MS News: September 2016
Below are some MS-related topics that made the headlines this month. Do come back to check again, though, as the list will be updated every three to five days. Highlight! #ECTRIMS2016 – Congress on Latest in MS Research and Treatment Opens Sept. 14 #ECTRIMS2016 – Stay Up to Date with My Pick of Congress Highlights 25 American Athletes To Watch At The Paralympics
Being real!
Despite chronic pain and fatigue issues, I am making the best of my life, and I am doing everything possible to be the best version of myself as I can be. All I ask of you is some understanding of what I am going through, and know that every bad day is only making me stronger. Some days, though, I want you to hold my hand or hug me and tell me that everything will be OK.
Conversations with myself
Nevertheless, positivity, when faced with chronic illness, is not a cure. It never will be. That doesn’t mean I can’t slander myself, right? Hitting the nerve, as it were. If my central nervous system is allowed to hit me, I am as authorised to hit back. Three times over.
Difference between fibromyalgia and MS
Note: I am not a medical professional nor do I intend to provide any medical advice to anyone. Please see your physician or neurologist if you have any health care concerns. My intention is to provide accurate information from the perspective of an informed patient. Sometimes it’s hard to pin down which illness you have, as symptoms can look and feel alike. This is the case with MS and fibromyalgia. However, they are very different illnesses. Despite the overlap in symptoms, diagnostic methods and profile risks, having one doesn’t put you at a higher risk of having the other illness. If you suspect you have MS or fibromyalgia, please seek medical advice. A rheumatologist will be able to tell you if you have fibromyalgia, and a neurologist if indeed you have MS.
Books? Great medicine!
All joking aside, I cannot even begin to count the number of books I have read since childhood or how many I handled while working in a library. Books become part of life, a friend I will remember forever, a gateway or hiding place where distraction reigns. Just holding them, turning page after page, waiting to be explored, conquered, talked about and put on a shelf waiting to be taken out again. And so the cycle begins again.
disABILITY
© Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2016. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner are 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.
Raw
Social media often finds me catching my breath because of its reach, its intent and its questioning behaviour towards the mindset of the people they follow. After tweeting about the content of my blog, I received a rather ignorant private message from someone asking how raw my content, or I, can get and if I wanted to elaborate. On my blog, ‘raw’ is A Powerful Letter to My MS; Death, A Fearful Thing?; Waiting and My Brother. These were pivotal words that had to be written from an emotional perspective as learning to accept a chronic illness sometimes comes with letting go of life as you once knew it. Others say that Let’s Be Frank; Ignorance; and Hope Cures Old Wounds are realistic enough to prove that life with a…
