For months you have been feeling sick. You even thought that you were going crazy.
They have put you through trillions of tests and yet they don't find anything wrong
with you. Until the day that they finally gave you a name for your illness- Multiple
Sclerosis (MS). Curiosity takes you to find more about this disease. You want to find
a reason but the more you read the more you get scare. Suddenly you find yourself
with the thought:
Why me?

That question will be forever in our mind, specially in those days that even the simple
things are hard to do. Nobody can give us the answer to why. They can't even tell us
what has caused it. They can explain to us that it is an autoimmune disease, that it
affects our nervous system, that it can progress or not and some theories of how it
how not it could have started.

NO, it is not a punishment for something that we did wrong, or a punishment to our
family. You should not feel guilt. We are good people and we have lived the best we
can.
It simply is.....  

The most difficult thing to do in this disease, like any other chronic disease, is to
accept that we have it. Specially when to the rest of the world it is synonym of
disability.

But I am not defined by my disease,
I am not MS.
I am a person with necessities and dreams that happens to have MS.

Most probable you have passed through a mourning period. Mourning for the lost of
your way of life, for the things that you won't be able to do or the limitations you will
have to face. In my case it was not to be able to work in the profession that I have
loved so much. But this period like any other must finish accepting the disease but it
should never be done with resignation.

Resignation is synonym of defeat. To accept the disease does not mean that we
gave up. On the contrary it makes it easier to learn to live with it because then we
don't waste energy denying its existence.

To accept the disease means that we accept the necessity to make change in our
lives. Such changes can included: our lifestyle, our daily routines, our house or our
work. This is something that we cannot avoid if we want to remain useful to ourself,
our family and society.

You are in charge, even when it doesn't seem like it. What you do of your life depend
of you and not of the MS.
Why me? Coming to terms with the disease









Maria A Reyes-Velarde,
MD, MPH
hablemosdeem.com
HABLEMOS  DE
ESCLEROSIS  
MULTIPLE
©2001maria a. reyes-velarde
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writings by Dr. Reyes-V.