"Me, Warlock, and the Mushy Cloud Formerly Known as My Brain"

So, picture this: I’m staring at my latest MRI, and what do I see? A delightful grey mush, like someone dumped a cumulus cloud into my skull and said, “There — best of luck.” Not a brain so much as a haunted fog machine on the fritz. The consultant just looked at me, that classic NHS stare — part clinical, part bewildered awe — and said, “I genuinely don’t know how you’re still functioning.” Cheers, doc. Real vote of confidence, that.

Let me tell you, the damage isn’t exactly localised. It’s like MS threw a party in my central nervous system and invited the entire cast of The Exorcist. Corpus callosum? Fracked. Spine? Swiss cheese. Bowels? Shall we say… unpredictable. Heart? Oh, now that’s the fun bit — apparently Warlock (that’s my MS, in case you’re new here) decided to throw in a few heart attacks just to keep things lively. Four so far. Three I stayed home for, because what’s the NHS going to do, offer me tea and a waiting list? The fourth landed me in hospital. Frankly, I wish I’d stayed in bed.

Not that the staff weren’t brilliant. They were — heroic, overstretched, masked-up angels during that delightful viral apocalypse we all lived through. But I came home… different. Breathing like Darth Vader in a heatwave, heart working at 60% capacity, kidneys sulking, and — oh, cherry on top — they found a tumour on my spine. Thankfully not the nasty sort, but still, another surprise guest in this body of horrors.

That was about seven years ago, I think. Time’s a blur when your memory’s patchy and reality feels like a badly written sitcom. I stopped going to the doctors after that. They didn’t get it. Didn’t get me. Kept staring at the clipboard like it might contain answers. It didn’t. The only thing worse than being ill is being misunderstood while ill — feeling like death, terrified, stressed out of your gourd, and being told, “There’s nothing more we can do.” You know what that does to a person?

Panic. Raw, soul-rattling, scream-into-the-pillow panic. Ever wanted to die just so the pain would stop? I have. Ever lived through that every day without a break? Welcome to the fracking carnival.

I’m already eccentric — now I’m full-on arcane. Friends? Gone. Either dead, or ran the second I said “diagnosis.” Couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle me. Pity, really. I had a lot to give. Still do. But when you’re this far off the map, people stop visiting.

I don’t trust anyone anymore. Life’s become one long stress fracture. I’ve got knowledge in my bones, wisdom hard-won from staring death down while sitting in a mobility scooter with a wonky wheel — and no one to pass it to. That’s the real tragedy. When your gifts have nowhere to go, no one to receive them.

This is part rant. Part confession. Part battle cry.

This is me.

Still here. Still kicking (even if my legs don't always agree). Still making jokes in the dark because it’s the only light I’ve got.

And Warlock? He can frack right off — I’m not done yet.

looking to buy a second hand q100 wheelcair or similar in the devon cornwall area as mine has gone completely to the breakers yard in the sky. sick@mylivinghell.co.uk

       “The views in this post are based on my personal  
          experience. I do not intend harm, only honesty.”