My Life With MS

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.

I started noticing things but still brushed it off...until I couldn't

The next day I was invited to a party. I did notice that most things were blurred when I looked at and some were double, didn’t pay much attention to the whole thing not that I improved, but I just thought that all I need is sleep. 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 are you should get more sleep or this is malnutrition. When my father saw me the way I used to walk he used to have a go at me. Maybe because all the symptoms I suffered from were Brain Tumor symptoms, and he was scared and in denial.

Finally a neurologist told me it was MS

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 MRI. We did tell him that the C-T Scan showed no sign of a tumor, so it's not that, and he answered “I hope not.” I think this was the most depressing moment of my life when I didn’t know what to expect. The unknown is always scary. However, I did go to the hospital and after the MRI it was obvious that I was a definite case of MS.

I was in a state of shock

I 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 bullshit but unfortunately this didn’t happen.

What I have learned so far

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. 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 wheel chair 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.