I come stumbling back from the bakery with a lot of bread in my bags. I see myself walking in my mind, moving irregularly, dragging along my left side. That’s rotten, yes, but there are people doing worse than me, people with aggressive MS types, with rheumatism, and other ghastly disorders. I have had no more serious episodes after that first one. I’m glad I live in a beautiful and comfortable house with an energetic, and resourceful man who lets nothing get in his way. I am glad that I have so many loving and caring friends and neighbours, and two loving and helpful sons. And, yes, with the risk of repeating myself, that I have a loving and caring family and that I live in a country with superb health care, and not in a country with failing health care. That I can use the limited energy I still have for guiding my sons. Yes, that’s what keeps me going. That’s why I get up early every morning to start my day, however tired I am. I hope that keeping busy will keep me ahead of my MS. I am worried that I’ll have a new episode. This disease is rather unpredictable. It could continue mildly but also show its fierce face. I’m still not used to my “new” me, I used to be flexible and lithe, and that’s how I still feel, but my left leg is not flexible and lithe anymore, but cumbersome and slow, it‘s a sleeping leg that I have to drag along. In my thoughts I’m still who I always was, an amateur dancer, in my thoughts and feelings I can still dance. I still see the choreography in the everyday movement. How cars move with discipline past a crossing, how people avoid with agility, bumping into each other in a crowd. When I play the piano I can still hear the dance rhythms without failure, they’re still in my brain, but my left side has deserted me.
February 2015