About 7 years ago, I was diagnosed with a multiple sclerosis, from that day my life changed completely.
I
Let's start with explaining a little what multiple sclerosis is - in very colloquial terms. Take into consideration I'm not an expert in this, I'm just writing my experience and I hope it helps....Multiple sclerosis is a very little known disease that affects approximately 2.5 million people worldwide. Very little is known about it, its origin and why it affects people. The most accepted theory of its origin is that it has something to do directly with the climate and genetic predisposition, but there is not enough scientific evidence in this regard. Multiple sclerosis really, in very non-medical terms, is a disease that alters the immune system and provokes it to affect the nervous system, especially the central part (brain and spinal cord).
II
When you are informed that your symptoms might be a disease called multiple sclerosis, the first thing that comes to mind is, what is that? How comes I have that? How bad is it? How bad is it? And for some reasons this always make you cry, probably because it's something so unknown and uncertain, I didn't know what it was, I had no idea what I was going to go through, but because of the name I thought it was something bad and while they explained to me that it is the multiple sclrerosis, they told me something which stayed engraved in my head forever : «MS is a progressive disease, normally it is not fatal, but there is no cure». My face became something like this 😯😯😲😱😱😱😱😱🥺. I just did know what to do nor how to react.
III
Something that helped me a lot with these questions was realizing my willpower and how, for example, some friends felt bad about anything, while one with MS with pain, an unknown and incurable disease and still managed to stay calm and lead your life. Once I realized that I had to battle with something unknown simply because life wanted it, I was able to look for the positive side of all this and it is that I suffer from the disease and not another loved one, that now I understand people in a better way that they have some incurable disease and that from time to time makes their day-to-day difficult (among all MS is not fatal) to have more empathy with others, to love, value and take care of myself much more, to not give up and always fight to meet my goals, after seeing the positive side of this is that my stage began that I call acceptance.....
IV
This is quite peculiar because many people ask themselves, how do I accept living with an incurable degenerative disease? How do I accept that little by little I am going to lose what they call a normal life? How do I accept that I may be losing some motor or cognitive abilities? It has served me to live fully every day, knowing my limitations and knowing that despite not being a normal person, I live in my own normality, living in what can be called self-destruction (since my own body is the that attacks me) but recognizing that there is a life ahead and that this self-destruction is slow and that it will affect me more psychologically if I cannot live with it. Despite the pain, discomfort and other symptoms, I always try to do my day to day, work, study, learn, exercise, always demanding from my body as far as I know what I can endure, which has led me to understand my illness a little more, and accept it, as I always say "it's a me vs me war where the only winner is me, but the only loser is also me, and since no one likes to lose I always put my best face and best disposition to defeat myself and be a winner "....
(to be continued)
Humberto, IT Lead, Diaverum Chile