Joe Enders reflects on his daughter Jodi’s MG diagnosis, her independence, and the challenges of balancing support with giving space. He discusses the role of family and support groups in navigating remission, anxiety, and the ongoing journey of living with MG.
Transcript
Hello, everyone. My name is Joe Enders. My daughter Jodi has MG, and she was diagnosed almost exactly five years ago.
My daughter with MG is a fiercely independent person, so having a little bit of an overbearing father regarding health probably added to her anxiety, which was not my intention.
Trying to give her space, but of course, wanting and needing to know that she’s OK. Thankfully, she has been in remission for a few years. She’s been relatively healthy for the most part. We’ve been very blessed the last couple of years.
She is actually living with us. I enjoy that as her father. Even though she’s 26, she is still my daughter, and I can see that hey, she’s OK, but her goal is to get on her own and to be independent, and I’m very proud that she is certainly working her way towards that.
What’s been helpful, thankfully, my wife and I being on the same page, talking through things. I’ve been blessed to have a very good support system through a men’s group that I actually had in Georgia for about 20 years, and during COVID. They do continue to meet virtually.
So even moving to Florida, I still am connected to that group and just having others where there’s genuine caring and thoughts and prayers certainly was very helpful and calming for me as well. So the support system has been extremely important.
I don’t know if it’s a guy thing, but at times, I think we tend to bottle it in. Bottling it in can be dangerous because it can be like a Coke can that’s shaken up, you know, eventually it wants to explode a little bit. So being able to let a little bit of the fizz out a little bit at a time with some genuine caring individuals has been very helpful.
Tips that I would share, I’ve got to say that I’m still learning, you know, five years later. One of the areas, you know, having an independent daughter, there are some times and looking back that I wish I was able to give her a little bit more space where my intentions were good, to be there for her sometimes again was a bit overbearing and created some additional anxiety.
So again, just continuing to be there for her. She knows my wife and I love her dearly, we’re there for her.
And just going back to what I had mentioned earlier for ourselves as well, having a caring support group as well that we can share life with through this journey has been extremely helpful.
You’re not alone. There is a community out there for all diseases, and certainly it seems to be becoming a lot more well known. We’re seeing the commercials specifically for her disease on TV now.
Very proud of our daughter and now that she is an adult, a young adult in her 20s, trying to give her the independence that she craves while still giving her the attention, and again, knowing that “hey, we are here for you, we support you and you know, we love you dearly.”
