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Trina King does not like to talk about the future. Preferring to live in the present is not something that concerns her.
The 43-year-old Reidville woman was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2011 after a year of symptoms originally described as anxiety.
Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord) and it is estimated that about one in 385 Canadians lives with the disease, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. To date, there is no cure.
Needless to say, long-term retirement thoughts and days off are not King's concerns.
This does not mean that it does not end up in the future. This happens – as it happens to us all – the only difference being that King's reality quickly brings it back to the present.
The disease pulls her back. It's that voice behind his head that does not stop whispering long enough to let you think. It's always there.
Instead, she chooses to live her best life in the present. Things that may have already disturbed her are just trivial objects.
She does not take things for granted and always looks on the whole.
King recently recounted the story of his illness diagnosis in the collection of poems, news, and essays of Page One Digest Volume 2. The book, launched Oct. 20 at Deer Lake, contains more than two dozen writers of the West Coast.
Her essay is a detailed account of what she experienced before her diagnosis, her diagnosis and her state of mind after learning that she had developed MS.
"I felt that I wanted to put something on paper and … I wanted to give people a bit of hope," King said. "I wanted to tell my story."
The test travels in capsules, pbading from one part of his experience to another en route to diagnosis. We see her advancing in discussions about her symptoms, about what a doctor initially thought of what she was experiencing, telling her family and how she chose to live her life now.
His symptoms came and went away for a year. They manifested themselves in different ways.
First of all, they came as hand tremors. A year later, she had had episodes when she woke up and where one side of her face felt like being electrocuted by a feeling of cold or her legs would miss a step while walking. Then there was the confused speech. She would open her mouth to speak but the words would come out like gibberish, as if she drank a lot.
She did not believe at first. The doctors she talked to thought that she was suffering from anxiety and there was a pill that could take care of what she was experiencing.
King did not think that was true.
It is only by narrowly avoiding a fall in the hot stove while cooking in her kitchen – and during the subsequent visit to the doctor – that she was diagnosed with MS.
We can not claim to know what each day will bring. Trying to understand it only causes headaches and increased stress.
A brief conversation was enough to change King's way of life, but that's all we can do next.
Once this change has taken place, the only thing that matters is to accept that this new path is the one you have to go through.
As much as we would like to try, we can not go back. There are no do-overs or timeouts. Life does not allow it.
King's story in advancing is one of heartbreak of love, acceptance, and affirmation of wanting to make things better.
It should be considered as a source of inspiration for others who are living the same thing. She too was lost, but found her way.
King has since learned to cope with the disease.
She avoids the bad news of MS. She knows what could happen and does not need to remind him.
She started attending support groups and physiotherapy. Her mental health has improved and she refuses to see it as the death penalty that others might consider as.
"Life is at best unpredictable for all of us. I do not take any day for granted. This life that I had was my trip. I will go through it as God wills, "she wrote in the essay. "Now, let's move on to the next chapter."
The course of this chapter is still unknown.
King does not read in advance. She just takes the story as she comes.
Nicholas Mercer is the online publisher of The Western Star. He lives in Corner Brook and can be reached at [email protected].
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