The Roots We Choose to Grow
A married couple living with multiple sclerosis describes how inherited values and shared experiences shaped their approach to partnership, caregiving, faith, and advocacy.
Useful takeaways from this story.
Shared values—showing up, helping, staying connected—guided the couple as they navigated life with MS together.
Partnership with chronic illness can mean shifting roles, mutual care, and choosing which learned behaviors to keep or change.
Faith, advocacy, and humor are practical tools the couple uses to manage uncertainty and to improve life for themselves and others.
# Grow
Early roots and family habits
Jennifer's roots include Michigan Wolverines football Saturdays and shopping trips to Chicago with her mother and grandmother. Dan's include backyard football and Wiffle ball with siblings and playing 500 Rummy with his grandmother. Those memories helped form practical habits: being present, making time for shared activities, and treating people with care.
MS was already in the soil
Jennifer was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1997. Dan's diagnosis followed a little more than two years later. They met in 2002 and married on September 10, 2005. Living with MS together forced them to decide which inherited values to nurture and which new habits to grow.
How they adapted values into partnership
They describe partnership as mutual support that recognizes changing needs. Taking care of each other does not mean one person must always be the strong one. Their approach includes swapping roles as needed, asking for and accepting help, and keeping commitments to each other even when plans change.
Faith is part of their approach, but they view it as living with questions rather than supplying all the answers. Advocacy started as simple refusal to accept unfairness—saying "this isn't right" and working to improve situations for themselves and those who come after them.
Laughter is practical, not escapist. When life involves wheelchairs, mobility challenges, and plans that can change without warning, finding moments to laugh eases tension and keeps daily life livable.
What they recommend planting deliberately
They list concrete values they choose to grow:
- Take care of each other. Mutual care is a daily practice.
- Keep showing up. Presence matters even when abilities fluctuate.
- Accept help. It expands options and builds community.
- Speak up. Advocacy can begin with a single complaint about unfairness.
- Find humor where you can. It helps with resilience.
- Leave things a little better than you found them. Small improvements matter.
About the authors
Dan and Jennifer Digmann have each lived with multiple sclerosis for more than 26 years. They create the podcast and blog "A Couple Takes on MS," where they discuss life, love, caregiving, advocacy, and finding joy while managing MS. They have been married nearly 21 years and describe progress as built one step, one roll, and one story at a time.
Practical takeaways for readers
If you are in a relationship affected by a chronic condition, consider these actions: map the values you already practice, agree on how to share care tasks, identify when to ask for outside help, and pick a small advocacy step to protect your needs and those of others who follow. Humor and faith can be useful strategies but do not replace concrete planning and communication.
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