The progress of MS SoftServe is slow and steady.

As I work towards the immediate goal of editing the interview footage that will support an explanation of the site, I am seeking the balance. It’s a balance many struggle with. Full time employment (administrative staff at NYU-Tisch Film and TV), home life with my husband ( a photography professor and artist) my 6.55 year old daughter in first grade; a welcome distraction with homework, games, violin, conversation, reading and must see movies. (Horton Hears a Who ) Oh yeah, and a certain amount of maintenance :). And of course Multiple Sclerosis, something most of the people reading here can relate to, throwing in a new challenge on a daily basis.

Yet secretly, behind the scenes I’m editing and writing and planning. Sometimes it’s not in a tangible way; sometimes its progress that is only evident on a neuron-ic level. Keeping company with my myelin, or in some cases a lack there of :), it is progress that I can be excited about.

On a more obvious level I am working to start my consulting business SoftServe Central- Educational Concepts in Online Learning. Using my expertise in instructional design combined with almost 20 years of MS (come June 2008) I consult on how to design ideal education for those of us with this label, this lot in life. How to speak to us, the patients in a way that recognizes what our experience is and that we are unique individuals in spite of a common diagnosis. To explain how to connect with each of us with our individual version of this disease without alienating any one of us.

I’m also in the final stages of developing a non-profit organization called SoftServe Matters (grey matter, white matter, your funding matters!) whose mission is to create educational websites for individuals who need to learn about any disease in a customizable, reduced anxiety way.

Then there is my blog and the greater world of MS bloggers. I would love to sit all day and read and write. I want to tell the bloggers I’ve read (and continue to read) how significant what they are saying to is to the MS world and the greater world of people who also happen to be patients. I want to connect to more people, who like me and many who I have met, struggle to learn about their constantly evolving unique version of MS at a safe place that to be confident we aren’t going to learn about things that aren’t relevant to us; facts that will cause anxiety about our uncertain future. (I want to edit that last run on!)

I want to work on MS SoftServe, a solution that is waiting patiently for funding

I have to keep this hope and desire quiet while the rest of my life happens. I need to find balance. Don’t we all.