It was on the first day of December in 2021, one year one month ago, that I wrote my last notes on the blog - after a six-month-long silence. I was not sure whether that was a return, a 'back again' to writing in and on my days with the MS. Alas! So many turns in life means so little to write about. This is at least for me the case - I need time to write on the things that come to pass. That's why I can only take notes in my diaries. After a while, as there is some temporal and/or luckily spatial distance between the things to be told and the one to tell them I can pen them down in the way I'd like to narrate. What is life if you cannot manipulate it! 💃
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So many things happened; sad ones, saddening ones come to my mind first. I have lost a dear friend/colleague/feminist comrade/a member of our threesome storytellers group, the Sewing Machine, someone with whom I thought we would continue writing, laughing, talking, conversing many years ahead, someone whom you'd think keep your memories safe in case you happen to forget things... She was fast in many things; her passing happened to be fast, too - too soon... I am missing her everyday, she visits me in my dreams, there is this sorrow as those whose loved ones, close friends are no longer in this life would know.
Before my friend passed away after a one year long experience with a rare type of breast cancer my other comrade, 16,5 years old, Dört (4 in English) passed away due to chronic kidney disease complications. Losing a paw friend is always filled with so much pain, which is not easy to share - in case you are not with like-minded people who approach the non-human animals in similar manner.
I closed 2022 with the loss of my dear aunt on December 30. She was one of those unique human beings whose presence on this earth is a gift. I miss her, too, everyday.
2022 brought Potê to my life. This time a rescue dog, rescuing me without noticing what he is capable. Or perhaps he is far more ahead of me-the-human to know what to do, when to do, and how to do. He came to my life exactly a month after Dört said goodbye. That was pretty soon, I am still surprised with it. But in the case of human and non-human animal relations things are meant to be; almost futile to search for whys. The best thing is to learn and re-learn the hows. Now, as I am writing this I am seeing that my relation with MS is built more onto the hows, rather than the whys. And it is mostly this type of connecting to my body - now with MS - that keeps me going.
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2022 also brought in new medication. My neurologist and I decided that Aubagio has not been working on my body, or perhaps, my body did not like Aubagio so it insisted to give me additional symptoms earlier than expected. So we switched to Cladribin - I would have never guessed that once a cancer treatment might be now an MS one. Strange this med is it seems to have worked thus far.
I do not have to use it everyday. Only for four days in two months annually for two subsequent years. Then I am not supposed to use it for - if I am not wrong - four years.
It might have to do mainly by the med change, we might also add the new town by the seaside I am living in, and also the daily walks with Potê - I assume all these factors have helped me to move from 300-400 meters walk at most to around 1 km daily. From slow to rhythmic - and since it's with Potê not slow at all! Though I need some time to rest and get the energy back afterwards I cannot wait to go out walking everyday.
Walking - mostly the idea of walking - helps me to come to terms with fatigue and pain. I cannot make them disappear but I can make them silence a bit as I move my legs, not always in balance, well, actually mostly imbalanced :).
Yet that's it, I walk everyday by the seaside in a small town, familiar to storms, really strong ones; a town of waves and storms.
Seems that I am finally settling with my life with MS - if this is possible at all with such a playful company in my body.
