When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress Read Online Free Page A

that impair the functioning of cells in the central nervous system. Its symptoms depend on where theinflammation and scarring occur. The main areas attacked are usually the spinal cord, the brain stem and the optic nerve, which is the bundle of nerve fibres carrying visual information to the brain. If the site of damage is somewhere in the spinal cord, the symptoms will be numbness, pain or other unpleasant sensations in the limbs or trunk. There may also be involuntary tightening of the muscles or weakness. In the lower part of the brain, the loss of myelin can induce double vision or problems with speech or balance. Patients with optic neuritis—inflammation of the optic nerve—suffer temporary visual loss. Fatigue is a common symptom, a sense of overwhelming exhaustion far beyond ordinary tiredness.
    Natalie’s dizziness continued through the fall and early winter while she nursed her husband through his convalescence from the bowel operation and a twelve-week course of chemotherapy. For a while afterwards Bill was able to resume his work as a real estate agent. Then in May 1997 a second operation was performed to excise the tumours in his liver.
    “Following the resection, in which they removed 75 per cent of his liver, Bill developed a blood clot in his portal vein. * He could have died from that,” says Natalie. “He became very confused and combative.” Bill died in 1999, but not before subjecting his wife to more emotional agony than she could have foreseen.
    Researchers in Colorado looked at one hundred people with the type of MS called relapsing-remitting, in which flare-ups alternate with symptom-free periods. This is the type Natalie has. Patients burdened by qualitatively extreme stresses, such as major relationship difficulties or financial insecurity, were almost four times as likely to suffer exacerbations. 1
    “I was still having a lot of vertigo over Christmas of 1996, but after that I was almost 100 per cent,” Natalie reports. “Only my gait was a little off. And despite all the problems with Bill’s liver resection—I had to take him to the emergency ward four times between July and August—I was fine. It appeared Bill was turning around, and we were hopeful there would be no more complications. Then I had another exacerbation.” The flare-up came when Natalie thought she could relax a little, when her services were no longer urgently needed.
    “My husband was the type of person who felt that he shouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to do. He was always like that. When he was sick, he just figured he was definitely not going to do anything. He would sit down on the sofa and snap his fingers—and when he snapped, you jumped. Even the kids were getting very impatient with him. Finally, in the fall, when he was better, I sent him out of town for a few days with some friends. I said, ‘He needs to get out.’”
    “What did
you
need?” I ask.
    “I was fed up. I said, ‘Take him away to play some golf for a few days,’ and this friend came and picked him up. And two hours later I knew I was having an exacerbation.”
    What might she have learned from this experience? “Well,” Natalie says hesitantly, “that I need to know when to withdraw from my helping mode. But I just can’t; if somebody needs help, I have to do it.”
    “Regardless of what’s happening for you?”
    “Yes. Five years down the road, and I still have not learned that I have to pace myself. My body says no to me frequently, and I keep going. I don’t learn.”
    Natalie’s body had many reasons to say no throughout her marriage. Bill was a heavy drinker and often embarrassed her. “When he would have a little too much to drink, he became ugly,” she says. “He would be argumentative, aggressive, lose his temper. We would be out at a party, and if something upset him, he would tear strips off people in public, for no reason. I would just turn around and walk away, and then he would be angry with me