HEALTH & FITNESS wellness
58 | CANADIAN LIVING SEPTEMBER 2019This was back in 2010. While Ansari
waited for her specialist appointment, she
spent months visiting other doctors trying
to get a diagnosis. “They found a cyst on my
spine but couldn’t conclude it was causing
the immobility. As the months progressed,
I got worse. I was losing my balance and
falling a lot, plus I had nerve pain,” she says.
By the time she met with the neuropathy
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didn’t think this examination would be any
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doctors. However, he did repeated nerve
tests and after that it was explained to me
that I have multiple sclerosis (MS).” It turns
out Ansari had been living asymptomatically
for years, and MS was the culprit behind
her recent constant pain and numbness.
Ansari, now 49, remembers receiving
the diagnosis, and says she was matter-
of-fact about it at the time, almost void
of emotion. “I wanted to know next steps.
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appointments and treated them the same
way I would a business meeting—what’s
the problem, how do we solve it. It was a
couple of months later when all the emo-
tions I had bottled up came out and I just
cried for days.” That’s when she says she
GHFLGHGWRJHWKHUD̆DLUVLQRUGHUJHWDVactive as she could to help her muscles,
and do some travelling before her mobility
started to worsen.
Dr. Madeline Li is a psychiatrist in the
department of supportive care at the Prin-
cess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto.
She says there are a ton of common feel-
ings people have when they receive a diag-
nosis—as many feelings as are there are
diagnoses. “Feelings can range from shock,
sadness, anger and guilt to sometimes even
relief, if they’ve gone through a long period
of unexplained symptoms and tests. Worry
about the impact on their family and life
course and goals, fears about treatment
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changes to their identity as a ‘healthy per-
son,’ as well as the possibility of dying are
common,” she says. The other thing that’s
shared when it comes to receiving such a
diagnosis is that there isn’t a RQHVL]H¿WV
all solution. “All coping styles are healthy
so long as they work,” Dr. Li adds. If you
or someone close to you is facing a tough
medical diagnosis, rest assured there are
lots of ways to help you cope and deal with
the unknown.“I approached
my doctors’
appointments like
business meetings:
with a ‘what’s the
problem? how
do we solve it?’
attitude.”