Relapse!
Yesterday I received an email from the Daily Post at WordPress that said ‘Competition: What activity, task, or game most brings out your competitive streak?’ Activity: having multiple sclerosis. Task: not going to bed when my body screams to should stop doing what I’m doing and make a triple Salchow backwards to land myself under my duvet instead. Game: enjoying life. Competitor: myself. It was an easy enough question to answer because I (still) consider myself my own worst competition, especially right now.
I need a cure
If a person can turn from predicting illness to anticipating recovery, the foundation for cure is laid. (Bernie Siegel) Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. (Albert Einstein) Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible and achieves the impossible. (Anonymous) Illness shows us what we are (Latin proverb) Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. (Bernice Johnson Reagon) © Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2013. 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…
MS Awareness Week 2013
MS Awareness Week from Monday, March 11 2013 to Sunday, March 17th 2013. Tell us why you connect on: http://www.msconnection.org/ © Willeke Van Eeckhoutte and Ireland, Multiple Sclerosis & Me, 2011-2013. 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.
Trigemin…argh!
Brain fog. “Being blonde”. Now I know what it feels like. Years ago I acquired the “just being blonde” tag by others in my team at work because I suddenly needed time to digest ideas, questions and discussions. I would never have referred to myself as “being blonde” in those days because I used to be quick-witted, but I was dark-haired back then, and still am. In other words: my elevator of knowledge does not travel all the way up to the top floor right now; it keeps sticking somewhere between the 3rd and the 4th floor. I hear people talking, but there’s no understanding flowing from hearing and seeing them move their lips and vocal chords into linguistic marvels of the 21st century.
My tired is tired
Yep… right now I am one hell of a great example of how MS can just snap you right back to when you were first diagnosed, hence the large picture stating that very fact. Remember the days where you were just bed-ridden with lots of symptoms not making sense, and pain that kept you up day and night, no matter how tired you were? How so? Well, last week my body was half-fried under the sun in temperatures of 35°C. Microwave temperatures sizzling my body from the outside in, although it felt like I was roasted from the inside out. I still feel like a walking advert for Kentucky Fried Chicken… minus the Kentucky mind you. And the chicken.
An Open Letter To Those Without MS
I’ve known about this letter for a while now, and sometimes I feel the need to read it again, as if by reading it once more, people around me will understand what having an incurable illness feels like even when they’re not the ones reading it. However, at the end of the day, I cannot step in those people’s shoes and make them accept what is going on inside me. I am the first person that needs to educate my family, friends, ex-colleagues etc. I am the first one that has to tell them the same things over and over, and I will be the only one to know the truth about my own MS. I am my expert-patient and I will be the only one that will have to…
Vertigo: not just a U2 song
“How do I find my way back to my desk?!” With that, vertigo had entered my life in 2005 while I was at work. The hallway seemed to be spinning. Or was it me? Had I finally lost my mind altogether? A tilting floor wanted to meet my knees instead of my feet. “Ground control to Major Tom? Can anyone save me?” Afraid of moving any further because I felt like I would fall on the ground nose first. “Well hello there,” answered Major Tom, “I’m Vertigo, your newest symptom!” Vertigo as in U2’s Vertigo had absolutely no business with MS-vertigo. Please don’t confuse it with the Hollywood-version of acrophobia, either, the latter being an extreme fear of heights.