Fettered by Multiple Sclerosis

Moving through life with multiple sclerosis (MS) can be difficult at best, but it can still be beautiful.

There is no candy-coating it: Multiple sclerosis is a difficult and cruel disease. It is a thief that can steal away abilities we love and functions we require. MS can muddle our cognition, make us clumsy, and threaten our continence. It can interfere with functions from sex and speech to swallowing (and so many others that don’t lend themselves to alliteration) — and it does so with cold indifference.

But still, we carry on …

The Questionable Practice of Hobbling

It brings to mind a practice that many inside and out of the horse-training world find cruel: fettering, or hobbling.

I once came across a lovely pony in a field near our house where I used to forage. (It’s now an estate of nine lovely homes occupied by great neighbors, but I do miss the field for its abundant wild foods.)

The owner of the land, a friend of mine, hadn’t given permission for anyone to put their animals on the land, so I was surprised to see the horse there in the first place.

As I got closer, I noted that the young horse had its two front legs tied together with a gnarly old piece of polypropylene line. I’m not one of the “horsy set,” so I was quite unfamiliar with the practice of hobbling an animal.

Most animal welfare agencies and authorities strongly discourage the practice for a number of health and safety reasons, but the hobbling is not illegal in most jurisdictions. I later came to understand that while it’s considered outdated, many older horse folks around our area still use the practice regularly.

An Ability Stolen Without Consent

That morning, I couldn’t help but feel both sorry and akin to the creature. He looked broken — alone in a field he didn’t know, probably recently separated from his mother, and restricted in movement to about 30 centimeters (12 inches) per stride.

Something beyond his control had taken away his ability to walk as nature had intended. His blue rope was my MS-compromised myelin. His inability felt like my disability — well, one of them.

The reasons given for advice against the practice in animals include the possibility of injury, the inhibition of natural behavior, and the risk of panic. How many of us haven’t confronted all three of these (and more) as a result of MS fettering our existence?

A Second Horse Reminds Me of the First

It has been a fair good few years since I made friends with this horse for the couple of weeks that he was my neighbor. I hadn’t thought of him or his tied legs much (if at all) in a long while. Then early on a recent sunny morning, I saw a lovely horse pulling a woman down a nearby street in a trap.

The horse appeared to have been recently groomed. Head up, tail gently swinging side to side, and clip-clopping along the road, the animal wasn’t prancing, exactly, but that was as close a description as my untrained equine vocabulary could produce for its gait.

I then noted that its legs, while majestic and dancelike in their movements, didn’t extend much more than a foot per stride. I had to wonder if this horse, too, had been hobbled in its youth and if that was the reason (or one of the reasons) for its short stride.

We Can Still Learn to Prance in Our Own Way

Then I saw an even more important correlation between that long-ago young horse and myself.

We may have all been fettered or hobbled by our disease. We run the risk of damage to our mental and physical selves because of it. We can feel lost, alone, and hard done by, and that’s just a few of our emotional reactions to the disease. That said, we can also learn to prance in our own way in spite of (maybe even because of) our experience with MS.

It is a cruel disease. It isn’t fair; it isn’t nice; it isn’t the best way to live a life. But it is our life now, and I’d like to think that I’ve learned to prance a bit within the limitations of the disease that has bound my legs and so many other parts of my being.

I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone, but as so many of us have found our legs tied by the disease, we can still get out and strut our version of our stuff on a fine morning or two.

Wishing you and your family the best of health.

Cheers,

Trevis