3443 Needles
After an hour and a chat with the counsellor, the MS nurse, the blood clinic and MS nurse again, there he was. My saviour. The one who would rule over thousands of future pinholes. He was no Napoleon, but I was fine with that.
I am not my brain
"What's wrong with my brain?" doesn't automatically mean, "Is my mind, my soul therefore broken as well?"
What singing taught me about life with MS
It is hard to explain the following depth of reality. One morning shortly after my diagnosis, I woke up and thought, “From now on, I will wake up sick every day, and I need to accept that I will never get better again - unless a cure is found.” That level of new normals isn’t easy. Then again, finding something black to wear while standing in front of a wardrobe filled with black clothes only, isn’t either. The same goes for the many pairs of black shoes, black rings, and necklaces.
The day I stopped being weak
You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only option you have. How true is this? You lose a parent, a brother or sister, or someone else you dearly loved and yet, time goes on. Time has to go on. For your family, for yourself. Years later you realise you went through that loss better than you ever thought you would. Being strong was the only option you had. Being diagnosed with an illness that can’t be cured is a little bit similar, or is it? The day I received my MS diagnosis is a day I can almost literally rephrase, just like the day you lose someone you love, or the day when absolutely horrifying accidents happen. We all know where we were and what we…
Why I love advocacy!
No matter when you were diagnosed, there might be moments when you feel like screaming at the top of your lungs when symptoms take a little too long to disappear, or because people are just getting on your nerves.
Why I should be a brainiac, but I’m not
It happened again. Just when I attempted to maximise my brain, it decided to take over and run the show. It’ll be fun, it said. But, it was so not pretty. Not even by a long mile. With so much physical pain and hence collected a fair amount of neurology-related knowledge due to life with MS, I should be a brainiac. Yet, I am not.
You will survive!
To this day, 13 years post-diagnosis, I am still prone to having conscious/unconscious battles. I am past the "woe is me" period that tried to knock me sideways at first, but I still have pacing issues that lay bare any ineffectiveness I attribute to myself.