I won’t surrender

“A man doesn’t fight to win.

It is better 

when the fight is in vain.”

Edmond Rostand

I have realized, talking with patients, that they have a wrong idea about the level of mental functioning that I have now. Consider that a good day for me is when, with all the will that I can find, I can go through a single page of calculations. And this happens rarely: I may have two or three days in which I can learn something or do some calculation, from my bed; then for weeks or months, I have to face a complete loss of understanding and my mental life is rudimentary. And of course, I spend about all my life at home, mostly on my bed. 

And this is a level that I am proud of, that I have reached only because I have continuously rewired my brain, always trying to learn again, from scratch, what I already knew: reading, mathematics, coding and so forth. And once I have learned again how to do these things, then I lose all again. And I have to climb the mountain one more time. All alone through the climb, because those who gain attention are always those who win with a thousandth of my efforts, not those who remain back.

The only possible way

I could have a normal life again

is by describing the pathophysiology of my disease

and this is also what pushes me to learn

as much as I can. I won’t surrender, as painful as it is

even if it’s useless because I don’t want to be defeated

without fighting back.