The Subtleties of Multiple Sclerosis.

There have been three major obstacles in the way of my accepting what it meant to have multiple sclerosis.
Even though I already knew about the condition because of a family friend and understood that not only would it not get better, but it would get worse, I still have found one part of my mind has refused to accept these facts. Rationally, I could state them without denial, but it still was the case that on the odd occasions when I had a slightly better day I would find myself thinking: “Now you’ve turned the corner.”
One part of me was still refusing to accept the reality of the condition.

In the same way, I found it very difficult at first to accept that my body could be so out of control that I would spasm viscously at the least provocation. I’m ashamed to admit that at the beginning I occasionally cried out: “What did you do that for?” to some hapless carer who had done nothing out of the ordinary. My mind was very reluctant to acknowledge that my body could play such tricks on me.

It also happened that it took me a long time to accept that I couldn’t expect to be comfortable when I was put to bed. I would ask the carer to move me this way, that way, turn me a little more or pull me across the bed because I really believed that there was a magic key that we could turn that would make me comfortable.

I no longer feel that I have turned the corner so I have at last accepted the reality and it’s only occasionally that I will make the mistake of blaming someone else for my body’s ability, out of the blue, to make me uncomfortable.