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Show 62 Part II Tie Teaching Hospital 1993-1995 Flying in a Blizzard My roommate on the other side of the curtain is on a ventilator and cannot speak to me. Nor to anyone else. Her only comment for all the world to hear is the continuous rhythmic whooshing of the ventilator, assuring me that she is indeed still alive. Technically, at least. They have brought me to this teaching hospital from the smaller hospital down-state because of my new doctor's intuition: "This cannot be MS." Multiple sclerosis. I have been diagnosed with MS for ten years. I have gone to groups for support, learned to pace myself, forbidden myself any more children, and purchased a second classic black lightweight wheelchair for those terribly self-conscious trips to the mall. But lately, in spite of the medication from the pump, the spasticity has gone out of control. My whole body is now involved, whereas it only used to be just my legs. And I startle quite abnormally. "This cannot be MS," my new doctor, Dr. Chappie, told me. She is an anesthesiologist and a pain management specialist who is monitoring the intrathecal Baclofen pump surgically placed in my |