Battles

I'd like to think that multiple sclerosis doesn't have something personal against me. I hate it, but I'm pretty sure that we're not in a fight with each other. My relationship with MS is not a battle. I will not defeat it, just as it will not defeat me. It's a disease doing what it is programmed to do. To call it a fight or a battle or a struggle against some sort of oppressor is to make MS out to be some kind of third world dictator with a huge sense of entitlement and delusions of grandeur.

If (When) I get sick again it will not be because I didn't fight hard enough or because I did not think positively enough or because I didn't go to Poland for "Liberation" or because I didn't go gluten and fat free or any of the other 15 to 20 other "Cures" that have been presented to me in the past three years.

It will be because I have a disease that is programmed to disable me. To grant it human feelings or actions is to, in my opinion, make light of the seriousness of what MS can do to me.

You can't reason, negotiate or put MS into exile or eject it from the community. Doing what is suggested by my healthcare team and taking the daily injection from Big Pharma is not some kind of moral failing. It's working with the best that science has to offer right now for my level of disease progression.

To personalize it, for me, makes it seem as though I am some how responsible for never getting sick again and if I am left blind or disabled or unable to stay awake it is my own fault that I just didn't *Fight* hard enough.

That is more responsibility than I am willing to take on.

Your mileage may vary.