MS: musings from inside the neurology department waiting room, 21 years later
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?
In search of my MS Zen
Despite having my inner dialogue running into philosophical mayhem, parameters on what I perceived to be acceptable have been reset, and my inner dialogue needs a fix as an intuitively sharp anguish took over my mindset last week.
Bliss, the MS-way
I long for autumn since the first few warm days. I long to walk in Phoenix Park, kicking up fallen leaves that have been building up under large oak trees. The changing of colours in nature is invigorating, it serves as a token that life goes on, that seasons come and go, each year bringing new fragrances and new stories waiting to unfold.
Starting over
Sacrificing your life for a chronic illness never comes easily. You learn to compensate and decide how reliable your judgment is based on what you can put in physically, mentally and emotionally. Quite often, what lies within you is mentally infinitely stronger than anyone might realise - even yourself - because, until that point in time, you have been at your worst already.
I am not my brain
"What's wrong with my brain?" doesn't automatically mean, "Is my mind, my soul therefore broken as well?"
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 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.
