I was standing at the drinks’ cabinet the last evening. Into a favorite Italian glass (with a line at the halfway mark, above which is etched the word “ottimista” and below “pessimista”) I’d just dropped three dashes of bitters (it was a night for a pink gin) when, presto chango, the glass was 8 feet away from me, on the floor, and in dozens of pieces.
What Magic Is This?
Between reduced strength, fine motor impairment, and tremor of intent thrown in for good measure, the glass had — faster than the eye can see — slipped, slid, tipped, and been batted across the room before my mouth could even form the beginnings of an expletive. It’s not the first time one object or another has slipped or flipped from my grasp. I have to say, though, this one had style. RELATED: MS Is Making Me Lose My Grip After the sweeping and swabbing to clean up the sticky shards, I decided to forego another attempt. By the time the broken glass was in the broken-glass bin (a requirement for every household in which someone has multiple sclerosis, I would surmise) I was laughing at the absurdity of it all. The MS magician had struck again.
Behold the Power of the MS Magician
This conjurer is not of the children’s birthday party, top-hat variety or of the Las Vegas illusionist ilk. The MS Magician is more of the “And I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids … ” Saturday-morning-cartoon-of-my-youth evil magician. He hides things in plain sight and makes words disappear from the tip of my tongue. While I’m focused on my hands, he swipes the floor from beneath my feet. Some days it even feels like he’s put me in some sort of a trance. I could really do without that cog-fog trick of his. With the deftness of a Hollywood B-movie voodoo practitioner, he sticks pins in me from afar. Showing me he has nothing up his sleeves, he plucks away one ability of mine or another like a street performer snatching someone’s watch. With a wave of his evil wand, I find myself levitating above my body — seeing it as the broken shell he’s transformed it into. RELATED: MS Restricts My Ability to Maneuver
Laugh? Cry? Resist?
Sometimes this magic makes me laugh. Most of the time, it’s the nervous titter of an audience volunteer plucked from his seat and not knowing what’s next. But sometimes I simply roar at the absurdity of the trick and have to give credit when even I am surprised by the legerdemain. And we’ll not even begin to think of how many “potions” I’ve had to endure at the hands of the MS magician … I wish there was some way to turn this metaphor around to close this post. I really do. The fact is that it’s not magic that MS performs on my body. It’s no illusion. I suppose the only counter to this dark sorcery is to focus on the light. To know that MS only has powers over my physical (okay, and sometimes my intellectual) self. But it can only toy with my sense of self and the real person inside this broken shell if I hand it over. My job is to make sure his spells never reach that far. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
