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Show 64 "Did this all begin as weakness or stiffness?" he asks me and I am searching my memory trying to puzzle the reason why, one day and forever after, I could no longer walk fast or even moderately and running was impossible. But before I can answer, he is saying other things to the group. I do not interrupt. Then he turns back to riie: "You do not have MS and we will know in the morning whether you have Isaac's disease or stiff-man syndrome." And they leave. The ventilator is still whooshing and it is comforting to know that I have survived my first teaching hospital experience. I begin to breathe again. Isaac's disease? Stiff-man syndrome? It would require a medical lexicon to make any sense of those terms. I can see outside my window that it has begun to snow. The uncertainty of these odd terms makes me feel like winter within. I have gotten comfortable with MS. I know how to live with MS. I cannot even guess at Isaac's disease or stiff-man syndrome. A flock of birds flies too close to the window and I fear they will run into it and, stunned, fall three stories to their death. They pull away just in time and disappear into the storm. I was not aware that birds flew in snowstorms. It is becoming a blizzard and I pray that they will survive to find shelter soon. I pray that my roommate will not die tonight, invisible to me, five feet from me. I pray that I do not have a disease so politically incorrectly named "stiff-man syndrome." |