Summer 2015, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh
“No, it’s not cancer.” My body begins to relax at the young and energetic doctor’s words. Not cancer. The sight loss, paralysis, memory gaps . . . It’s not what I most feared. My husband is sitting next to me in another grotty plastic visitors’ chair. He shoots me a look of triumphant relief.
Our jubilation is short-lived.
“It is multiple sclerosis.” She knocks the wind out of my lungs, takes a diagnostic sledgehammer to me.
Are you sure?
“Multiple Sclerosis? Are you sure?” I’m gasping, hoping, stupidly, for a reprieve.
“Yes, ‘fraid so, quite sure. The scan reveals lesions in several parts of your brain.”
“Um, what is a lesion?” This feels weird, talking about my brain like it’s nothing to do with me.
What’s a lesion?
“An area of abnormal or damaged tissue.”
Abnormal? Damaged?
But the years continue to pass and some of the illness’s worst ravages heal, at least in part. My eyesight comes back; my memory improves. I can again stand up unaided. Sit-to-stand gets better too. But the damned lesions have done their damage. I can’t walk without clinging onto my orange zimmer frame. Putting on weight, I feel unattractive and worry that my husband, who still looks good, has a job, his wits, walks unaided, might leave me. He tells me to stop worrying; I can’t.
At some expense, we install a stair climber machine. My husband buys risers for our bed as well as for every sofa and chair in the house, to make it easier for me to get up from them. Whenever he’s out, I wear a device to summon emergency help if I fall or get stuck somewhere. Like on the loo. Or in the shower. I spend hours and hours sleeping, or thinking too much about the old days of foreign adventures and fun as a reporter. I’m still only 57.
Nasty side effects
When we do leave the house, it’s usually for medical appointments.
Anti-depressants help me stay reasonably cheerful, though the side effects are grim.
My memory’s too shaky for me to go back to work as a journalist. But I’m learning to write fiction, a long-held dream. I’ve done an MLitt in creative writing since (or despite) my diagnosis and a two-page travel story for a Scottish newspaper about travelling with the illness. It meant getting to visit a luxury resort on a Greek island for two weeks gratis.
Getting sick isn’t what anyone ever expects or wants in their lives. But I’m slowly – very slowly – learning to make my peace with the illness, though I still struggle on a daily basis.
Helen Fowler Writer 