"Counting Coup"

By Kelly Tomlinson



A lot of people out there with MS use the battle cry of "fighting MS" but my experiences with fighting have always been negative, dating back to when I was in grade school and was teased about having a girl's name. Unfortunately I was usually smaller than my tormentors and invariably ended up on the losing end of the fight. There were definitely more defeats than victories. By the time I reached junior high school I was pretty much like Pavlov's dogs, which upon hearing the bell began salivating because they associated the bell with food. I also had a "conditioned reflex" and started equating fighting with pain, thereby doing everything in my power to circumvent it.


In trying to figure out a way to cope with my MS I thought it would be more beneficial to emulate the noble Native American way by "counting coup." For those of you unfamiliar with this term, counting coup was sneaking up to an enemy and hitting them with their hand or a stick and then riding away without being killed. It was considered a great act of bravery to accomplish this. I could go into further detail but this would undoubtedly cause those who do not share my enthusiasm in Native American rituals to quickly stop reading this commentary.


When I have an exacerbation of one my symptoms such as numbness and tingling in my legs, I do not fight it; instead I smack it with my imaginary coup stick and know that I have faced the enemy and proven that I am unafraid. Wherever my course of MS leads, I shall continue counting coup and being fearless in the face of this unpredictable disease.


Victories (remissions) and defeats (exacerbations) of my MS will continue to occur but as Teddy Roosevelt once said, "The credit belongs to those people who are actually in the arena, who know the great enthusiasms, the great devotions to a worthy cause; who at best know the triumph of high achievement and who at worst fail while daring greatly...so that their place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat."

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