Magnetic voices

How many times have you been caught in the middle of an internal shouting match between your mind and an increasingly irritating body?

Whether it’s vision loss, disturbing fatigue or being unable to use your arms or legs properly, you know something’s amiss. That inner voice can be slightly more than torment, an evil nagging because you believe you are not living up to your potential anymore.

Fact is, we’re all one diagnosis away from a major illness. Health is not a something you can hold with both hands. You cannot put it on the kitchen table, in the boot of your car or give it a good old shake when you’re unwell.

After an MS diagnosis, the shouting match continues, intensifies.

You cannot leave it in the hospital and step back into life without the diagnosis.

You cannot wind it back.

You are now convinced that the old you is gone.

Not so. Not anymore.

Life with MS is about adaptation. What you can do, however, is listen to the voice of reason, no matter how hard it might seem. It might say that you will need time, rest, medicines, a decent medical team and a seriously good dose of positivity to go through life unscathed.

Listen carefully. Intently. Listen as if it’s the only voice you can hear right now.

Health – as well as life – is a state of mind. If something is not the way it should be, be proactive. Find the best voices and find those that can offer you the best treatments. It might be testing, but if MS is suspected, you will go through the motions of what is medically possible.

In 2017, research is moving at such a fast pace, an MS diagnosis is now possible in a very short period of time. You might not realise it right now, but lumbar punctures, eye tests, CAT scans, MRI scans and other tools might turn out to be the best gift you will ever give yourself.

© Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2017. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.