Original Posting: 10/19/2016

I can not remember the date for sure, but I believe that I had the doctor’s appointment confirming my diagnosis one year ago today. What a difference a year makes.

Last year, I had just told my mother about the health problems that I had been experiencing for the last two years, unbeknownst to her, and that I was in the process of confirming that I had MS. I only told her because she would be here, watching our boys, during the appointment. Rather than sending three of our boys to camps during their two and one-half week fall break, the cost of which equaled our mortgage payment, I decided to fund my mother’s annual trip. She would get to save money, as she was on year 2 of retirement with limited funds, and we would save on child care. “Be back late today, because I may have MS. Bye!” did not seem like an appropriate parting conversation the morning after her arrival. So, I initiated the conversation the week prior as a way to prepare for this day.

This year, my mother had passed on, only six months after the initial conversation, and I still feel the aftershocks manifested in an increase in anxiety and paranoia about my own mortality and dis-ease progression. My general personality was formed based on the brick and mortar of PTSD resultant of a sexual assault I experienced at age four. What others knew as “symptoms” were the founding principles of my known world; therefore, despite my cheery optimism and mind-over-matter mantras, anxiety and fear sat on my shoulders as my constant companions. My oldest and dearest friends.

And they were with me last Friday, in the MRI chamber for my annual scans of my head, neck, and spine, with and without contrast, as I meditated my way with varying levels of success throughout the 90 plus minutes I was in the tube, head caged still, listening to the clangs, bongs, and pings of the surrounding magnet, while imagining that I was hearing the voice of the Universe. A private conversation with the stars.

During last year’s MRIs, I felt excitement! Finally, I would know what was happening with my brain. This year, I had a hard time ignoring childhood my friends: What if the lesions had progressed into other regions of my brain? My spine? What if all of the diet-health-wellness modifications I had made this past year were for naught? What if the answer was really matter-over-mind? What if I actually had no control over my health? What if I was destined to die in only twenty years, in my 60s, like my mother, biological father, and paternal grandparents? Or at least be confined to a wheelchair? This year, I was scared.

But only for minutes. I let myself experience the panic, fear, and every resultant emotion in the chamber as I envisioned the magnets surrounding me, pulling the emotions out like a Beifong, and transmuting their negativity into a healing, violent, vibrating light, released back into the Universe as loving light.

And so it was.

This morning, when I saw I had missed a call from the neurologist, my handsome, sandal-clad husband quickly came to my office to await the news as I repeated my date of birth and the spelling of Tinkle as I returned the call. Recognizing the look in his eye, I reassured him that the call would be good news, since the medical assistant called with the results rather than the doctor himself, as I listened to the Muzak version of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” through my cellphone.

“Keziah, the doctor wanted us to call and let you know that we got your scans in and that you had no changes. No new lesions,” chirped the assistant.

“No changes,” I repeated with a smile, saying the words aloud for my husband’s benefit rather than my own. Unbeknownst to her, there were so many changes that made this lack of one possible.

#alternativetreatments #ms #mri #aubagio