Izabela Odrobisnka

One day I woke up with terrible headache. Something happened with my left eye. There was a deep fog in it. I had some time before work, enough to go to the doctor. Ophthalmologist examined my eyes without any word. After some minutes he immediately sent me to hospital. To say the truth, I was not able to believe that I should have to go to hospital. Why? What for? Ok, everybody can be ill, but me? Because of an eye? Impossible. A piece of paper with the strange words “optic neuritis” was put in my calendar and I decided to go back to the newspaper.

Next day I was worse. The fog in my eye became deeper. The headache was stronger.
- Ok, I will go to the hospital. The decision was not easy for me.
- But only for few days.

It was Friday 4th December 1997. I left hospital two months later. My left eye was completely blind, right – semi blind, something happened with my ears, I was not able to hear some sounds, something happened with vertigo, I feel like somebody on merry –go-round.

That was the first attack of MS, a really acute attack. Next year I lost more and more, step by step: my hands became weaker, my legs stopped walking. Neurologists were completely helpless. They did everything they could, but there was nothing to do.

I did not know what to do either. Before diagnosis I had worked as a journalist, I traveled a lot from Near East to Balkans. That was me to help others. Now – I was not able even to go out from my own home. I was not able to read, to listen to music, even to understand what people were talking or to recognize well known faces. Everybody and everything was like on the other side of the wall.

What happened next? What happened with me? About 7 years later I got the Wolfensohn Award for International Person with MS. What happened with me after in this period?

To say the true: - nothing. I stayed at home. I did not even wait for a better time, I did not even think about the future. I tried not to think at all. I tried to sleep all the time, because in this moment, in deep dream I was like before diagnosis: free from MS. Medicines helped me to sleep longer, even all day. I was not able to work as a reporter so I lost my job. One day my husband said that he did not want to be a nurse; he wanted to start a new life, life without MS… I had not such a choice. The only choice was to end my life and I tried to do this. Even that – without success.

That was like a bad dream. Of course, I woke up from this dream, but that didn’t happen one day. That was a kind of process. Step by step I tried to do something. Even wash myself, even drink a morning coffee. I found out that in MS time has different measure and taste. Our – MS time goes on very quickly, we can feel this in our body: in our legs, hands. We – PwMS use to taste our time, taste every morning coffee. I found out also that there is not so much things impossible to do. The problem is that we use to do everything in the one well-known way. In fact we should ask ourselves new questions: how to do it now?

Every day I asked myself this question. And one day, I don’t know when and why, I went to the Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind. Next – I found the Centre for Ear Aids. One day I came to the Polish MS Society and I started to do something for others. As my father used to say: You are never completely alone. In every moment of your life you can do or give something to the others. You can give time, you can give a smile...
Now I use not only special aids for blinds, ear aids but also a wheelchair. But – I also finished a postgraduate diploma in social psychology at the University of Warsaw. I still work as a journalist; and I manage the Polish MS Society… I am not alone, my home is full of friends.

I have MS, but MS has not me.