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By Kathi Stearns
Staff Writer
PEACHTREE CITY-A delicate paintbrush dangles from her hand as if waiting for
a surge of purpose. Her frail body supported by a wheelchair waits for a surge
of power. She closes her eyes, she says, to envision her next stroke. She knows
that the colors she chooses and placement of the brush strokes will make all
the difference as to whether her project becomes a masterpiece or just another
piece of disposable art. Finally, she musters herself to put the brush to the
canvas and begins to paint.
This is the only activity that allows her some measure of control these
days. Dr. Anne Marie Riether, a parishioner at Holy Trinity Church in Peachtree
City, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1993. Over the years,
muscles have weakened and control has oozed out of her body like paint being
pushed out of a tube. And today she admits she has been forced to accept her
own life, not as a completed masterpiece, but as a once beautiful picture
slowly cut into a difficult jigsaw puzzle. More often than not, Riether says,
she feels the frustration of not being able to make the pieces fit. It
sometimes leaves her angry and desperate, she confesses.
But she also confesses that, because of God, the disease has deepened her
faith and enriched the colors of her soul.
Before her diagnosis, Riether's life was bright and balanced, even enviable.
Some would say she "had it all." She'd married Bryant Smith, a
successful attorney, and had two children--Kalynn, born August 1988, and a son
Taylor, born August 1992. And she had her own successful career practicing
psychiatry, specializing in the treatment of substance abuse, eating disorders
and family problems. Her free time was spent advocating sports and fitness.
When she wasn't at the office or at home with her family, she could be found
rock climbing or practicing karate.
"I was living the life I had envisioned for myself," she said.
"It was what I had worked toward. I had a successful marriage, family life
and career."
Twelve months after Taylor's birth, Riether's picture-perfect life changed
almost overnight. She noticed some of her bodily functions beginning to fade.
"As a doctor, I knew immediately that when I began having a problem
with my balance and losing bladder function that something was very
wrong," she said. "But having been an overachiever in all areas of my
life, I thought that if I simply made some changes in my lifestyle these
problems would go away."
Injuries from a minor auto accident a little later complicated the
situation. Riether's worst nightmare was confirmed when a neurologist told her
that she had multiple sclerosis, a progressive, debilitating disease of the
immune system that still has no cure.
Multiple sclerosis means "many scars." Scars form in the body's
central nervous system that contains the brain and spinal cord. It is an
auto-immune disease in which too much immunity causes the body to attack itself
and start chewing the myelin, the insulation on nerve cells that makes nerve
conduction go faster. As a result, nerve conduction slows down. More than
400,000 Americans have MS, most often diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50.
Women are two or three times more likely to be diagnosed with MS than men.
"When the doctor gave me the diagnosis," Riether said, "I
stood there in disbelief saying, 'No, this is impossible. I have a baby and a
four-year-old who are relying on me.'"
The psychiatrist said she just could not accept the finding.
"I am a doctor. I am used to identifying the problem and then coming up
with a solution. So I turned to my colleagues and said, 'I am your patient.
Heal me.'"
The reality was they couldn't heal her and her prognosis wasn't good.
"Often when doctors know that they can't heal someone, they act as if the
person doesn't exist because they don't know how to respond to someone they
can't make better," Riether said. As her colleagues pulled away from her
and her body gradually betrayed her, Riether said she slipped into depression.
One day in 1994, as Riether arrived for work at Emory, she found people
gathered around a woman who was perched on the top ledge of the parking deck,
ready to jump. Riether stepped in to help the schizophrenic woman who wanted to
end her life.
"There I was, just recently diagnosed with MS, with severe balance
problems, and I am on top of a ledge listening to a woman who is hearing
voices," she recalled.
As the woman poured out her feelings about having nothing to live for and
that voices were telling her to end it all, "I started telling this woman
everything I learned in psychology 101 that was supposed to get this woman off
the ledge. I was making no progress. Then I realized that if I was going to get
this woman off this ledge, I had to be real with her," she said.
"I told her that I had a chronic illness and that I too had struggled
with feelings of despair and self-worth. Then I stressed that God had a plan
for both of us. As I shared my story with her, she looked at me and we made an
instant connection. She knew I understood. I told her there was medication to
help her fulfill God's plan for her. I told her that I wished I had a
medication that would help me. I told her that if I was going to live, she was
going to live. It was as if we had made a pact to live today for today. Then we
just held each other and prayed."
The woman thanked Riether profusely for saving her life. But, "there
could be nothing further from the truth," Riether said. "She saved my
life. The things I said to her were things I needed to hear. God used this
woman to talk to me. As I listened to myself on that ledge, all of the things I
said to her revealed what God was also saying to me. Life was not over. It was
just beginning in a new way."
But the landscape of the psychiatrist's life became even bleaker in February
1997. After the birth of her third child, Laura Kathryn, doctors discovered
that Riether's husband had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a freak bicycle
accident. The accident left him permanently disabled. Smith spent the next year
at the New York University Rusk Brain Injury Institute. Today Smith remains a
licensed attorney who is no longer able to practice law and is supported
through social security.
Riether, who was still working as the associate medical director of the
Talbott Recovery Campus, became both the primary breadwinner of the family and
the major caregiver for her children as she continued her own fight against her
progressively debilitating disease.
"I have always viewed myself as the Titanic, unsinkable," she
said. "The reality is that I have found myself to be a lot like a tea bag.
I don't know how strong I am until I am in a lot of hot water. This time I
realized that the water was too hot and that I needed to ask for help."
Unsure of where to turn, Riether turned to her faith. She said she described
herself as having a very simple and basic faith.
"I would not describe myself as someone people should look to for
spiritual strength," she said. "I am not one of these individuals who
says, 'Let go and let God.' Rather, I am one of those people who will allow God
to come along for the ride whenever it is convenient. It is something I
struggle with every day. Sometimes I let Him sit in the back seat, sometimes I
let Him sit in the passenger side, but rarely do I let Him drive."
In an attempt to surrender to God's will, the psychiatrist
developed a "God Box" where she placed things that she needed to
turn over to God's care and protection. Her "God Box" really exists;
it is not simply a mental device for dealing with problems. It is a 3x3 wooden
box that has a Spanish cross on top. The cover is riddled with pins pushed into
the wood to serve as a reminder of the very real problems she faces.
Other reminders of her body parts, prayer life and financial concerns appear
on the outside of the box. She writes down any aspect of life she feels she
cannot handle and places it inside the box.
"I need the physical act of releasing something from myself and giving
it to God," she said. "Once my prayer goes in there, I am able to let
go of it and give it to God. I never look at it again. That is not to say that
the prayer may not go in there again. At the end of the week I throw the
petitions out and start over."
Riether says this simple process has re-colored her life by teaching her to
surrender her dependence on self. She has now learned to accept help from
others, starting with her parish community at Holy Trinity Church. She says her
faith in God blossomed as she witnesses the love and generosity of her fellow
parishioners. In addition, she has immersed herself in a weekly Bible study in
the hope of learning how following God's way may redraw the patterns of her own
life.
"God is a God of hope," she said. "When we say we can't
handle much more, He tells us, 'You don't have to do this on your own unless
you want to.' Sometimes we have to become totally powerless before we are able
to see this and trust Him. I had reached that point. I wanted so desperately to
know what His plan was for me. I wanted a sign of hope, and He gave it."
In 1997 Riether and Dr. Karen Mullican participated in a trial of a T-cell
receptor vaccine that is supposed to reactivate the immune system.
"It had such an impact on my life," she said. "I knew it was
making a difference in how I was able to live my life. It was priceless."
However, when the trial ended, she no longer had access to the drugs.
She and Mullican then went to work on legislation that would make it easier
for patients with chronic diseases to get experimental drugs. Riether went to
Washington, D.C., several times to speak on behalf of the National MS Society.
Ultimately both Riether and Mullican were invited to the White House when
President Clinton signed the bill into law. Because of her own perseverance,
she was able to take the vaccine for another year, but no longer.
In 1998, Riether received the MS Society's Achievement Award at the state
level. Later that year, Riether was awarded the National Achievement Award from
the MS Society.
"When that happened, people expected me to project a certain
image," she said. "I do come across as very positive, bright and
articulate, but I also have a debilitating progressive chronic disease. I get
exhausted doing very simple things like tying my shoes. But, they look at my
resume and forget that I can't control when I go to the bathroom anymore."
Being a poster child for MS took its toll on Riether's life. Exhaustion and
depression again snuck up on her. In the midst of a dark summer of l999, she
tried to take her own life.
"Anger turned inward is depression," she said. "As I got more
tired and weaker, I didn't understand why a loving God would deny me the
medicine that had been making such a difference in my life. I gave up on God.
And when I did that, Satan took hold of me. I told the doctors that I was going
to kill myself, and they put me in the psychiatric ward at Emory. They didn't
really see my pain or hear my call for help. They just saw the poster child for
MS. Four hours later I took the top sheet off my bed, and I hung myself."
On the first attempt, Riether said she fell through the sheet. The second
time someone cut her down as she was having a grand mal seizure. She was
transferred to Grady Hospital where she spent six weeks on suicide watch.
"Then I became very angry with myself for not being successful at
killing myself," she said. "I really felt like I couldn't do anything
right. I was literally a failure at everything."
During a visit to the hospital, Father Kevin Peek, parochial vicar at Holy
Trinity, encouraged Riether to receive the sacrament of reconciliation.
"When I did that, a peace came over me that was indescribable,"
she said. "For the first time in a long time, I was able to once again see
God in my life. He hadn't moved. I had moved away from Him. I could hear His
voice and know that I was truly forgiven for my suicide attempts. I knew that,
no matter what came my way, I would never do that again. God saved my life and
He did it for a reason."
Riether said she felt that perhaps her life was spared because, as the
poster child for MS, she could make a positive difference in people's lives.
Because of her position, she has made numerous presentations including a spot
on Good Morning America.
"I had felt that, since I was no longer a practicing doctor, I could no
longer make a contribution to someone's life," she said. "I realize
how naive I was to think that I was no longer able to help people. When I was
practicing psychiatry, I helped one person at a time. But 30 million people saw
that segment on Good Morning America."
Life has changed for the Riether family.
"Sometimes I'm very hard on myself," she said. "But I've
realized that the outside, my physical outer appearance and limitations, are
not my true spirit. They're not my soul. I'm still the same unique person. But
my faith has deepened, and I'm more accepting of others. I've seen my worth,
and it's not dependent upon my physical appearance."
Today the skilled and accomplished psychiatrist has discovered more of her
inner self. One of her doctors insisted she take art therapy, she said.
"It was really traumatic for me because it was something outside of my
comfort zone. But as I started to paint, I discovered a talent I never knew I
had."
Riether exhibits both her pottery and oil paintings through the Georgia
Artists with Disabilities.
And she continues to engage in another one of her passions: martial arts.
Three times a week she trains with Tony Young, a third degree black belt and
19-time National Super-Lightweight karate champion in the basement of her home,
a full work-out room with mirrored walls and a banner from the paralympics
declaring, "What's Your Excuse." Together, Riether, a green belt, and
Young have designed a self-defense course for women with disabilities. The
karate also helps Riether with her sense of balance.
Though she has made great strides for herself and others struggling with MS,
the disease still frustrates her and is at times downright scary.
"I look at my MRI and can see that the MS is progressing," she
confided. "It's subtle, but I know it. I can get very fearful," she
said. "But I know that no matter what, God is here. It's hard to have this
disease, but that's where my faith is being tested and deepened."
Riether, now 44, uses the wheelchair to help preserve the
precious energy that she needs to care for her family.
"I don't want to give in, but every adaptation that must be made is a
new giving in," she said. "It saddens me that I can't be the kind of
Mom that I want to be for my kids. I am not a soccer Mom who can run the field
with her children. Instead, we do a lot of homework, crafts and movies from my
bed."
Riether says that her husband, whose disability does not affect his ability
to walk or run, is the most physically active parent with their children.
"He does most of the outdoor activities with the children because I no
longer have the strength to do what the kids want to do."
Since, however, his brain injury has left him very impulsive, making it
difficult for him to realistically foresee the effects of his decisions,
Riether takes on that task.
"I end up doing most of the long range planning and decision making
because that no longer comes easily to him," she said.
Riether believes her children understand what MS is as they have witnessed
firsthand the effects it has had on her life. She has enrolled them in
Rainbows, a program for children who have experienced loss, to assist with some
of the emotional baggage that comes from having two parents with disabilities.
"It is hard on them," she said. "They have suffered a loss
and continue to suffer loss. We do the best we can, but nothing is really ever
normal for them. They are often left with a feeling of uncertainty that can be
all encompassing."
However, their experience with disabilities has also made the children more
caring.
For instance, Kalynn, who has ridden horses since she was three, has
designed a custom-made saddle called "Back in the Saddle" to make
horseback riding possible for people with multiple sclerosis. She came up with
the idea in 1999 after seeing the difficulties her mother had using a
conventional saddle. The saddle has a high pummel for added back support and a
unique Velcro seat which sticks to Velcro sewn to conventional riding pants.
The 11-year-old has already developed a business plan and hopes to begin
marketing her product in May 2000.
Life is no longer easy, but it has developed in texture.
"What keeps me going is my faith," said Riether. "It would be
nice if I was to be cured, but that's not necessarily in the cards. Whatever
happens, I know God is there."
The red head bends close to the canvas to put the final touches on her new
project. She says she wishes she could visualize the finished picture of her
own life, then admits, "I sometimes hear God say, 'Give me the brush and
follow my strokes.' Often I fight Him because I want to control the brush and
paint and light and content as well as the canvas. But I try to give Him a
little more control every day because He is the author of life as well as its
artistic director. That is what keeps me going now. I can't imagine living
without God's hand guiding my life, and I know He hasn't finished with my life
yet. I do expect to be one of His masterpieces."
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