How Luggage on the Baggage Carousel Resembles MS Symptoms

It was a long, overnight, international flight: Seattle to Dublin. We arrived a bit late due to a departure delay, and I was feeling at least seven of the eight hours’ time difference.

The luggage carousel began to turn on the Irish side of European Immigration Control, but no bags came out for a good while. And when they did, it was very few at a time. We began to feel happy that we’d booked a long layover before the next flight to our home airport.

I wasn’t too concerned about lost baggage (yet), because the flight crew was also awaiting their bags.

Once more luggage began to make its way around we bleary-eyed passengers, and I began to become aware of something. The retelling of my thoughts will evidence my state of mind, methinks.

Each of Us Carries Our MS Baggage

I began to think of each piece of luggage as a multiple sclerosis (MS) symptom, and of all of us waiting around the carousel as people living with MS.

We all had at least one of the bits of MS baggage to collect that morning (early afternoon by this point), but I also witnessed everyone else’s symptoms, too.

Some were large and heavy, some small and apparently easy to carry. Others were so cumbersome that I couldn’t imagine how the owners were going to heft them off the line.

Then, as people began to identify their bags, the metaphor got even clearer in my foggy mind.

A little pink bag I’d seen circling for a few turns belonged to a very tired young traveler. It was, to me, cute, and I thought of it as the symptom of MS fatigue. I could imagine someone responding to it with a comment like, “Oh, it must be nice to take a nap whenever you like.”

For the little girl who hadn’t slept well and could hardly stand, however, that “cute” little symptom was more than she could bear. The next time I saw her, she was sleeping over the top of said bag while her parents awaited their remaining possessions.

Not one but two of those behemoth bags — the sort of thing that could hold a 10-person life raft with room to spare — were grabbed off the symptom turner by two older, thin (but not frail) women. To me, the thought of carrying those symptoms through my day was crushing, like one of those things that make me wonder if I could make it through if I were hit by a long-lasting, major exacerbation.

But the two women handled the task with practiced, ballet-like grace. Together, they spotted the bags, situated themselves in a place where they could work the pieces off the conveyer, and made it look like no effort at all. I’d have to guess they’d done this many times before.

How We Deal With Our Symptoms Is Unique to Us

It made me realize that the size and weight of all of our symptoms is different, and how we cope with them is equally unique to each of us. There were more bags and more reactions to them. Everyone kept an eye out for theirs but also helped out others if they could. That reminded me of the MS community as well.

Some bags look very much alike, and conversations were had as two people recognized similar “symptoms.” Some of us had only one bag, some had multiple carts with which they were contending. The young ones were burdened only with a small rucksack, and those of us waiting for our checked bags envied them the way I now envy those with only minor inconveniences as daily symptoms of their MS.

At the end of the day, we all have something. We all have our baggage of symptoms to collect and must make our way through our days with said bags in tow. Learning from others, helping others with what we have learned ourselves, and simply acknowledging when we might need a bit of assistance ourselves is what I took away from the baggage claim area that afternoon.

That’s all I took away. Our three bags hadn’t made the transfer from Montana. There’s another metaphor in that, I’m sure, but I’m still recovering from the jet lag…

Wishing you and your family the best of health.

Cheers,

Trevis