(no subject)
It doesn't take magic to have your body turn into something that feels strange.
There've been nights when pain kept Jed awake, or mornings when he only realized he'd nicked his finger, or bruised his foot, stumbling, when he looked at himself later.
Early on, he'd put it down to fatigue, and age beginning to catch up with him.
However, he hadn't gotten so far in politics by refusing to acknowledge unpleasant realities. The numbness or lack of balance that didn't respond to a decent's night sleep, or pain that wouldn't go away after applying heat and OTC medications...he couldn't, and didn't, bury his head in the sand.
Tests at a doctor's office had followed. Finally a diagnosis, and for all that it wasn't good news, at least he knew what he was up against.
Multiple sclerosis, accompanied by the usual technical descriptions of what was happening to Jed's nervous system.
He was put on medications, interferon beta-1, and they proved effective. He let himself hope, after that first episode, that there wasn't going to be a repeat of it.
That hadn't turned out to be the case. He'd told Elizabeth, a half year later, when the symptoms returned.
Relapsing-remitting type...
Two years had slipped by. Some months were fine, with no signs of any trouble. Others, he could only wish for them to end quickly.
He fell, walking down a staircase, the week before he found himself in Milliways.
Jed made himself get up, unassisted.
He wouldn't let himself 'play it safe'. To show signs of weakness...
That would be all very well, if he was only representing himself. He had to speak for his whole country. Possibly he shouldn't have run for office, under these circumstances, but be damned if he'd let this disease run him.
Ever.
He might not be powerful, or magical, or young, but he would not be a cripple.
The morning after he reverted to human form, he was running a hot shower in his room. Blurred vision kept him from realizing that he'd turned the water hot enough to scald one of his hands, until pain singed through his fingertips.
He turned the temperature down hastily.
The ache along his shoulders and back had settled in, despite the heat. He sighed, and reached for a towel to dry off. Like it or not, he was going to have to accept--yet again--that his own independence had limits.
There've been nights when pain kept Jed awake, or mornings when he only realized he'd nicked his finger, or bruised his foot, stumbling, when he looked at himself later.
Early on, he'd put it down to fatigue, and age beginning to catch up with him.
However, he hadn't gotten so far in politics by refusing to acknowledge unpleasant realities. The numbness or lack of balance that didn't respond to a decent's night sleep, or pain that wouldn't go away after applying heat and OTC medications...he couldn't, and didn't, bury his head in the sand.
Tests at a doctor's office had followed. Finally a diagnosis, and for all that it wasn't good news, at least he knew what he was up against.
Multiple sclerosis, accompanied by the usual technical descriptions of what was happening to Jed's nervous system.
He was put on medications, interferon beta-1, and they proved effective. He let himself hope, after that first episode, that there wasn't going to be a repeat of it.
That hadn't turned out to be the case. He'd told Elizabeth, a half year later, when the symptoms returned.
Relapsing-remitting type...
Two years had slipped by. Some months were fine, with no signs of any trouble. Others, he could only wish for them to end quickly.
He fell, walking down a staircase, the week before he found himself in Milliways.
Jed made himself get up, unassisted.
He wouldn't let himself 'play it safe'. To show signs of weakness...
That would be all very well, if he was only representing himself. He had to speak for his whole country. Possibly he shouldn't have run for office, under these circumstances, but be damned if he'd let this disease run him.
Ever.
He might not be powerful, or magical, or young, but he would not be a cripple.
The morning after he reverted to human form, he was running a hot shower in his room. Blurred vision kept him from realizing that he'd turned the water hot enough to scald one of his hands, until pain singed through his fingertips.
He turned the temperature down hastily.
The ache along his shoulders and back had settled in, despite the heat. He sighed, and reached for a towel to dry off. Like it or not, he was going to have to accept--yet again--that his own independence had limits.