For Serious?

.... So I guess my response was not as the doc expected.
I assume my nervous anticipation had thwarted to some degree by the cigarette I had just smoked and the restroom down the hall.  A highly inappropriate activity, but it was cold outside, I couldn't walk, blah, blah, blah.

Bottom line.. I could care less, what is the most that can happen... I'm dying.

So imagine this, the doc has probably administered the same diagnosis to hundreds of people. I'm sure he had refined his delivery and I am positive he expected great emotional despair -tears even.
As he gave a dramatic pause, he asked me to speak.

I guess that diagnosis, being very ambiguous, allowed my arrogance to fester out of control.

I am a 22 year old male, having just been offered a diagnosis that should have been life altering at that moment, and guess what I said?

 "Is that all you've got," rolled off my tongue first. I guess because my arrogance was bigger than I was. At this point I had the golden touch: everything I cooked was a culinary masterpiece, every song a grammy winner. I traveled, I made stacks of cash. I had fed movie stars, politicians.. your basic A list. I only dated the prettiest girls and did the best drugs.

**we will discuss that in its own post later**

So I asked the second question, " Am I going to die?"

At that moment I knew he was The Devil. He said with a very confusing tone, "No, no not at all. You will not because of it.. but you will die with it." As if ripping off a bandaid, he began the MS spin on me.

"MS is a chronic progressive disease affecting the central nervous system," At that very moment I had flash backs of my youth, raising money for bike-a-thons, walk-a-thons, for MS research. This was in the early 80s, I remember seeing people in the wheels chairs, and with crutches and canes.. I witnessed their obvious physical struggles... but I had no clue, it was just MS. Even with those memories, I was not yet humbled.

So the Dr. Devil proceeds to tell me I will have to make adjustments in my life. He suggests no longer working in the food industry, and stop playing music. "You will not be able to handle the heat or stress of either career, and oh.. we don't know what caused it, and there is not much you can do it for it but grow old with it."

Now you have to understand, this is the MS culture circa 1994.  (Though he did go into his talk about certain new medicines)

So let's recap a bit: By now, my great grandmother had died, my father had died, the girl I was in love with left me, my mother had recently recovered from breast cancer, and I was severely ill with bronchitis. I couldn't walk, I couldn't talk, and I could barely see in front of my face - all within months. While earlier in the year, I was living a wild lifestyle in Hawaii, I was cooking great food, playing great music, and making great memories.

So I'm in a full blown, arrogant, asshole state of mind at this point. I say to the doc, "Not me."

So now you have heard my story.. now I'm about to get real 

"It is what it is"

So what you gonna do?