S7E22 Thriving through 40 years with MS with David Peimer

David Peimer (00:00)

Is the wave of history inevitable? We have no choice. We have to stick with that wave and nothing else. Or are we merely the foam on the wave of history? Where we don’t have a choice. We’re just foam tossed around by MS. Or we can try and slip into the wave and try and surf in some way and make some choices, something. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. Maybe the wave will dump us anyway. But what’s to lose?

 

Overcoming MS (00:16)

Welcome to the latest edition of the Living Well With MS podcast. Joining me on this edition is David Peimer. David is a professor of literature, film and theatre in the UK. He’s worked for the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, New York University global division and was a Fulbright scholar at Columbia University. He was born in South Africa and David’s won prestigious awards for playwriting and directing in New York, the UK, Berlin, the EU parliament in Brussels, Athens, Budapest, Zululand and more.

He’s most recently directed Dame Janet Sussman in his own play, Joanna’s Story, at London Jewish Book Week. He’s published widely with books including Armed Response, Plays from South Africa and Theatre in the Camps. He’s on the board of the Pinter Centre in London and has done work for the Mandela Foundation, Vaclav Havel Foundation and directed a range of plays at Mr. Havel’s Prague Theatre. So it’s quite an extensive biography, longer than we normally have. Very impressive and welcome David. And could you introduce yourself, your work and also talk about your MS diagnosis.

 

David Peimer (02:03)

Thanks so much to you, Geoff and to everybody who is part of OMS I think you’ve said pretty much that’s my CV.

 And busy commission, I’m busy working on two new plays, which I’m writing, and another one, which I’ll be directing as well. And I’m also doing some writing for some YouTube videos, which should be coming out also.

In terms of MS, it started over 42 years ago, therefore shows my age and lack of hair. I did once have long hair. I was in the South African army and coming towards the end of it. and it started, I’ll never forget, I was actually, went home on a weekend Easter pass and I went to the beach. grew up in town, town city, Durban, which is on the Indian Ocean side of South Africa to visit my parents and, you know, being a bit of an ex beach boy bum, down to the beach, surfing, swimming, usual. Anyway, boiling hot, always in Durban. All you ever need is a shirt, nothing more in winter or summer and spent time on the beach. and then suddenly my legs collapsed and I couldn’t walk back to the car or anything and I crawled all the way along the boiling hot sand to the car. I couldn’t drive, I couldn’t do anything a friend of mine helped drive me back to my parents.

I won’t go into all the details of what happened to diagnose it in those days, this is 42 years ago, and what I went through, which was not pleasant. And seeing six neurologists as I’m sure many people know how complicated it can be to get proper diagnosis quickly.

And of course there was no MRI in those days. And no treatment, no MRI, nothing. And I had the lumbar puncture, et cetera. And then I basically sort of recovered and then I was sent back to the army, but I was so bad. the commandant came to me one night and he said, I’m going to cut your spine open tomorrow. And in a very vicious way, I phoned a couple of friends. I wheeled myself, crawled to a ticky box, old telephone and a couple of friends came, they picked me up, dragged me out in the middle of the night. Sounds all melodramatic, but it’s actually true. Go back to Johannesburg in those days. And the bottom line is I was completely paralyzed. I was AWOL from the army, but I didn’t care, whatever they do. And I was completely paralyzed. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t walk, bladder gone. Bowels, just everything gone. And I then was sent back to stay with my parents. And because there was nothing, obviously, there was nothing to be done or anything. And I basically took, it was about a year and a half, year and three quarter, and 6 neurologists just saw me. And they all said I’d be dead within four to five years all of them, without knowing what they each said, including one ex-good friend of mine. So I booked my plot in the cemetery at a very young age and I thought, well, that’s it, game over. And aspirations, dreams, like many people, I’m sure, out the window, gone. Then serious depression and fear turned into anger.

And anger can be a creative energy at times, if one combines it with what one has between the ears. And I then started to think, maybe something I can do for myself. Maybe there’s nothing to lose. And I was so young. Anyway, so many friends got me, I read over a hundred books, biochemistry, neurology, everything I could to understand what on earth it meant and how it worked in the body in those days.

I thought, well, it’s worth trying. And then an ex-girlfriend of mine, who happened to be living in London, read an article about Judy Graham, who wrote the original book, Managing Multiple Sclerosis. And I read it, and I thought, this biochemically seems to make sense. Swank’s research, his work, what she and others were doing with arms at the time in London. This is 42 years ago. I wrote off to biochemists in Tokyo, who wrote back to me in Japanese, I couldn’t understand. And then I wrote to them in Paris at the Sorbonne, I wrote to New York, Columbia, where I’d been, et cetera, et cetera, many places. People who had written the books on biochemistry and neurology, and they wrote back, I wrote to their publishers and most of them wrote back, amazingly, maybe different times, but they did. And I wrote to Judy and she wrote back. And then I started to seriously research and understand the biochemistry behind it. And that maybe MS was more vascular in origin and neurological in result. Because all the little tiny, why were the little white plaques we later find through MRIs happening around the periventricular, the little ventricles in our brain. Why are so many of them close to the little ventricles? Why are they not in different parts? More. So together with other things that Swank went into and others went into, and basically after being given 4 to 5 years to live, that was it, six top neurologists in Johannesburg, I started the Swank diet. And it’s the only thing I’m evangelical about in life, besides a love for theater and the arts and literature and film. So I started it and reading everything I could to understand more the biochemistry behind it. And nothing happened for a year and half, but I didn’t die. Secondly, I didn’t get worse. Although I was so bad, I couldn’t walk five steps to the toilet. I couldn’t walk, stand, move, nothing. My fingers had gone, I couldn’t do a button up. I couldn’t hold a cup of coffee, knife and fork, the usual.

And I noticed that it hadn’t got worse. It hadn’t improved, but it hadn’t got worse. And I wasn’t dead, as they all predicted I was going to become. Then I took another year, this is over nearly two and a half years on the diet. And then this is going to sound like a melodramatic cliche, but literally one day I was able to stand out of being bedridden and somehow clamber through holding on the walls to the toilet. I was able to hold my bladder for 30, 40 seconds, which, and this to me was like climbing Everest. And I started to almost imperceptibly gradually over the next year, notice little, little bit by bit improvements in my body. And what you’re seeing today and all the work that you mentioned kindly that I’ve done and have done since, I’ve never ever gone back to as bad as I was. I’ve had relapses on average every two to three years. I’ve only been on Copaxone since it came out. And I religiously stuck to the Swank diet and I still do. And the vitamins and all the rest of it that went with it. And here I am.

 

Overcoming MS (08:55)

So, from Swank, how did you discover the Overcoming MS program?

 

David Peimer (09:00)

Then from Swank and Judy Graham, I then through Judy as well discovered the OMS program and George Jelenik’s book because I was trying to keep up to date with everything. And I think his book is brilliant and the OMS people and program are amazing and brilliant. but seriously, because he combines all the evidence-based approach as you were saying earlier, Geoff together with all the other, know, the dietary, the vitamins, stress management. I did three things. One, Swank and understand the biochemistry behind it, which George Jelenik and OMS take up and develop much further. Number two, I put myself into psychotherapy for five years to understand stress management.

Because I’ve met hundreds, hundreds of people as I’m sure you have, with MS all over the world. And when we are really honest, I have found, and I’m only talking about myself, stress can trigger, not cause obviously, but it can trigger a relapse. And we can try and help manage our condition if we can manage the stress. And it’s honest with me, 60, 70 % of my relapses and many hundreds of people when they’re really honest with me about it. One person’s stress is another person’s challenge. So the task for me was to find out, well, what triggers my stress, but it’s not necessarily anybody else’s stress trigger. And identifying that quite specifically through counseling, which I did, and develop the motto, take the path of least stress whenever I can. So it was the diet with all the vitamins, it was stress management, and then the last thing, obviously together with exercise as my body improved, swimming, which was my love as a little child always, swimming, surfing. And then the third thing, later, much later, became the Copaxone And those are the three things. But what was important for me was to understand the biochemistry behind how stress might work in the body and how MS, how those little scars form in our brain.

 

Overcoming MS (11:03)

People with MS know when they get stressed, I’ve found. I certainly do. Even a small amount of stress and I can… People are like, are you stressed? I know if I’m stressed because I can feel that my symptoms, I have a physical response to stress. And so I know that stress affects me.

 

David Peimer (11:16)

Absolutely, and yep, me as well. And I’ve known so many friends, not only in South Africa and England, America, Australia, everywhere, are, when we’re all honest, it can help, it can be part of a trigger. You know.

 

Overcoming MS (11:29)

And so you mentioned Copaxone and you were on the original unblinded trial before we had full placebo controlled trials more than 20 years ago now and you still do the injection daily. So could you tell us about the experience of that trial and how that being on that, you know, the only drug at the time for MS.

 

David Peimer (11:47)

Yeah, Geoff only took a few of us on it and I think about 50 and I fought like hell and it was originally devised by an Israeli scientist with Teva Pharmaceuticals and my sister lives in Jerusalem and she helped me really fight to get onto it because so few were getting onto it.

I think I was 40, number 45, 46, and got it, And so we knew we were injecting ourselves with the actual medication, not placebo, but I weighed up the risk benefit ratio or the possible risk, possible benefit ratio, which was not really known at the time.

And I thought the possible benefit outweighed the possible risk and I would take a chance with my body. As I had weighed up everything with diet, food, Swank, later George Jelenik’s research as well,

 

Overcoming MS (12:38)

 Obviously you’re still on Capaxone now. So you don’t have a problem with injections?

 

David Peimer (12:40)

Yes. No, I mean, I get a little itchy or a little bump, know, this or that, but tiny, compared to the way, I mean, it’s just nothing compared to the symptoms that we all know so well.

 

Overcoming MS (12:54)

And being on a trial program, you’d encourage people to, assuming the risks aren’t too great?

 

David Peimer (12:57)

Well, I know it only helps one in three less than the number and severity of relapses, which we all know. And it’s, we all know obviously there’s no cure or anything, but what’s to lose?

And the side effects, I think, are pretty minimal compared to the possible side effects of other things, and what’s to lose in the same way that I went back to those six neurologists with a diet, and I walked into their office and they looked at me and they said, you should be dead, thinking they were joking. Years later, I went back, furious, but calmly and quietly, in very English way. And I said, I’m not dead. Look, I’m working full time, in fact. And I’ve had hardly any time off for MS. they all said, miracle, miracle, miracle. And I said, not. I don’t think so. A lot of blood, sweat, all the rest of it, tears, as we all know.

 

Overcoming MS (13:38)

Yeah. And so you mentioned stress management. So how do you go about the stress management side of dealing with MS?

 

David Peimer (13:55)

I try not to get things like flu and infections, you know, but one can’t help, you know, but then I watch that like a hawk. Because I know the triggers for me, when I feel that’s starting to happen, path of least stress, one of my three mottos comes in and I figure out, okay, what is the path of least stress here? And try to remove myself from the situation which may be internal in my own head or it may be an external or a mixture of situations and remove myself from it as much as I can and walk the other way. Or I see it as a barrier in the road which I try and find a way around or through or walk another pavement.

 

I don’t try and pretend to be Mr. Mental tough guy or whatever and take it on and da-da-da-da-da and all the rest of it. I try and outwit rather than cavalry charge like the Light Brigade.

 

Overcoming MS (14:49)

And so connected with that, there was something I was asked the other day about this. The anger side of it. Do you not feel angry and it’s unfair that you’ve got MS and it’s not right?

You know, I just think it’s random, but how I dealt with the anger of that is said, so how would you deal with the mental health components for the fear of MS, the anger of MS when you’ve got a chronic incurable condition like this?

 

David Peimer (15:23)

I think that’s such an important question and point that you’re making, Geoff. And that’s why I put myself into counseling therapy for five years, together with figuring out what is stress for me, for my triggers. How to channel the anger and the rage and the fear, the terror, because I was in all those 42 years ago, was terrified, freaked. And I thought, well, that’s it, it’s over, dead. And dreams and hopes and whatever gone, you know, and my body had completely crashed. So, I just started to think slowly and it took time. where I started to think, you maybe there is some way I can channel this rage into fighting rather than just sitting with my anger. But how to fight smartly, which meant understanding the biochemistry. What is going on actually? What does the word mean? I didn’t even know. It’s Greek for multiple scars, as everybody knows.  So how does it work? Everybody accepts cholesterol, heart disease, and so on. Calcium, osteoporosis, et cetera. Maybe there is something I can do to intervene in the biochemical chain in my own body. Not cure, never. But maybe the intervention can happen on a biochemical level with food, with diet, with stress, with other things. Maybe in the way that everybody accepts, as one understands more and more, not only about genetics, but biochemistry. That’s why I read 130, 140 books, I think. And that was all those decades ago and still do, And I thought it’s a way of channeling the anger into something positive, not the cliche of triumph over adversity, the hard work to understand that anger can be an energy. Creative like fire can be creative, it can be destructive. I can destroy myself with anger.

 

Overcoming MS (17:16)

And you mentioned you’ve you had professional guidance from a counselor. So how did you find that experience of going because I think a lot of people probably haven’t gone to a counselor. But how do you find the experience of going to a counselor and what were the benefits of that?

 

David Peimer (17:29)

That’s great. I went to two or three, I went to about three and gave them, ditched them quickly because they were just giving me jargon. And I had read a lot from my field as well. Until I found a guy and I would always ask them, first question, what do you think is the aim of therapy or counseling? And I’d get the usual cliches. Until I met this one guy and he said to me the aim is two things. Number one, lessen your suffering. And number two, to try and find out to reach a stage where you are stimulus unbound.

 

Whatever the stimulus coming in, I don’t have to be bound to it. It may be positive, negative. It may be from a love, from a child, from a partner, a community, a society at large, South Africa, the maddening insanity of apartheid, the horror. It may be just on a very personal family level, you know, a wife, a partner, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, whatever, child, parent. It’s stimulus unbound. Let the stimulus come, but don’t be bound to it. Take a step back mentally. And I really practice that as much as I could and still do.

 

Overcoming MS (18:37)

You can’t be stressed about if you can’t do it, if you can do something about it, then do something about it. But if you can’t do anything about it, then you can’t, you have to let that go. And I think that’s what you were saying there that stimulus unbounded.

 

David Peimer (18:51)

Exactly, exactly, exactly, Geoff And stimulus unbound, because MS is a thief in the night. We never know when it’ll strike and we’ll have a relapse or we’ll suddenly get worse. And of course that is part of the terror and the fear. You never know when the thief in the night will hit. But do I have to remain hostage to that? Or can I try and look at myself being hostage and step back. Not deny it, but see I am being hostage to it and I live always as a hostage to it. Or can I step back, as you say, it can be the news, it can be something else, it can be somebody close, it can be work, job, anything, money, your child, anything in life.

 

Overcoming MS (19:18)

 And many people change their careers or change their life in a major way after diagnosis. So have you or how have you experienced that? You mentioned you started out, you were in the army and now you’ve had this amazing theatrical career. So was that as a result of diagnosis on how do things change after diagnosis?

 

David Peimer (19:48)

Well, unfortunately, I didn’t have the money to buy my way out of the white South African nightmare of an army, as some did, to be frank. I kept my own… It was forced conscription, or you would go to prison for 15 to 18 years. Or if you came from a wealthy family, you could buy a passport and sort of buy an air ticket and get out. Anyway, during the times that I was called up, not all the time. And it was a couple of years army at that stage. So, I held my own views about the horrors of apartheid. One of the most amazing things was doing work much later for Nelson Mandela when he was president on conflict resolution work and using theater for conflict resolution.

Well, between the ex-white South African killers in the army or the police and the ANC guerrillas, fighters, and how to put together a new police force and army where human rights, individual rights, justice, democracy were at the core, not dictatorship. Anyway, it was remarkable using certain theater approaches for that, which he had asked. Anyway, yeah, I just try to channel this anger into all of it,

 You know, and Mandela put it brilliantly when he came out of prison, because one of the first things he did was he went to see the wife of the man who’d coined the term apartheid. And he’d been the prime minister of South Africa at the time, Favout, who had thought it all through and implemented the policy of apartheid. He went to see his wife. He was still 90-something and had tea. And he was heavily criticized.

And he said, Mandela, he said, well, how do I find my real freedom unless I face the greatest terror and the greatest evil of my life? How am I going to find my own freedom without rage and anger, just sit and have a cup of tea with it? And I thought to myself, I’ll have a cup of tea with my rage. I’ll have a cup of tea with my anger, my hostage to MS dictating so much of my life. Yes, it turned me towards university, which I didn’t originally intend to become a university person, but I felt I wanted financial security. I needed it. And I managed to have a parallel life between university and writing and directing. And I try to work as much as I can that parallel life between the creative and academic and the teaching side. Not perfect, sometimes too much one, too little of the other, but know, Sit and have a cup of tea with it. Like if he could do it, well, who was I to not try and do it with MS?

 

Overcoming MS (22:14)

And so what advice would you have for other people who are trying to find their own voice and follow their passions? Particularly if they’ve got MS and maybe they’re younger in diagnosis, they might be in their mid-twenties and they’re worried about following their passions when they’ve got an illness like MS.

 

David Peimer (22:36)

I think it’s so important what you’ve just asked and said and crucial. And I don’t want to seem lecture-y I can only talk from my experience. Number one.

 

Try and find out the stress triggers. Try and find out the ways of not being a hostage and ways of channeling rage into something creative like fire, I said earlier, can be creative or destructive. Try and find a passion in work and love and family or whatever, travel, whatever.

That gives one some kind of satisfaction without being naive or sentimental and try and live that as much as possible with earning enough income to pay the bills, put bread on the table. The compromise I made, to be frank with you, was going to university because that would put bread on the table.

 And then I would be able to follow my passion whenever I could of writing, directing, theatre, film, etc. It was a compromise. I had intended to be freelance, travel the world, direct all over, write all over. I was in New York, was elsewhere, you said, everywhere and so on. I had to massively compromise, which had its own anger. But I had to find a way to combine the passion with the reality of, you know, paying the bills. And I think that takes time. I don’t think it’s, I would never pretend it’s a quick, easy step. Of course it’s not. And, but one has to try. Because no one is gonna help us. Judy helped me amazingly. George Jelenik’s book, OMS, everything you do and others with OMS also helped later in life. The Corpaxone, that therapist I mentioned, I sought those out and they helped in return. And I will always try my best to help anybody with MS. I’ve spoken to hundreds and hundreds since over the many decades, but in those early days, I didn’t have a clue. I just sat and if I couldn’t write because I couldn’t hold a pen, I’d ask a friend, I’d dictate and a friend would write for me or my sister. And then they would take it to the post office and put it in the post box in those days, obviously before the internet and everything. Find people who can help. Find who can help and find a way to combine passion with money. Whatever that passion may be and know that a compromise is going to have to be made. You have to make a deal with oneself.

 

Overcoming MS (24:52)

And another symptom which you haven’t mentioned is that affects almost everyone with MS is fatigue. So how do you manage that? you know, with a successful career, both academically and in theatre. So how do you manage the fatigue levels?

 

David Peimer (25:09)

Well, I think, Geoff, the way you see me is, you know, when people look at me, they don’t have a clue I have MS unless I tell them. And I’m not saying this to boast or brag or any naive nonsense. I, you know, I tell people if I’m asked or I share. I think I don’t know, it’s just, it’s a way of living and thinking. I was so obsessed with the minutiae of the diet and the vitamins in the beginning. I became in research and understanding everything, channeling that anger. Now I know I’m able to put that aside for a while. I can come and go from it.

But I don’t think there’s any harm in turning obsession into something helpful to oneself. Because what I did learn, there are people out there who will help, but we do have to knock on their door. And a lot will reject, but some will not. And I was amazed at the ones who wrote to me. And there I was sitting in a friend’s, lying in a friend’s bed for a year and a half whatever, couldn’t do anything. People then would even help just in little, just in Johannesburg or wherever they would do, and later as well. You know, so it’s not easy and it’s hard.

But what’s the alternative?

The alternative is obvious, as they said to me, you will be dead in four, five, you know, maybe not dead, but you’ll get worse or you’ll this or you’ll that or, you know, and I don’t know. just, maybe I’ve just always believed in fighting, but fighting with this.

Overcoming MS (26:42)

And you’ve mentioned that you’ve spoken to lots of people. So how has community and speaking with others who live with MS helped you?

David Peimer (26:49)

They’ve helped amazingly. Some of the people I’ve mentioned already and when I actually got Swank’s book in Johannesburg from the publisher wrote to in America and in London and New York and that data, et cetera, managed to get it and then managed to get other, know, many things all before the internet. And I found an amazing community through people who would just help. They’d write to me handwritten letters, authors of those books or I’d try and telephone them in the old days, you know, whatever. Some did and some didn’t, but the ones who did were amazing. I’ll never forget it. Yes. And people with MS, which I’ve carried on.

 

Overcoming MS (27:20)

And then go to people with MS as well. Is that sort of carried on?

 

David Peimer (27:28)

There were people with MS who’d given up, people with MS who had shrugged, people with MS who were just trying to live life in the fast lane, as much as possible, probably possibly die young, which is a choice. I don’t judge, ever. Never judge, I just listen. And I just try and suggest from now, all these years later, all I can do is say what has helped me.

I don’t want to pretend I have an answer. I don’t want to pretend that I’m giving a lecture. I could just say it might help you. It’s worth a shot. Why not? What’s to lose?

And even that I didn’t know. And I was scoffed at by many people. Scientific friends, scientists, medical friends, medical cousins. They all scoffed and dismissed it out of hand. You know, now different stories they look at me. Maybe I’m just fluke and just luck, fluke. But I don’t believe it because I know how bad it was.

42 years ago. So I think, yeah, you know, it’s, what can I say? Like anything in life, it’s worth trying. You know, I had a professor who said to me, David, you’ll never write a play better than Shakespeare, so why bother writing?

 And I looked at him, this is in South Africa, early days of my university. And I said to him, are you being serious? And he said, yes. And I said, Professor, you don’t have a clue and I’m not gonna listen to you because what you’re talking is utter nonsense and it comes from your failure, not mine.

That’s the way of Yousuf, not mine. And do we know?

Is the wave of history inevitable? We have no choice. We have to stick with that wave and nothing else. Or are we merely the foam on the wave of history? Where we don’t have a choice. We’re just foam tossed around by MS. Or we can try and slip into the wave and try and surf in some way and make some choices, something. Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. Maybe the wave will dump us anyway. But what’s to lose?

 

Overcoming MS (29:10)

Yeah. So, firstly, thank you very much. That’s been a fascinating and inspiring talk that we’ve just had. But just to finish up, is there anything else you’d like to add and specifically any advice you have for people who are newly diagnosed or new to the Overcoming MS programme?

 

David Peimer (29:34)

I would say get in touch with your anger and rage and have tea with it. I don’t want to sound like a Zen Buddhist because I’m not. Okay. Or fight it or get furious or punch or kick or do whatever. You know, when I swim, I punch and kick sometimes because I’m still angry. Okay. I don’t think it ever goes for us if we’re really honest underneath it because of course it’s changed our lives completely. You know, obviously it totally changes.

 But the question is how to take that change. I would say get in touch with that rage.

Talk to it, find it, and try and use it in a positive way.

Understand MS, research, understand the medications, understand OMS, understand the diet, understand the vitamins, understand the biochemistry, use the brain, what we are given, use that to understand before we give up or just accept whatever a doctor might or might not say.

That’s the first thing. Never give up, never surrender, Mr Churchill. Secondly, get into the diet, the vitamins, the medications, try this, that, see what may or may not work for oneself. Understand stress and the role of stress, crucial, and how to manage one’s own stress and what is one’s own stress and stick to it and take the path of least stress and take the path of channeling the rage into something positive to fight and talk to people with MS. Talk to people like yourself, Geoff. Talk to people, anybody, anywhere who have the condition, who are trying to do something about it. Not only, and some of the medical experts who will listen and talk and cross the road to the other side if they just judge and say, well, you know, nothing we can do. Try this medication, try that, goodbye, you know.

 Don’t let, I mean it’s the cliche, but it is true try and be partly married and partly divorced to MS. One can’t be fully either. That’s naive. And it will dictate many choices of job, love, happiness, family, tragedy, sadness in life. But try and find a way with both. Try and surf that wave, not be the mere foam of it, as much as one can.

 

Overcoming MS (31:37)

With that, I’d like to thank you very much, David Peimer That was absolutely fascinating.

 

David Peimer (31:42)

Thank you so much, Geoff. Thank you and to everybody involved with OMS. Thanks to George Jelenik massively. I think his book together with Judy Graham’s book on my two Bibles, literally, I really mean it. I go back to them again and again and again. And when in my darkest hours, I read them again and again and again.

 

And to everybody with MS and suffering, morality is to try and lessen suffering. I really believe it. Morality is not about good and evil, right and wrong. Morality is about lessening suffering and let’s try and help each other.

 

Overcoming MS (32:13)

Okay, thank you very much.