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“Get Your Affairs in Order” And Other Things I Didn't Do.

Writer: Dr. Teri Jaklin ND, IFMCP
Dr. Teri Jaklin ND, IFMCP
1 day ago
8 min read

Updated: 37 minutes ago


At 23, I was told to go home and get my affairs in order.


There is something about hearing those words when you're 23 that makes them almost impossible to understand.


I was young. I was in university. I was active. I ran, rode horses, mountain biked, went camping. I had a life I was busy living.


And then I was given a diagnosis that came with a story about what my future was supposed to look like.


One neurologist looked at my brain scans and told me there were so many lesions that they had stopped counting at 25.


Then he told me to go home and get my affairs in order.


I remember thinking, What does that even mean at 23?


But something very interesting happened next.


I saw another neurologist.


He knew what was going on. He knew my diagnosis. He knew what the scans showed.


And his message was completely different.


He essentially told me to run along and have a good life.


So I did.


Instead of going home to prepare for the future someone else had imagined for me, I went home, polished my saddle and went for a long ride.The following weekend, I went white-water rafting.


Looking back now, more than four decades later, I don't think I fully understood how important that moment was.


I had been given information.


But I had not been given a destiny.


A prognosis is not a life sentence


I want to be careful here.


I'm not suggesting that we should ignore medical advice, dismiss difficult realities, or convince ourselves that every outcome is possible if we simply think positively enough.That isn't how health works.


Doctors have an important role in helping us understand risk, disease, treatment options and what the evidence tells us about likely outcomes.But there is an important difference between understanding a prognosis and believing that a prognosis has already written the rest of your story.


Medicine often has to work with probabilities. A prognosis may describe what tends to happen to people with a particular condition, at a particular stage, with particular characteristics.


But you are not a statistic walking around with a name tag.


You are an individual.


And medicine itself recognizes that uncertainty is part of clinical care. Being honest about that uncertainty is part of good, patient-centered care — because statistics describe what happens across a group of people, not what will happen to you.


That distinction mattered to me.


I didn't know what my future would look like. Neither did anyone else.


And perhaps that was more liberating than I realized at the time.


The words we hear can become the stories we live


I've thought about those two neurologists many times over the years.


Same woman. Same diagnosis. Same brain scans.Two very different messages.


One message made the future feel like something I needed to prepare to lose.The other made the future feel like something I could continue to live.


That doesn't mean words magically change biology. They don't. But words can change the meaning we attach to an experience. And meaning matters.Think about how often this happens outside medicine. A young employee is told they're not leadership material, and years later still hesitates to raise their hand for the job they actually want. Someone recovering from an injury is told they'll never be the same, and quietly stops trying long before their body has actually finished healing.


Maybe the person saying it means well. Maybe they're drawing on experience. Maybe they're making an educated prediction. But at some point, we have to ask ourselves: Is this information about me, or have I accidentally turned it into an identity?


There is a difference.


Don't confuse acceptance with surrender


One of the things I've learned over the years is that accepting reality and surrendering to a prediction are not the same thing.


I have had setbacks. Plenty of them. I've had difficult stretches where my body didn't cooperate. I've had surgery. I've had periods when I stopped exercising the way I wanted to. I've had times when my mental and physical energy were both low.


I still have bad days. I'm not interested in pretending otherwise.


But I have never believed that acknowledging where I am today requires me to decide where I will be forever. That distinction has helped me enormously.


I can say:


This is difficult.


Without saying:


This is the end of the road.


I can say:


My body has changed.


Without saying:


My life is over.


I can say:


I can't do something the way I used to.


And then ask:


Okay. So how can I do it now?


That question has changed a lot for me.


Sometimes resilience looks like a mobility scooter



People sometimes have a very specific picture of resilience. They imagine someone overcoming an obstacle by pushing harder, refusing to stop, and eventually returning to exactly where they were before.


But that's not how my life has worked. Sometimes resilience has looked like getting on my mobility scooter.


I recently moved to a province with beautiful beaches. Unfortunately, often the access to those beaches is rough or rocky. I could have looked at that and said, “Well, I can't get down there.” Instead, I bought an all-wheel-drive all-terrain vehicle that allows me to get onto the beach. Problem solved.


I use a seated elliptical. I use weights. I use a Swedish ladder to do sit-to-stands, squats and lunges. I bought a manual wheelchair for the exercise! I have an alarm on my watch that reminds me to move.


Sometimes my movement looks nothing like someone else's workout. It still counts.That's something I wish more people understood. Adaptation is not failure. Sometimes adaptation is the most intelligent response to change.


Maybe the question isn't “Can I do what I used to do?”


Maybe it's:


“What is possible for me now?”


That is a very different question.


The first question keeps us looking backward.The second one makes us look forward.


I've had to learn how to work with my body rather than constantly wishing it were a different body. I've learned to pay attention.


I've learned that intentional, repetitive movement can matter, particularly in rehabilitation and neurological conditions. Research into exercise and neuroplasticity in MS is still developing, and the evidence around exactly how exercise produces neural changes is more nuanced than many headlines suggest. But exercise has been associated with meaningful functional benefits, and researchers continue to investigate how the brain adapts to training and rehabilitation.

For me, that has translated into something very practical: Keep giving the body opportunities to respond. 


Sometimes the response is obvious. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes progress is so small that you almost miss it.


But that doesn't mean nothing is happening.


I still have goals


At 64, I still have a long game. And my long game is not simply to maintain what I have.


At 64, I still have a long game. And my long game is not simply to maintain what I have.


I still believe I will walk again. I can stand. I can take a few steps. And I want to see what happens if I keep working at it.


Maybe someone reading that will think I'm unrealistic. That's okay. I've been called a dreamer before. My father used to call my husband and me "spinner" — essentially meaning we were dreamers, always spinning another possibility in our heads. I've decided that's not such a bad thing, because sometimes you need to be able to imagine something before you can begin working toward it.


And I'm not talking about magical thinking. I'm talking about leaving room for possibility


Don't let a scan become your identity


One of the biggest mistakes we can make is allowing a piece of medical information to become the entire story of who we are.


A scan is information. A diagnosis is information. A prognosis is information. None of those things, by themselves, contain the entirety of a human life.


Your life also contains the people you love. The work you care about. The food you cook. The garden you tend. The places you want to visit. The things that make you laugh. The goals you haven't reached yet. The mornings you haven't experienced. The possibilities you haven't imagined.

I still work. I still cook.I spend hours in my garden.I get outside.I move.I make plans. I have things I'm looking forward to.


And yes, I have a diagnosis.


Both things can be true.


You don't have to know exactly how the story ends


Maybe this is the part I understand better now than I did at 23.


You don't need to know exactly how your story ends in order to live it well. In fact, none of us know. That's true whether you're 23, 43, 64 or 84. We all live with uncertainty.


The temptation is to eliminate that uncertainty by finding someone who will tell us exactly what is going to happen. But certainty isn't always available. Sometimes the most honest answer is: We don't know.


And “we don't know” can be frightening.


But it can also leave room for something incredibly important: possibility.


So, who told you what your future was supposed to look like?


I think about that question often.


Maybe it was a doctor. Maybe it was a parent. Maybe it was a teacher. Maybe it was a partner. Maybe it was your own past. Maybe you told yourself.


And perhaps some of what you were told is useful and true. Keep that. But examine the rest. Ask yourself whether you're responding to the reality in front of you, or living according to a prediction someone made about you. Those aren't necessarily the same thing.


More than 40 years after my diagnosis, I'm still learning, adapting, moving, working, cooking, gardening, laughing and making plans. I'm still dreaming — still spinning another possibility, just like my father used to say.


One of the most important things I've ever been told came from a neuroscientist who worked in the field of neuroplasticity. His words have stayed with me:


You're never too old. You've never had your condition too long. And you're never too advanced to make positive change.


I think those words apply to far more than neurological disease.They apply to anyone who has quietly decided that their opportunity for change has passed.


Maybe you're not where you expected to be. Maybe your body has changed. Maybe your circumstances have changed.Maybe your life looks nothing like the one you imagined at 23.


That's okay. You don't have to go backward. You don't have to become who you were. You can start with where you are. You can adapt. You can make another choice. You can take another step.


And you can leave a little room for the possibility that the future hasn't been decided yet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can a medical diagnosis predict exactly what will happen to you?

A diagnosis can provide important information about a condition and possible outcomes, but it cannot perfectly predict one individual's future.


A diagnosis identifies or describes a health condition, while a prognosis discusses its expected course or possible outcomes. Neither one represents the entirety of a person's life.

Yes. A person's health, treatment, circumstances, research, and response to treatment can change, meaning what was expected at one point may not remain the same.

When people are frightened or vulnerable, professional predictions can carry enormous weight and may become expectations about what they believe they can or cannot do.

 Ask questions, understand what is known versus uncertain, consider getting another professional opinion when appropriate, and focus on understanding your options rather than assuming every possibility is inevitable.


Mindset cannot guarantee a particular medical outcome, but it can influence how someone responds to challenges, approaches treatment and rehabilitation, maintains routines, and participates in daily life.


 By taking medical information seriously while recognizing that a diagnosis is only one part of your life. Treatment, relationships, work, interests, goals, adaptation, and personal choices still matter.


 Separate what they actually know from what they are predicting. Keep useful medical information, ask questions about uncertainty, and give yourself permission to remain open to outcomes that cannot yet be known.



 
 
 

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