Just Keep Swimming

I have to admit that I have been feeling rather sorry for myself lately. The reality of my failing treatment and the daunting prospect of trying something new has left me feeling overwhelmed and uncharacteristically defeatist. With each painful step that I walk and each painful rep of my kettlebell workout I can’t help but think that it would be so much easier to just give up.

But of course I won’t give up; being active and keeping positive has been key to managing my condition thus far and to give up now would be irreversibly damaging. It’s hard to ignore the voice in my head though, the same scared voice I heard when I was first diagnosed. The emotions and thought processes are unnervingly familiar.

Thankfully, just as she was there for me in 2010, my fantastic nurse is here for me now. Never waivering in her patience she listened on the other end of the phone (Covid restrictions meant that I couldn’t see her face to face) while I rattled off a list of anxious questions that I probably already knew the answers to but needed to be reassured on. My nurse has always been amazing at easing my anxiety. She is straight-talking but in the most empathetic and friendly of ways and I’d have been lost without her this past decade.

I still await an appointment to talk through my treatment options with a consultant, but I’m feeling so much more positive about things now that I have had a chance to speak with my nurse. She advised me to focus on the fact that I am being offered an alternative, I still have options, which is something that not all MSers are fortunate enough to have. And so, I’m excited, or at least I’m trying my best to be excited. There is a chance that the next drug will transform my life in the same way that Tysabri transformed my life back in 2011.

I’ll be back on the treadmill and running marathons before you know it!