This is my daughter’s story. It took me a long time to convince her to write. To write about herself, put her emotions on paper and share her struggle with me and with others.
FIRST STRIKE!
My story probably begins like many of the millions in the world, because we were all taken aback, even for a moment, and in fear when we experienced a relapse, that powerful blow that changed our whole world in one fell swoop. My life was somewhat harmonious, interesting and beautiful, but then a tragedy occurred that rocked the boath that had been sailing peacefully until then and was the last straw when my first attack followed. I still couldn’t understand what else happened to me, that situation, that pain due to the loss of dear person, and shortly after that came an even stronger blow, it was double vision. Everything seemed like a nightmare from which I wanted to wake up every morning when I opened my eyes, but it continued day to day. I like to read, travel, and most of all I like to drive a car, all of which was denied to me for the first time.
HOW TO COME TO TERMS WITH THE DISEASE?
Hospitals, examinations, and trips from one big city to another, until it was finally determined by the magnetic resonance that I have several lesions in places characteristic of multiple sclerosis. Various thoughts kept going through my head, and with each new examination, the hope grew in me that something else was the couse, that it was not just that disease. The people I knew was not in an early stage of the disease, they were mostly in advanced stages, and that scared me a lot, I simply could not imagine myself having the same thing as them. After my somewhat longer stay in the hospital, and all the examinations, my doctor concluded that I have relapsing-remitting MS.
LOOKING FOR SALVATION?
Even while I was lying in the hospital, I was making plans about where I would like to go, because I really needed to pack my bags as soon as possible and travel to some distant places, somewhere where I could clear my head and not think about anything, to forget what I just found out and maybe find not a cure, but at least something that will enable me to keep my balance.
I AM NOT ALONE IN THAT HARD FIGHT!
My parents, faced with an unknown enemy, about whom they knew nothing, were ready to allow me the journey I wanted. While I fantasized about that distant place, my mother did her best and started looking for at least some solution. My doctor gave us a lot of useful information, what kind of disease it is, how I should treat it, and what is most important as my therapy, among other things, it was vitamin D, and my mother was left with the task of researching as many medical articles as possible, research and contacting doctors all over the world whom she can reach, in order to get some more information. After the hospital stay, I had my first pulse therapy. Even before that therapy, my eyesight had already improved a little, I had already started taking vitamin D, 5,000 I.U. After about 30 days from the first pulse therapy, I had a second relapse, this time I didn’t see double, but one side of my face drooped and my vision was blurry, I couldnt focus my vision at long distance, and up close it was mostly blurry, but I was already somewhat used to that situation.
THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGIC!
The second time I had to lie down for days on end, receiveing therapy, an image of the place that I wanted to visit was already created in my head. And so, sitting alone in the hospital room, I said out loud: “BALI.” I wasn’t sure where I knew that place from, perhaps from a movie I had watched a long time ago, greenery, banana trees, bamboo with a huge green leaves, houses in the heart of the jungle, temples, the smell of peace and tranquillity, Indonesia! That feeling I had just by thinking about that wonderland somehow kept me going, I was happy, at peace and sure that this would be the place I’d be travelling to as soon as I was done with therapy, hospitals and other invisible hands that were squeezing and suffocating me. That day soon came, the suitcases were packed a few days earlier, which had never happened to me when I travelled, now I wanted to get there even before I set out .
And now we start my adventure, I will guide you through the jungle and the most beautiful places of the magical island of Bali tucked away in the Indian Ocean, where everything impossible becomes possible.
It will continue…
