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Sunday, May 20, 2018

Zombies

With the publication yesterday of Healthline's list of best MS blogs, I was reading through a number of entries from the various winners, feeling less and less 'alone' as I did so, more connected, more knowledgeable, more distinctly aware both mentally and emotionally. I am thankful for so many who are able to express themselves so well about the many facets of the disease and the many sides of dealing with the disease. Whether what is offered is information or encouragement or advice or simply companionship, it is most importantly all first-hand from people who know because they are there--and, moreover, because they are there, what they know is often what cannot be attained through any means other than hardship, disappointment, suffering. Three words came to mind over and over again. Perspective. Growth. Love.

Especially entertaining, as well as intellectually engaging, was an entry entitled "15 Years a Progressive MSer", from a blog called Wheelchair Kamikaze. Here, the author looks back on his years with progressive MS, and on his years before the diagnosis. He addresses the most essential challenges and questions that we all face in the quiet of our own particular prison cells, and he does so with razor-sharp intelligence, eloquence and, yes, humor. 

"Time and time again," the blogger writes, "you ask yourself and the universe, 'what’s the point?', until you finally realize that the real question is “what’s the point of asking what’s the point?” You decide that if there are any answers, they are beyond the scope of your comprehension, and then you turn on the latest episode of The Walking Dead and start asking the really important questions, like how in the world you would charge your electric wheelchair during a zombie apocalypse? And, if you were to become a zombie, would you suddenly be able to walk? Or would you be one of The Rolling Dead?

I must say that I found the author's sudden transition from suffering and searching where MS and our sad fate is concerned to the "really important questions" surrounding zombies and zombification absolutely delightful--for here is the sort of lively intelligence and active spirit that will not be locked away nor stifled nor compromised by any fate or disease, nor even by the self that suffers and regrets and questions and curses. And this is called Victory.

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