Sure, too many hours in the sun will turn us the shade of boiled shellfish, a box of color will turn our hair from brown to blond (and beyond), and surely the holiday season will add a couple of pounds around the midsection. But most of the changes to our outward appearance come slowly, over time.
Even MS Usually Changes Us Gradually
Like age, multiple sclerosis (MS) plays the long game as it changes our bodies. It just plays it faster than aging does. I’ve had exacerbations that have moved my abilities further down the Expanded Disability Status Scale, but time and corticosteroids have moved them back again — sometimes, and to some extent. But in general, we find ourselves growing begrudgingly accustomed the new normal and just get on with it … until we take a hard look in the mirror.
We May Need to Look Closely to See Who We Were, and Still Are
There is a touching scene in the 1991 Steven Spielberg film Hook that came to mind the other day, as I shaved my winter beard. I sheared and shaved six months of hair, which was far whiter than I’d expected, from my chin and cheeks in front of the bathroom mirror. Usually I shave in the shower. For this evolution, however, keen attention to my reflection was required as I applied lather and removed it with sharpened steel. It was as I went back over my face a second, more exacting time that I saw not the autumnal me of August when I began growing the beard, but a springtime face that had advanced half a year. We have all glanced at a looking glass to straighten our tie or make sure that our jeans didn’t make our butt look too big. You might even look more closely when applying makeup or searching for an errant lash stuck in your eye. But we seldom really look and see who is looking back. My face and frame have been changed by age and my neurological disease. The progressive nature of both have nibbled at the physical aspects of my “self.” I won’t say that they haven’t each had a bite or two of the emotional and cognitive “me” as well. MS has changed me in almost all aspects of my life. Age has too, but in a more predictable way, I suppose — one we have likely come to expect (if not wholly accept). But just as one of the Lost Boys, Pockets, knew as he stretched and plied Robin Williams’s very grown-up face until he could see him as his younger self, Peter Pan (“Oh, there you are, Peter!”) — somewhere in there, it’s still me.
I’m Different Because of Age and MS, but I’m Still Me
I have less hair on top (and, oddly, more hair in other places), I move more slowly, and I am diminished bodily in a way that age wouldn’t have done for at least two more decades. I have had to stop doing things I loved (and know I would still love to do) and started doing other things that I’d rather were not required of me. I have experienced much I’d not anticipated and remain naive to some things I should have already done. MS (and age) have shaped me into a different person than I would have been or thought I would be … and maybe than I could have been. But when I look — really look — I’m still in there. For all the difficulties, trials, and failures, for all the stumbles, falls, and times I couldn’t get back up to where I had been before. For all that I’ve been bruised and bent and sometimes, in some places, even a little broken. For all that, and all that … I’m still in here. And “you” are still in you. Wishing you and your family the best of health. Cheers, Trevis
