MS: musings from inside the neurology department waiting room, 21 years later

Neurology waiting room in hospital. People wait, wonder, dread, and hope. 

Nobody deserves to be here. No one is ever ready to hear what the stranger in front of them has to say. A neurologist examines your MRI and cerebrospinal fluid test results, gazing and thinking. Do they wonder how they will tell you that from this moment on, your life will change—that you’ll need to adapt your lifestyle to include a new, most frustrating illness—that your body has betrayed you? That MS will from now will hamper, harm, and set boundaries where you want none?

People with other neurological illnesses walk in and out of the waiting room; often, the illness feels bigger than how its carrier perceives it ever will be. Before you realise that 50+ neurological symptoms from across the CNS can be triggered by MS, you will be reminded of your diagnosis day every single year.

For those sitting alone and waiting, time feels slow. Their minds go through every rabbit hole it can find, only to find there is no escape plan or exit door. For those waiting with a friend, partner, spouse, or parents, time seems gentler. They talk about fears or discuss anything except why they’re there.

To me, MS will always feel like a lonely illness because I am the first in my family, even though many other neurological deficits run through our family tree. It shows me how vulnerable people can become, susceptible to inner damage from a malfunctioning central nervous system. Without a warning. Without exemption.

My diagnosis brought love, friendship, knowledge, and, paradoxically in a way, redemption. It not only revealed who truly loves me but also it shaped my character and who I am today—strong and determined to live fully. I will not falter or fall into self-destruction. I will not go where I am not supposed to go. Standing at my own grave in 2008, I returned with an understanding that I might not have gained if a hospital-acquired superbug hadn’t revealed itself so viciously. It wasn’t time yet. It still isn’t.

One day, the effort to eradicate MS from the CNS of 2.9 million people worldwide will result in breakthroughs marked by decades, if not centuries, of pain, heartache, and the scientific and medical reasons why they were chosen.

One day, it will be just that—millions will be cured, their bodies slowly restored to what they once were. Fairness will mean smiling faces and medication tossed in the bin. Fairness will be healthy people, happy lives, renewed confidence, rekindled friendships, and restored family bonds. That, and so much more. 

While I sit once again in the waiting room of my neurological team, it fills with familiar faces with MS—wounded but alive, dreaming and hopeful. One day, neurology waiting rooms will be empty. Lives will return to what they once were. 

Until then, our health is a work in progress, with a new reality inching closer and closer than it was on my day of diagnosis, 21 years ago today.

(Originally written from the waiting room in the Neurology department in Dublin. It also appeared on the Irish MS Society’s blog ‘MS and Me’)

Adapted: April 2026

Awards

◾2018 Winner Best Blog Post, Blog Awards Ireland by Ashville Media Group, Dublin, Ireland

◾ Everyday Health: Top 10 MS Blogs to Follow in 2025, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018 #EDHbestblogs

◾ Feedspot: Top 45 Best Multiple Sclerosis Blogs and Websites in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017

◾ My Therapy: Multiple Sclerosis Blogs: 10 of the Best

◾ MyTherapy: Best MS Blog for Simplicity 2018

◾ Blog Awards Ireland: Finalist 2017, 2015, 2014 (Awards competition discontinued from 2019 onwards)

©Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2026.