# â€œAbandon all hope ye who enter hereâ€ (1 Viewer)



## RoundEye (Aug 20, 2010)

*“Abandon all hope ye who enter here”*

Yes, I’m reading Dante’s _Inferno_ again, the first time I read it was about 25 years ago and that was long before the Internet and I could research matters easily. You see that saying at the start of almost every haunted house during Halloween. I didn’t know that the first time it was in print could be credited to Dante.

Most of my reading has been non-fiction relating to electronics and computers. It’s going to take me awhile to read because of optic neuritis flair-ups caused by my MS, so I’m sure I’ll be “talking” or asking about it again. I may have to start listening to audio books soon because that ON causes everything to shake. So much so that my doctor and family forbid me from driving. I don’t talk about my multiple sclerosis much but since I’m on that topic, there is no aspect of life this disease hasn’t touched, not _one_. I think what ya’ll may be witness to is a man’s slow decline into insanity. I do have brain damage after all. I appear normal here in text but if you seen me on the street walking with my walker, you’d be well aware I have problems. Yes that’s with a ‘S’, it’s plural, I have many problems. I have abandoned all hope of living a normal life which I once had. Having a nerve disorder is rough, like having any incurable illness is a party. My own body is eating my nerve shield called myelin. There’s no telling what part of me is going next, anything my brain controls is liable to go, *POOF*, it’s gone. One guy lost his taste buds, he said anything he eats taste like oranges now. 

When you have it rough look for somebody that has it worse, you’ll feel better. The problem is my list of “people who have it worse” has gotten much smaller.

That’s enough of me ranting and raving for now.


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## Eluixa (Aug 20, 2010)

I'd be really upset if I could not read well. That blows. Parts of me are not working so well either and it can really get depressing and I empathise. The human spirit is greater by far than the human body though. I have hope.


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## Bruno Spatola (Aug 20, 2010)

I hear you man. I have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and it's a pain in the ass. When you go from thinking you're a normal kid, to being told you have a wasting disease, of which the vast majority of sufferers become paralyzed and die before they hit 20, and your whole family knew except you...what can I say, it's a kick in the testis. But here I am, 18 years old, and still sticking two fingers up at the horseman in macabre garb. Keep writing and keep fighting, no matter how hard it is. Nothing will make it go away, but you can still tell it to f*** off.


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## Fox80 (Aug 20, 2010)

RoundEye, I'm sorry. I also suffer from brain damage; I was airlifted to Albuquerque following an accident. My brain pan filled up with blood and they were debating whether or not to saw my skull open. They didn't. My short-term memory was almost completely destroyed. I can't remember anything but faces and numbers; I could not tell you what I ate for breakfast.

And my sister has MS. Just thinking about her makes me so sad


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## RoundEye (Aug 21, 2010)

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to piss and moan. Getting sick has spun my mental compass in a big way. I’m j just really down right now. Now I understand why the suicide rate jumps up to 25% for people with MS. I’m in no danger of offing myself, so don’t worry about that.  I’ve just become a shut-in. No contact with the outside world except Forums like this. Maybe I could write about MS some, the MS people publish a story by a guest author with MS now and then. I’d have to tone down my writing some, they’d flip out if I sent them one of my story’s, they’re a very Christian organization.

I asked the doctor’s if my creativity would come back and I get mixed replies. I haven’t written any type of story since I found out I was sick, a little over a year ago. I’ve had some major writer’s block. I don’t know if being sick has caused it, or if it has been caused by the lack of inspiration since I no longer get out the house. I bet I haven’t been out my front door in almost a month.

My head had been tweaked and I don’t know how to recover from it. I just don’t know what to do. I found out I had MS right about the time I decided to become a writer. I felt my health sliding away before I knew about the MS. I’ve said this before but due to more than one motorcycle accident I’ve had five major orthopedic surgeries, eighteen pieces of metal put into me and ten taken out, and a bone graft in my neck. Now this MS too? People like to say God doesn’t give us more then we can handle. Well I’m done. I’m tired of fighting for every second of my life. I just don’t know what I’m going to do anymore.


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## Bruno Spatola (Aug 21, 2010)

There's nothing I can say because I don't have MS, but having a terminal illness makes a lot of people hermits. I hadn't left my house in three years at one point, because I felt the world had nothing to offer me anymore. I felt like I'd been abandoned by something that wasn't there.

Three years ago I didn't even know I had MD, and I was a very different person. My condition made me who I am today, it woke up my creativity but it was at a high price. Sometimes it gets really bad, I've been there. 

Looking up stuff about your condition on the internet until the early hours, fretting. Sitting on your bed and just staring at the wall for long periods of time, thinking about death. It consumes you. I feel like I'm moaning when I say this stuff too, but I'm not. We have feelings, and when it hurts, you have to talk about it.

Maybe you should just write how you're feeling, like you are now. It hurts but it helps. Dante's Inferno is a great book to relieve stress in my opinion, so that's some good reading.


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 21, 2010)

I have always stayed away from the Wegener's forums, I felt it was bad enough having it without talking about it. I decided that the only difference is that I have a fair idea how I will die, so what? everybody is going to (going on past evidence at least), and a lot of those who look at me and think "Oh dear" will be dead before I am, road traffic accidents account for around three thousand a year just in this country. Look at it this way Toby, we are lucky to have survived this long, two of my motor cycle accidents, an accident with boiling water , my present condition and a couple of serious diseases would all have probably killed me even a century ago, medical science has advanced that far. So this is bonus time, even if it is limited, and I am d***ed if I am going to waste it, I have a woman and children to spend it on for a start, how lucky is that!!
 Not getting out the front door is bad Toby, outside changes your whole perspective of the world, you don't have to go mad, a chair on the porch, or get someone to drive you to the park and sit on a bench if you are not up to walking, but winter is coming and opportunities will get less, so make the effort now, don't waste your time or lose what you have got, nobody loves a sad, useless bum for long but someone who makes the effort, no matter how hard it gets, will always be a hero.


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## caelum (Aug 21, 2010)

You guys are pretty inspiring.  I have my demons that I wrestle with, that debilitate my life somewhat, but I'm thankful I've never had anything physically wrong.  My little brother, on the other hand, has had cerebral palsy since birth, and has always used a wheelchair.  He takes a lot of care, and must miss out on a lot of experiences, but he has so much joy and happiness despite it all that it makes me feel like a schmuck when I'm down about my paltry issues.


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 21, 2010)

Some ways being depressed about "paltry things" is harder, caelum. The depression is just as real but other people are unsympathetic, at least people are understanding if you have what they think is a "good" reason.


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## The Backward OX (Aug 21, 2010)

It all makes being a naïve and socially inept schmuck such as I am rather insignificant.


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 21, 2010)

Insignificant! You! in your own opinion! ROFL


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## garza (Aug 21, 2010)

I had a good friend some years ago with MS. He was in some sort of project which depended on house-bound people to test new computers and peripherals. The people running the project would send him the hardware and he would use it, then write a report on its performace. I remember one day he showed me a device about the size of two cd rom drives stacked one on top of the other and told me it was a 300 megabyte hard drive. I didn't believe him. Nonsense. You can't get 300 megabytes onto a disc that will fit in that box. At the time the biggest hard drives commonly available were ten megabyte, with six more common, though IBM had built a drive with 30 tracks holding a total of 30 megabytes which was nicknamed the Winchester for its in-house model designation 30-30. Anyroad I watched as my friend cabled up the new drive, booted up the computer, and sure enough the drive was listed with 300 megabytes, minus a few for housekeeping. That was somewhere in the '80s. 

Unfortunately advances in treatment for MS and related conditions have not been as spectacular as the advances we've seen in electronic technology. There's been progress, good progress, but not enough. Hopefully more will follow, and hopefully that exponential curve that seems to guide technological advancement will start to work in medical research.


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## The Backward OX (Aug 22, 2010)

Most of you will remember Candrah. She has a form of Retinitis Pigmentosa, and she’d said quite a few times that it was untreatable and that she’d be blind by the time she was fifty. Just a few months ago I heard of a treatment, developed here in Australia, by which the condition can now be cured, and passed on the good news.


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 23, 2010)

I have a friend who is a "Dead-head", he collects bootlegs of Grateful dead, his hard drives run into multiples of gigabytes.
The wegeners I suffer from killed in months forty years ago.


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## KangTheMad (Aug 23, 2010)

I never knew how bad MS could get. I've never known, or even seen anyone with it. Your posts have opened my eyes, I remember when you were a bad-ass biker guy with a creative streak. Damn. 

I've yet to read _Dante's Inferno_, is it any good?


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

Well I popped, when I say I popped I mean I shed a tear. As long as I been sick, it was the first time. I think it had a major cleansing on my soul, a catharsis effect. They say the good die young, well if that is so my bad ass will live forever. I didn’t bawl like a baby but I think shedding that tear made me realize that this is the way it will be forever, if not worse. It’s time to man-up and do the best my body will let me do.

I wasn’t thinking of killing myself but I had my wife take my guns to my parent’s house just to be safe. Especially my Mossberg Persuader it could do some major damage. I didn’t want my wife to come home from work one day and find brain matter spread across the ceiling. That would be a bitch to clean. Truth of the matter is I have a six year old son and as cripple as I am now, he needs me.

It really is weird but I am feeling better, for the most part.  This feeling will hit again but now I know what to look for. I really like to be famous for my writing, not infamous for killing some stupid motherfuckers.

Thanks all for bearing with me.

Here’s me and Mr. Mossberg making sure the evil rabid Leprechauns don’t escape from the shed out back.


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

KangTheMad said:


> ...I've yet to read _Dante's Inferno_, is it any good?...



Yes, I like the rivers of boiling blood.


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 29, 2010)

RoundEye said:


> Well I popped, when I say I popped I mean I shed a tear. As long as I been sick, it was the first time. I think it had a major cleansing on my soul, a catharsis effect. They say the good die young, well if that is so my bad ass will live forever. I didn’t bawl like a baby but I think shedding that tear made me realize that this is the way it will be forever, if not worse. It’s time to man-up and do the best my body will let me do.
> 
> I wasn’t thinking of killing myself but I had my wife take my guns to my parent’s house just to be safe. Especially my Mossberg Persuader it could do some major damage. I didn’t want my wife to come home from work one day and find brain matter spread across the ceiling. That would be a bitch to clean. Truth of the matter is I have a six year old son and as cripple as I am now, he needs me.
> 
> ...



Helmet, gun, fine. I am surprised your missus lets you wear those jeans.


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

Olly Buckle said:


> Helmet, gun, fine. I am surprised your missus lets you wear those jeans.



Thats right when I started getting sick, I had no clue why I was dropping so much wieght. All said and done I went from a high 212 pounds to 164.


Plus she took the picture.


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

Me=


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

YouTube - Nine Inch Nails - Something I can never have (still)


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## KangTheMad (Aug 29, 2010)

RoundEye said:


> Yes, I like the rivers of boiling blood.


 
Then I shall look for it at the library


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

KangTheMad said:


> Then I shall look for it at the library



It's not graphic by moderen terms but 700 years ago it must have scared the hell out of people.


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## virginia (Aug 29, 2010)

Hello again, RoundEye,

I just spotted this thread today and, lucky I did: I was about to post something about my own MS that might have clashed!

Isn't it just the most vile, sadistic, demon-esque disease you could imagine? Constantly having to fight to keep all the little bits - as well as the bigger limbs and organs - in check and behaving in a way, vaguely resembling the way you'd like them to. It's a, seemingly, never-ending, never improving, only worsening, scenario and no one could blame you, me, or anyone else with MS for wanting to end it...

You've had your temptations/weak moments (which I'm sorry to hear about RE) and I - even against my (converted in '93 just before diagnosis) Roman Catholic faith - am ashamed to say, I've had mine. You're right, there comes a time, a stage, when it's just too much to even contemplate going on.

As you may remember I have primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS - I think you have remitting relapsing [RRMS], is that right?) so I must expect increasing degeneration (more pain, even less energy) and more and more dependence on others... 

And that's where the hardest part for me comes in... I bet you _know_, this can be quite an isolating illness (the brain damage/emotional lability, alone, can make you quite unpopular!). Well, unfortunately, the only family I have willing to help is my adult son. And he works full-time. And is fed-up/resentful now, so I have to have carers... Ah! Strangers. Talking, making noise. The antitheses of a writer's needs! I can't bear it.

I use herbal remedies RE (did 'RoundEye' come from the optic neuritis [ON] - do you, like me, have one "large" eye?!) and thought I'd been doing pretty well lately, thanks to turmeric...

But then I had the fall! Ten days ago. A silly, nothing-to-do-with-MS (at first anyway), accident on a wet patch - possibly caused by my toy poodle... Slip. Crash. Flat on cold floor for an hour. Rang panic button. Ambulance crew had to come and pick me up. Agony - from hip to knee in left leg (probably the worst MS-wise for you too?). Can't put weight on it. Can't even furniture-walk (wheelchair at the ready!). Sleeping in chair.

Exhausted.

Oh well, just thought I'd commiserate/ "share". You have my sympathy, RE. And my empathy.

You also have my thoughts and prayers - for you and your family.

Virginia

P.S. I have been housebound for years but, then, I don't mind it really, I've never been the outdoor type. Feel for you though.


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## RoundEye (Aug 29, 2010)

Virginia, thank you very much for stopping by. And  sharing in my misery with me. 

As you know it is a very isolating disease. Falling is almost a daily occurrence for me. I’ve had to tell people to leave me alone if they see me falling, they’re trying to help but they throw me off balance and I get hurt worse. My wife trips out because she said I fall gracefully. With practice I have perfected it. One exception is when I fell in the bathroom the other day and busted my face open on the sink. I think I broke my cheek and invented some new cuss words.

I am sorry you are sick but as weird as it sounds I’m glad I’m not the only one in the world dealing with this insidious disease. Yes I have RRMS. My name comes from an old joke when I was working on bikes at the Honda shop. When wrenching in small spaces it was like, “_screw you roundeye, let’s see you get your fat hands in here_”.  Wrenching on those old Harleys may have been heavy, but those freaking Hondas were tight. I miss riding bikes even more then having sex, at least falling off the wife I can’t get killed.

Take care,
Tobey


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## Olly Buckle (Aug 30, 2010)

RoundEye said:


> Thats right when I started getting sick, I had no clue why I was dropping so much wieght. All said and done I went from a high 212 pounds to 164.



Sometimes I feel small, I have been between ten and a half and eleven stone all my adult life, except for a couple of short blips when I was on high dose steroids and put on a few more pounds, that's 147 to 154 lbs. if you don't use stones.


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## RoundEye (Aug 30, 2010)

Thanks for the conversion. The only thing I know about stones is they cover and are my driveway. I imagine at one time I could be a little imposing. Six foot three around 200 pounds. Now I am just a fraction of the man I used to be just a year ago. Same height of course but I bet I weigh less than you. It really pisses off people that are trying to lose weight but I’m having real trouble trying to gain my weight back. I think I’m around 170 now. Wet. Weight and equilibrium are two of the main problems the MS has caused me. I walk like a retarded Frankenstein.  Emotional issues are a problem now. People have told me all my life I wasn’t right in the head, at least now I have a viable excuse. (Said with much laughter.) Depression is a problem, I’m trying to overcome that. My introversion is causing problems with my marriage. I just don’t talk and believe it or not when I was younger I used to get in trouble all the time for talking_ too much _ in school. I’m depressed at times, a minute later I’m OK, then I’m mad at the world and at the drop of a hat I’m laughing like a mad man. The depression and anger worries me. Too much negativity. I’m the kind of person that rarely uses the word “hate”, just because of the negativity it imposes. I know that even as cripple as I am I still can inflict some major damage to a man if he pisses me off and is within arm’s reach. My wife has seen me take off after people and try to beat the absolute shit out of them before I got sick. Was I pissed, yep. Was I scared to do it, yep. That didn’t stop me for whatever reason though. Funny part is you have to yank my chain hard to bring me to that level. I’m no bad ass. I’ll welcome anybody into my world with open arms and a firm handshake, come rolling up my driveway with bad intentions on your mind, I can and will bring things to a level you never dreamt imaginable.


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## KangTheMad (Aug 31, 2010)

Lets all give RE a hug. *huggles roundye*


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## RoundEye (Aug 31, 2010)

KangTheMad said:


> Lets all give RE a hug. *huggles roundye*


 
Thanks but I wanna know who is grabbing my ass.


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## KangTheMad (Aug 31, 2010)

RoundEye said:


> Thanks but I wanna know who is grabbing my ass.



Foxee.


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