A powerful letter to my MS
"I thought you were just another Monday morning case when you walked in," my consultant said, followed by lots of apologies and the promise that I would be very well taken care of."
Unfair
Once again I am here. A small, busy waiting room in hospital. People waiting, wondering, dreading, hoping. How much longer will I need to be here? When will it be the last time I can walk in here with a neurological illness and when will I be able to walk out with that nagging, progressing disease eradicated from my central nervous system? It is not fair. Nobody deserves to be here. Nobody is ever prepared to hear what the stranger in front of them will have to say. A neurologist looks at your test results, gazing, thinking. Do they wonder how they will tell you that from this minute onwards, your life as you once knew it, is now over? Unfair is the way it was thrown at me, at…
Waiting
Neurology waiting room in hospital. People waiting, wondering, dreading, hoping. It is not fair. Nobody deserves to be here. Nobody is ever prepared to hear what the stranger in front of them has to say. A neurologist looks at your test results, gazing, thinking. Do they wonder how they will tell you that from this minute onwards, your life will be different, that you will have to change your lifestyle to suit your new, closest and most annoying illness, that your body had betrayed you? Neurological illnesses walk in and out, often their illness seems larger than what they perceive themselves to be. For the ones sitting, waiting by themselves, without someone accompanying them, time goes slow. For the ones waiting with their boyfriends, spouses, parents, time is gentler. They…
That daily fight
Sometimes it seems that the hardest battles you will ever have to fight will be the battles with yourself. You strive to get through hours of hard grinding for upcoming exams, or you want to get fit after Christmas and New Year’s parties. We’ve all been there, and the older you get and the harder you seem to try, the more difficult it gets. I’m no stranger to being my own worst enemy when it boils down to fighting health issues. As years go by, and the wiser I should become, I simply cannot turn it into a ‘Remember when I finally learned my lesson?’ After my MS diagnosis in 2005, I told my ex-employer and ex-colleagues countless times, ‘This time I know what to do and next time I…
World MS Day 2012: Letter to my newly diagnosed self
Two years ago, the organisation of World MS Day, asked us to write a letter to our newly diagnoses self, no matter how long ago we were diagnosed: “If asked to write a letter to yourself today, to be read on the day you were first diagnosed, what would you say? Would you tell yourself to slow down and take stock? Or tell yourself to dive head first into living?” Dear me, “You have mild MS…” “Mild” is good, “mild” means that I can keep on working, “mild” means that I will be able to live with it. “It is just “mild” so nothing is wrong with me…” I remember every single minute of today, of my diagnosis. What was said; done; not acknowledged. I was told I would have…
World MS Day 2012: Letter to my newly diagnosed self
Two years ago, the organisation of World MS Day, asked us to write a letter to our newly diagnoses self, no matter how long ago we were diagnosed: “If asked to write a letter to yourself today, to be read on the day you were first diagnosed, what would you say? Would you tell yourself to slow down and take stock? Or tell yourself to dive head first into living?” Dear me, “You have mild MS…” “Mild” is good, “mild” means that I can keep on working, “mild” means that I will be able to live with it. “It is just “mild” so nothing is wrong with me…” I remember every single minute of today, of my diagnosis. What was said; done; not acknowledged. I was told I would have…
