23 April 2009

Today has been a good day. I have now had three people tell me I should turn this into a book. It's strange because I only started writing it as a cathartic exercise for myself, then put it on here because I liked the format, and only very recently told friends and family about it. But I would be lying if I was to say that I'm not flattered, and I think I will take their advice.

I don't look much for books on MS - other than The Dummies Guide to MS and one or two others, but they're self-help books on living with the wretched condition. I don't know if there are books about experiences of real people and our feelings. I find it a little perverse that we all tend not to express our feelings very freely; with MS that's about all you have that continues to work very well.

Of course that's not true, as most of me works quite well indeed, but it's my words and my feelings which continue without limit. In my mind, I can run a marathon, leap giant buildings in a single bound. Or just walk down the road without a walking stick and without tripping over every wretched lump and bump that the local authority in their infinite wisdom sees fit not to repair.

My brain is unaffected by MS, or perhaps more accurately my mind is unaffected. Those dastardly plaques, I think they're called, on my brain clearly affect me in some way or other. The point I'm trying to make is that I am disabled, but not incapable of independent thought, original ideas, problem solving, as well as love, caring, compassion, pain, sorrow, frustration, joy, laughter, tears and a whole lexicon of nouns, verbs and adjectives.

If I was ever to lose any of those, which I might add, won't be due to the MS, I give my irrevocable consent to anyone who loves and cares about me to take me out and shoot me. For without those, I will truly be nothing.