Multiple Sclerosis Humorist Uses Laughter to Cope

While multiple sclerosis is a physical disease, it also comes with many cognitive and emotional changes that can be equally as devastating. The initial diagnosis particularly takes a toll on many patients. Typically, patients will feel shock, fear, anger, or denial when receiving their initial diagnosis. These emotions are typically not long lasting, but can greatly affect the mood of patients getting their diagnosis.

Living and dealing with multiple sclerosis also takes a mental toll on patients, which leads to undesirable longer term emotional effects. Many patients feel a strong sense of grief when living with MS. Although grief is often associated with losing a loved one, it can also be found when something threatens one's sense of self. Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic disease meaning that it will have to be dealt with for the rest of a patient's life, and it can place many restrictions on things that they used to be able to do. This all adds up to the point that these patient's feel not as if they had lost a loved one, but as if they had lost themselves.