"A Fortunate Man with MS" Podcast

Hi, this is Jack Greenman. In honor of national MS Awareness Week, which this year is March 9-15, I’m excited to bring you this very special episode of “A Fortunate Man with MS”! For the first time on this podcast, you will hear my brother, Gil Greenman, tell his story in his own voice. 

In my work on mindfulness, I open to what arises: sounds, sensations—including pain—and then, of course, thoughts. They arrive like waves on the ocean. Occasional waves of reality-based optimism are appearing.

My amazing wife Lisa shared an idea: “I think Gil and I should come [to the Edgewater Hotel} every Friday in the summer and spend the night. We can have drinks in the bar in the middle of the day with one set of friends and then later have dinner with another group.“ And so it began...

Will the chronic inflammation and lesions that have plagued me and brought a dramatic worsening of my condition for almost two years start to calm down?

As my acute troubles continue - chronic brain inflammation with new lesions, losing my vision, inability to feed myself, and confusion- I have been thinking about purpose.

For me, 2018 was like navigating this street in a wheelchair. I am currently sitting stuck in the largest pothole.

  "It’s you I like, It’s not the things you wear, It’s not the way you do your hair– But it’s you I like The way you are right now . . ."

Lying on the wood floor, I played a game with myself. I imagined that I was a samurai sleeping across the threshold of his Lord. Samurai slept on wood without anything else, I thought.  So “samurai! Bonsai!”“ Whatever. I was still stuck.

“Please call me asap” read the text from my neurologist.  This could not be good news. 

These days, my experience of walking feels like climbing a rock face.