighty days ago I felt my dreams for my future collapse and my hopes for my life as a woman, a spouse and a member society were gone.

Two months and 18 days ago, I was watching my body do things I couldn't understand. I was being disabled slowly, over a progression of days, not weeks, and the doctors that I talked to seemed to have very little in the way of answers.

There is no long term prognosis. There is no way of knowing if any of the treatment options offered to me will work. There is all manner of best guesses, statistical averages, choices being left to me because no one wants to take responsibility for something not working. I also cannot fail to mention the dozens of people who are this diseases' version of the "9/11" truthers. I have all the emails. Trust me.

My name is Lori. I'm 34 years old. I am the first (and hopefully only) wife of Joe. We're childfree. I had a job until the end of 2008, but that's gone now. In April I will start looking for a new one. I'm the oldest daughter of Kaye and Kevin. The oldest sister of Julie, Tracey and Steve. I'm the granddaughter of Helen and Evelyn. I'm the daughter-in-law of Linda and Jack. I'm the sister-law of Jeff and Lauren. I'm the aunt of Zack, Tyler and Alanna.

I have had the symptoms of my newly diagnosed disease since May of 2008. I have been told that I have a particularly "aggressive" course of disease.

I have Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis with residual deficits.

I used to care about a lot of things, but now I'm not so sure if any of those things matter. This blog came as an idea I had in the shower the night before last.

Maybe living out loud will help me find what matters to me and I'll find my reason for getting well.