Synopsis

It begins with numbness on her left leg. Then it spreads. Even though an MRI finds a “mass” on her brainstem, it takes two more years for Meredith O’Brien to learn what is causing that numbness. Months after her 65-year-old mother dies from a fast-moving cancer, weeks after her father is hospitalized and she experiences an unexpected job change, she learns she has multiple sclerosis.Suddenly, Meredith, a married mother of three teens, has to figure out how to move forward into a life she no longer recognizes. Reimagining her life as a writer and an educator, as a mother and a spouse, she has to adjust to the restrictions MS imposes on her. It is a life, altered.

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Excerpt

This excerpt from Uncomfortably Numb takes place a month after Meredith O’Brien was hospitalized after a massive multiple sclerosis attack and officially diagnosed with the incurable disease of the central nervous system. She and her husband Scott were heading to a Boston Red Sox game on a hot and humid evening.

From Uncomfortably Numb (Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, 2020) by Meredith O’Brien:

Walking down Boylston Street on this September evening, in this new period of my life, I’m not thinking about the majestic view of Fenway Park’s grass because the muscles in my usually sturdy legs feel as though they’ve been infused with jelly. I am sweating even though we’re not walking that fast. Tiny white spots are beginning to crowd my peripheral vision, like my own private showing of shooting stars that linger and flicker, nothing upon which I can make a wish. If I had been a cartoon character, my head would have floated upward, tethered by a thin, sinuous cord of damaged nerves. I would look down on myself from above and watch as my gait becomes almost comically unsteady, like I am awkwardly sloshing forward through knee-high water. But Boylston Street is not flooded. That ridiculously-named MS hug starts to squeeze my abdomen and my breathing becomes labored. I stop walking, bend at the waist, and brace my arms against my knees. Scott — who doesn’t understand what’s happening, because I haven’t told him that my body feels as though it’s being rapidly short-circuited — offers to buy me a bottle of water from one of the street vendors who are positioned around the route to the ballpark, sitting atop beat-up coolers piled high with ice. Some noisy pedi-cabs, clanging their tinkling bells, pass by.

“You want to get one?” Scott asks, pointing to a pedi-cab. He’s not very good at masking his concern. Given the events of the past several weeks, his concern is not that surprising. “If you don’t feel well, we can get one.”

He’s in problem-solving mode, hero-mode. And I’m having none of it. Hopping into a pedi-cab feels like an admission of failure, like a modified version of the ambulance ride to take me to Fenway because I can’t get there of my own volition like I always have before. I stubbornly refuse to give in to my body’s warning signs, even though reason is telling me I should take a break, that missing the beginning of the game isn’t a big deal, that getting a ride isn’t a sign of weakness.

I am not being reasonable. I come from obstinate stock. I shake off Scott’s offer as I remain hunched over and quiet. We are nearly equidistant from the Prudential Center parking garage and Fenway Park, stuck in between my former life and my new one. My reluctance to move forward into uncertainty is rooting me in place, paralyzing me.

About the Author

A journalism faculty member at Northeastern University, where she also serves as a writing coach, this is her fourth book. Her third, Mr. Clark’s Big Band, won an Independent Book Publisher Award and was a finalist for a ForeWord INDIES award.

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