Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an unpredictable, often disabling disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body.
What does this mean to us? Not a lot. But for patients with MS every day is a journey, and we are sharing some of the stories with you today on the World Multiple Sclerosis Day.
Maja Liković is 24 years old, from Karlovac. She has been suffering from MS since she was 16. During her first relapse she was paralysed up to her chest. As she says: “When MS showed me what it can do, then I decided, okay, I met you, this is you, you have a thousand faces, but I have decided I only have one and that it is me who is stable, not the disease. And as long as I am stable, it cannot do anything to me.”
Ivan Tomić got first signs of symptoms in 2012 when his left side was paralysed. But in February 2016, when he collapsed in a café, doctors diagnosed him with MS. Love means a lot to him: “I know that this person loves me and that she is ready to go to the end of the world at two o’clock in the morning just to make sure I am ok.”
Danijel Erceg says that MS showed him the important things in life. He got two healthy sons, the two best medicines. His message is to fight and not give up, and accept things that are not possible. “You will find something that you can do, something that is possible. To find some kind of peace in life, some kind of happiness and satisfaction, this means a lot to patients with multiple sclerosis.”