A very dear friend sent "Feeling Numb," my essay about MS, to her brother, who is in his early forties and who was recently diagnosed with MS. Today she relayed his response, which I received permission from him to publish here. If you know anyone with MS, you might want to mention this post as his words capture so much of the confusion and psychic pain of debilitating illness:
I just got the courage up today to read the rest of this. I started to read it when you sent it, but after a few paragraphs it hit too hard to continue. It is quite remarkable how accurate her symbolism and descriptive prose is for this "thing." It's so much different than any other disease in that it is not likely to kill you. Instead, and in some ways more horrific than death's cold embrace, it will move about and mutate like dozens of mini-demons poking around inside of you. One day in the electric jolt down your spine, the next in the simplicity of numbness, and the next in the mental and physical exhaustion from completing some "arduous" task - like walking 20 feet.
I think I have 1 book and one epic poem in me. Someday I would love for a chapter in my book of life to allow for them to be written. We shall see. One is on my life and the other is on MS. The working titles of these two projects are: "The Sins of the Mother" and "The Real Theory of Relativity: How I used to think that having a numb penis was bad until I shit my pants."
