As you’ve likely guessed, that old guy that I see now and again is my own reflection walking along with me and suddenly visible in the occasional shop window or glass door. He’s not the me I think I am. He’s not the Trevis I thought I was projecting into the world around me. More likely than not, however, he’s probably the me that everyone around me has grown used to recognizing as the me into which this body and mind of mine have devolved.
I Know That Age and MS Have Changed My Body
Age and multiple sclerosis (MS) have both had a hand in that progression. I have a theoretical knowledge of what MS is doing to my body. But the practical side of that understanding is something I usually avoid. I glance away and pretend that it’s not me in the window. That it’s not me who walks like a man who got started in life a couple of decades ahead of me. There have been plenty of incidences of independent confirmation of these physical effects. My physiotherapist is often wont to point out things like the state of my left (most affected) leg relative to my stronger right side. The size and number of bright spots on my MRI from one scan to the next are as obvious (and ominous) a representation of my personal journey with the disease as any.
I Was Still Taken by Surprise by the Appearance of My Legs
Still, I was caught up short one recent morning when my legs refused to move off the bed at the same pace as the rest of me. The combination of the angles of both the spring sunlight and my twisted appendages, compounded by the surprise of the physical and visual, brought the weight of all that avoidance crashing down at once. I could see the atrophy of muscle the physio was talking about. I could feel one half of the twisted tableau more than the other … much more. My legs looked like those unresponsive limbs I had seen cradled under strong arms as they were transferred from one assistive device to another by a healthcare assistant or hospital porter. I looked down at my legs that morning, and I saw legs I didn’t recognize as my own, the same way I don’t recognize the old man walking in the windows next to me. I didn’t recognize them, but I knew they were mine. I knew it, and I was sad for knowing it.
There’s an Unavoidable Sadness That Comes With Those Changes
Of course I know that my legs (or any one part of me) isn’t me. Not the whole me, at least. I am head and heart, intellect and education. I am the sum of my parts plus a little extra thrown in there for spite. I’m fine … really. But sometimes — the times when I see from the outside what I’ve grown used to experiencing from the inside — it makes me stop and it makes me sad. Only a little bit, and only for a little while, but it makes me sad. Then, like on the morning in question, I figure out a way to untangle the physical and emotional and get on with the getting on. There is no sense in dwelling on it for longer than a few moments or minutes. It does, I find, help in the long run to remember those times when I am surprised by my progression. It makes the time spent on the sadness much shorter the next time. And there always seems to be a next time. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
