Unfinished

By Robert Jones, Jr.

Image description: Closeup portrait. A man, seen from the shoulders up, holding his face in his hands, eyes closed. Gray wall background. Black drawn coils spring from his head that are the same shade and texture as his hair. Stock image. Source: https://www.blackenterprise.com/this-collective-is-helping-black-men-talk-about-mental-health/

Hello Family,

Thank you so much for electing to be a paid subscriber to Witness.

May 30 is World Multiple Sclerosis Day and I wanted to share with you what life has been like for me after being diagnosed with the illness back in 2019. I am happy to say that thanks to a new medical team that I am under the care of and a new treatment that I have been receiving since November 2022, the illness seems to be under control and has thus far not progressed significantly.

But before these fortunate turn of events, I wrote about one of the more harrowing experiences I’ve had during my journey. The following essay was originally published on my website on January 6, 2022, but I am reposting it here exclusively for paid subscribers.

Thank you for being a witness.

Unfinished

by Robert Jones, Jr.

The hospital is ugly. The walls are painted a drab beige that does not distinguish itself much from the floor or the raggedy drop ceiling. The lights are flickering. Or, at least, the lighting is so grim that it gives the impression that the lights are flickering. If you are quiet, you can hear a drone, a dull buzz, beneath the murmuring of voices and footsteps, and a persistent beeping. Rather than a space of healing, this place resembles where one might go to die.

It is 5:30 p.m. on December 30. I arrive in the waiting room for the emergency room (ER). The ER is so crowded with COVID patients that people with other afflictions are forced to wait outside. The chairs they’ve placed in the hallway for us to be seated in are black molded plastic. Very hard on the ass. There are some cushioned light-blue ones, too. I sit in one of those until the white woman across from me begins to cough for two minutes straight. You would think they would isolate her in case it is COVID. They do not. You think she would isolate herself. She does not. She walks around coughing as though she hopes that we will start coughing, too. It seems to me that she does not want an end to her pain as much as she wants to share it. I move to the farthest reaches of the corridor and sit uncomfortably in one of the black chairs.

I am here because I believe I am having a multiple sclerosis (MS) flare-up. I was diagnosed with the chronic illness two years ago. Two years ago was the last time I had a flare-up. And two years before that was when I had the very first flare-up that I can consciously recall. Although MS flare-ups are supposed to be largely arbitrary and unpredictable (though many things can trigger them: stress, weather, etc.), it has struck me consistently. It orbits around me warlike; almost the same amount of time as it takes for Mars to journey around the sun.

See? Warlike.