Living with MS

Bism ALLAH AL RAHMAN AL RAHEEM.

I have been recently diagnosed with MS. It all started in April when I started to suffer from double vision, it took me 2 weeks until I went to the doctor to have an eye test, the doctor said that I had weakness in the muscles of my eyes. However, I did ignore the whole thing and the double vision soon went away.

15th of April I headed to Essex for the last term to sit for my exams. During the term I spent most of it studying and getting little sleep. I was tired most of the time but blamed it on the lack of sleep. 6th of June I was back in Amman and everything was pretty normal the first day. The next day I was invited to a party. I did notice that most things were blur when I looked at and some were double, didn’t pay much attention for the whole thing. Not that I improved but I just thought that all I need is sleep.

Thinking it could be a tumor

On the 10th of June I found it a bit difficult to walk in a straight manner, and on this very day my left leg was so weak that I couldn’t move it normally. Things stayed the same and all I heard from my Mom and Dad is you should get more sleep or this is malnutrition. And when my father saw me the way I used to walk ... maybe because all the symptoms I suffered from were Brain Tumor symptoms and he was scared and in denial. However around the 20th of June Baba took me for a C-T Scan and thank GOD everything was normal, it wasn’t what my dad and I thought, Brain Tumor.

On the day of my birthday I went again to a different doctor to check my eyes, and again he said that there was nothing wrong but advised us to go see a neurologist. I did go and he told me that there was definitely something wrong after examining me but couldn’t tell what it was until I went for an M.R.I. We did tell him that the C-T Scan shows no sign of a tumor, so it's not that and he answered “I hope not.”

Learning it was MS

I think this was the most depressing moment of my life when I didn’t know what to expect the next day, the unknown is always scary. However I did go to hospital and after the M.R.I it was obvious that I was a definite case of MS. I was in a state of shock and still just couldn’t believe that I had a disease that I had to live with for the rest of my life. Things were a bit not understandable for me. I remained silent, hurt from the inside, and this is so painful when you cannot cry, you are crying but your tears are inside, you’re bruised but a bruise that no one can see but you.

Time passed, I went to Tel-Aviv for a second opinion, and this trip was the longest trip of my life although it took a day. I was living on the hope that when I go there they’ll tell me that what they told me in Amman was bulls---, but unfortunately this didn’t happen. Afterwards I started the treatment, taking an injection once a week. And after a month I started taking a different kind of injection which is three times a week.

I've learned a lot in the process

After this experience, which is still not over and it might not be over ever, I did learn so many things. You start appreciating life more and you know who are the people who really do love you. I realized that the people who do love me are so few that I can count them using one hand, some people were so supportive and some said things that did make me feel so much worse. Not that I care, but sometimes I wonder how much I was cheated by thinking that such people were close to me. To sum up everything that happened, I was taught so much from this experience.

I know that I do suffer from a disease that had I not found out about it, I could’ve been in a wheelchair or disabled in some other way. I do face the fact that there are certain things that I used to do in the past but cannot do now. I did realize that I am the one who has MS and I must live with it. No one knows how much I suffer in all sorts of ways from this disease except myself, so I must make myself get used to the different way of life I lead now. In a way I do try to forget everything. But it does frequently all come back to me, and I feel I just cannot cope with this life long disease. I do have faith in GOD and in sha’a ALLAH one day they will find a cure, one-day.