Mom and I had talked about the Neurologist's results over the phone before I returned to home from school. When we started talking about it again in the front room, she said, "I'm happy for you."
"What--why?" I asked.
"Because you don't have MS," she said smiling. "You weren't worried about it?"
"Yes, I was, that's why I didn't go back to see [the Neurologist] on my follow up appointment back in September. Honestly I just didn't want to know."
Mom was diagnosed with degenerative disk disease when she was thirty-one. She told me that she didn't care about the label; she was just concerned about what she could and could not do. How it would potentially impact her life.
A couple weekends ago, Joseph took my family and I to see a cowboy documentary for its world premier (I joked to Joseph that Yuppieville was the cultural center of the state). It was actually about the reined-cow horse tradition, modern ranch life and the NRCHA competition. Most of the people interviewed for the film, I knew, and some of them, I got to know fairly well as a youth rider. Of course, watching a movie about horses and horse training was deeply moving for my mother and I. We have gone without horseback riding since her back condition became worse, and I gave it up for the same reason. I haven't been on the back of a horse in years, even though when I was eighteen, I promised myself that I would never give it up. I promised myself that I would surround myself with horses all my living days, which was part of the motivation for becoming an equine veterinarian.
But life throws us barrers to our self-actualization.
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