Deterioration

Realizing that I had to live with the diagnosis of MS I endured all difficulties of my state. I tried to pull myself together and hid carefully from the family those states taking place inside of me. It was hard to do something around the house, but I desperately wanted to run the household, however, I also wished to live alone but I was afraid to be left. When they tried to help me, I felt angry with anyone considering me weak.

I got nervous most of all because of the huge desire to keep the house and no possibility to do it, despite the relatively healthy appearance. I often forced myself to remain silent and not to join any conversations so that my relatives would not feel my nervousness and irritability. Any way, it was impossible not to notice my annoyance, as I pouted and frowned all the time. My family had to take my behavior patiently.

It seemed to me a real torture to dry my long hair with a dryer. It gat so unbearably hot and stuffy that several times I considered cutting my hair off. But as Seraphim liked to hide in them, I decided not to make a short haircut.

However, my beloved man did not know all of my worries, until reading this book, since I had carefully tried to hide them. I understood that physical illnesses do not bring so much suffering. At least, people with MS can tolerate it. But if there is no place for patience and balance in the inner feelings — that’s what can break one’s life significantly.

On July 25, I felt catastrophically unwell. My mood changed every five minutes, I started to choke, there was not enough air, even outside. Having got over a few steps, I started to sweat and waver from side to side.

Then I had acquired a peculiar notion of the new state. Namely, the clear picture that not only my body existed, but there also was me as a ghost, in a frail shell I wanted to leave. I described my new, extremely unpleasant state, as «to leave the body». It had nothing to do with desire to commit suicide. I described it as «to leave the body», that is, literally, to step forward and be free from the sick body, but next to my family. That was a so clearly felt state that it could not be taken for anything else. That was why such an exact definition helped me in the future.

That special sense reminded me at once of a phone call of an anxious man in the doctor’s consulting room and his cry «I am dying!» That was exactly the way I also was dying staying alive, with all the same symptoms.

In the afternoon, we went for a walk together with Sasha and our little son. Seraphim continually asked me to take him in my arms, and I had only two options — to carry my baby or listen to his indignation, both seemed hardly possible to me.

I took my son in my arms. I was able to carry him quite a bit and sat down to have a rest. Sasha, looking at my fatigue, started a moving conversation:
«Baby, how are you going to live? How are we going to live further? We see that you feel very bad, and we worry about your health».

I tried to find an explanation:
«Darling, you know, it is a disease, and this happens to many people with the same diagnosis». And then, I carried Seraphim in my arms and he is not that light.
«My love, this can happen to those who has been ill for years, but you were diagnosed quiet recently, and you are fading right before our eyes! Maybe we should start injections of the special medicine prescribed by Victor Petrovich?»

I convincingly answered:
«No. In the hospital, I saw women who took the special medicine and looking at their state of health I got the impression that the disease takes its course, despite regular injections of special medicines: year after year they feel worse. We need to look for something different».