By Doug Ankerman

You, with multiple sclerosis, fall-in, and listen up! You’ve got a battle to win. It’s time to step up and fight!

As you know stress is your enemy in this war. Your silent, invisible, debilitating nemesis.

Now, stress is difficult to avert but identifying situations causing stress can be helpful to remaining calm.

So here is my list of stress-causing events, objects and places to avoid in the life of every MSer…

Traffic
Curbs
Throw rugs
Sitting too long
Standing too long
Noisy crowds
Stairs
Stairs without handrails
Picking up dropped change
Child-proof pill bottles
Replacing batteries in the remote
Finding the fresh batteries
Opening chip bag
Too small print
Loud TV/music
Wet floors
Button-down shirts
Button-fly jeans (who’s brilliant idea was this?)
Buttons, period

Sidewalk cracks
Too frequent MRIs
Trimming your toenails
Heat and humidity
Restrooms out of order (AND toilet paper)
Leg spasms at bedtime
Long car rides
Getting out of car (after the above)
Shoes that come untied
Walking in tall grass
Automatic doors that close too quickly
Narrow store aisles
Searching for Tupperware lids
Door thresholds
Spam (emails, not the breakfast meat)
Spam (the breakfast meat)
Reading your messy handwriting

And finally…..

Lists that are entirely too long

Soldier, this is war against stress. Your MS enemy is tough but so are you.

You can’t totally eliminate stress from your life but with patience, planning and preparation, you can loosen its grip. Good luck on your mission moving forward.

Dis-missed!

*Doug, a member of the MS Class of 1996, writes goofy stuff about multiple sclerosis and other stuff on his humor blog at myoddsock.com.