hablemos de esclerosis multiple

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 just 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

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