Falling in Love with Multiple Sclerosis
A personal reflection on loving my partner and her disease
Aloha had already been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis when I told her I wanted to be her boyfriend. It was 2013. I was 26 and she was 29. She looked healthy, so that, I guess, made it easier for me to say I wanted to be with her.
I knew Multiple Sclerosis was as bad as it sounds though.
It’s a disease that doesn’t cause one problem. It causes multiple: fatigue, numbness, difficulty walking, muscle weakness, tremors, blurred vision, pain, speech impairment — it could affect anything that’s controlled by the nervous system. There’s no cure for it and it can get worse over time. It’s a nasty disease.
“So, are you sure you want to be with me?” Aloha asked me. “I’m sick. You know that, don’t you?”
I was 100% sure. Aloha got my heart with her drawings, open-mindedness and sense of humour. The ugliness of her disease couldn’t stand a chance against the beauty of her soul. I adored her boobs too.
I didn’t care about what her immune system was up to and was not afraid that one day I might be pushing her into a wheelchair. In fact, I thought one day *I* could end up in a wheelchair. There are a million ways for that to…
