MS Gallery − Percy
“Luckily my first impressions of MS are now all in the past … I can still see the future. I hope to enjoy the good things in life.”
Percy
Age: 52
Hometown: São Paulo, Brazil
Onset of symptoms: 1992
First symptom experienced: Vision loss
Diagnosed: 1999
Started treatment: 2000
Percy, a teacher, was reading his newspaper when he lost the sight in his right eye. “I closed my left eye for a few moments, expecting to carry on reading with my right eye, and I was surprised to find I couldn’t do it,” he recalls.
At first, doctors thought Percy might have a virus that damaged the optic nerve. Six years later, his vision had gotten worse. “When I returned to work, there were more than 100 pupils in my classes, but I couldn’t distinguish their faces. I wrote on a blackboard without seeing it. I didn’t read texts – I recited them by heart, thanks to two years of practice.”
Percy went to several doctors and underwent a series of tests, which confirmed that he had MS. Around the same time, Percy experienced stiffness in his leg and had trouble walking. He turned to his friend, Maria Tereza (pictured here) for support.
Despite the love and support from Maria Tereza, who soon became his wife, Percy feared the worst for his future. Things turned around in 2000 when he started treatment, which he says, “gives me security – I feel more secure about the future.”
Now he says, “My life of classes, reading, supermarkets, banks, meeting up with friends and family, playful banter, children and grandchildren continues at its rhythmic, breezily Brazilian, supremely human pace.”
