Taking the Reins: One Woman's Journey with MS

By Ellen Frank

Ellen Frank, a 64-year-old Jewish lesbian feminist activist, has been living with MS (multiple sclerosis) for more than twenty years. This plain-spoken, dark, funny, passionate memoir chronicles two pivotal years of her life, 1995–1997, when she takes up therapeutic riding, falls in love with various horses, travels from Vancouver to Tel Aviv to stay with her daughter and await the birth of her grandson, and writes it all down.

Ellen guides her beloved horse Geo in the dressage competition in the Summer Games for People with Disabilities, then leans on the reluctant Jewish Agency to get immigration status in Israel, repacks a 100-lb duffle bag in the Vancouver airport, dances at her daughter’s wedding, hears about a terrorist bombing as she waits at a bus stop, gets a place of her own and a job as a secretary (thanks to her fluent English), defends an Arabic-speaking woman on the bus against a discriminatory driver, attends the birth of her grandson, and finally, with mixed feelings and a very new perspective, flies back to Vancouver.

In her parallel interior journey, Ellen works out her up-and-down agreement with chronic illness and middle age, remembers the Evil Eye so familiar to her female ancestors, breathes in the calming heat of the Negev Desert, works on her conversational Hebrew, wonders if she worries too much, and welcomes her newborn grandson to an Israel that is quite different from the one we know today.

Taking the Reins is an unforgettable, no-holds-barred story of living with disability rather than in spite of it. In Ellen’s words:
It is not about triumph.
It is not about tragedy.
I never overcome and I never give up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ellen Frank
• Release date: Nov 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465754691

Book preview

Taking the Reins

One Woman’s Journey with MS

a memoir

by Ellen Frank

Copyright © Ellen Frank 2011

Smashwords Edition

******************************************************************************

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

The ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for you use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

******************************************************************************

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Frank, Ellen, 1947-

Taking the reins [electronic resource]: one woman’s journey with MS / Ellen Frank.

Type of computer file: Electronic monograph in HTML format.

Issued also in print format.

ISBN 978-0-9780465-1-4

1. Frank, Ellen, 1947-. 2. Multiple sclerosis—Patients—Canada—Biography. 3. Jewish women—Canada—Biography. 4. Feminists—Canada—Biography. 5. Horsemanship—Therapeutic use. I. Title.

RC377.F625 2011a 362.196’8340092 C2011-906040-X

This book is dedicated to my mother, who encouraged me to write this book from the beginning days, and continued to encourage its publication from her grave.

Contents

Chapter 1: Back in the Saddle

Chapter 2: The Wedding

Chapter 3: The Evil Eye

Chapter 4: Fear

Chapter 5: Prove It

Chapter 6: Going for Gold

Chapter 7: Feeling the Pull

Chapter 8: Telling the Parents

Chapter 9: Building Trust

Chapter 10: Saying Goodbye

Chapter 11: Tel Aviv, with Flowers

Chapter 12: Law of Return

Chapter 13: The Game

Chapter 14: Givat Haviva

Chapter 15: Waiting for the Bus

Chapter 16: Dinner with Debbie

Chapter 17: East Jerusalem

Chapter 18: Home Truths

Chapter 19: Birth Day

Chapter 20: Summer in the City

Chapter 21: Space Available

Chapter 1

Back in the Saddle

October 3, 1995

Today I went riding. Well, okay… today I got on a horse and went around in circles for a while. But never mind, I feel like I went riding. It was the beginning...

I am standing on the mounting block, a little platform three steps high. April, one of the instructors, brings up Brew, an elderly but beautiful chestnut gelding. I put one foot into the stirrup—and freeze. I mean, I completely freeze.

I look at Brinna, the head instructor, and say, I don’t think I can do this.

Brinna says, Not a problem, you can do this. Take your time.

April and Brinna are cool. They wait. We all stand around for a few minutes while I regroup. I shift from foot to foot, I put one hand on the saddle, then the other hand. Now I shift some more. As we stand here, I realize it is okay, nobody is doing anything. I am frozen, but April, Brinna and the horse just wait patiently. So, I take three deep breaths and somehow manage to hoist myself up and into the saddle.

I almost cancelled this morning’s lesson. Three days ago I somehow put my back out or my knee or both. I spent all of Wednesday, which was Yom Kippur, limping and hobbling about in a synagogue. Yesterday I was still not in great shape, but this morning I did feel better. I thought I’d come to the stables just to meet with Brinna and make some plans. After I explained about my fragile back and knees, we decided I should just get on the horse and walk around for ten minutes. It would be like a little horse massage. That seemed okay. I could handle ten minutes.

Now I am on the horse. April is walking around, leading Brew and I’m just relaxing. If there were other people around, I would have a need to look like I knew what I was doing, but nobody else is around. Generally I have this need to look okay in front of people, but then control has always been high on my needs list. However, for some reason that I don’t yet understand, it is very easy to be not okay in front of Brinna and April, the two women who run these stables. I don’t feel humiliated being led around like a little kid. I feel taken care of.

April says, I am not really doing anything. You are.

I smile and she lets go of the lead rope. This is fine by me because I know that as long as she is walking in front, Brew will follow her, so I still don’t need to do much but we can pretend I am more in control. Brew and I walk around in a few circles by ourselves, we stop, we start, we stroll.

April says, It’s past ten minutes. How are you doing?

I say, I could get off soon.

We stop, I manage to get off—inelegantly, but I manage.

Just ten minutes today feels great. I am convinced that this riding is going to sort out my hip joints and help my legs and back. The surprise is that my soul and psyche feel like they are waking up. I feel like I have just done something grand. Me who doesn’t often feel proud of myself for things all of a sudden feels quite proud of myself for getting on Brew.

I am forty-eight years old and I have multiple sclerosis, which was diagnosed seven years ago. I had ridden horses until I was thirteen, but since then I’ve only been on the occasional trail ride. I’ve always loved horses, except that they scare me—a lot. I used to love hiking, cross-country skiing, camping and being in the wilderness, but a few years back, when my legs wouldn’t go there anymore, I started thinking I could get back to the woods on a horse. All I needed was to be able to ride one well enough that I wasn’t stuck with strangers on trail rides. No problem. So I tried taking lessons. But the instructor was about the same age as my children and I neglected to tell her about the MS and my problems with balance because at that point it mostly only affected my balance and my energy levels. I looked normal so she had no idea why I kept falling off the horse. I gave up. A few years after that, I fell down two flights of stairs and six months later I was in hospital having back surgery. And lo and behold, I now feel fragile about getting on a horse. It is slowly becoming obvious to me that I indeed have a disability, that I can’t count on my body doing what it once could do, so I look at the horse and the memory of how to ride is in my head but it is not in my body. But this time I have found instructors who do horseback riding for people with disabilities.

October 10, 1995

Here we are at lesson #2. Before I got on Brew today, I brushed him, and that was cool. Then I picked his feet, which terrified me. When you groom a horse you have to lift each leg and use a hoof pick to remove any dirt, mud or rocks from his hooves. The scary parts are: 1) believing that you are not going to hurt the horse, 2) holding up his back legs, which are heavy, and 3) trusting that the horse is going to have the patience to be cooperative with you. But I did it. Then I managed to get on, still rather inelegantly but much more quickly.

Now I am very pleased with myself as I walk around the circles.

Brinna calls to me, You’ve been up there twenty-five minutes. Are you getting tired?

Twenty-five minutes, really?

We have done big circles, little circles and diagonals across the ring. No leading this time. At one point Brinna tried to sneak into the centre of the ring, but I caught her and made her stay beside me. If she or April is walking next to the horse, he follows them and I have way less to do. My body feels good, but beyond that I just feel proud of myself.

Now I have done many things in my lifetime that other people think of as big accomplishments. I organized a BC-wide daycare conference while at the same time helping to lead a sit-in of a government office. I opened a workers’ co-operative travel agency. I went back to university at age forty-three, got a BA and thought, yeah, that’s good. I was a single parent with no money raising two children while I did everything else and thought, that’s nice too. I just never did proud of myself. But today I am very pleased with myself.

October 17, 1995

Lesson #3 and still great. Today April has taken over my lesson and Brew and I are riding around in the circles again this way and that.

Are you ready to get off yet? April asks.

No. How about we just go around one more time?

Fine with me, says April.

Ah, but it does not seem fine with Brew. He knows the half hour is up so he is determined to go to the place where I will dismount.

Well, maybe I will just get off now, I say.

No way! says April. You decided to go around again, and if you give up now, Brew knows he has won forever.

Fine, I say.

Brew and I have an argument about it. I insist and around we go.

After the first two lessons it was mostly my soul that felt great, but today I notice the physical part. My hips feel relaxed and loose and my legs feel sturdy! At the moment I am convinced I could go out and walk three miles.

October 18, 1995

Today while out for a little walk I can feel my hips locking back up again. Because my MS interferes with the messages from my brain to my legs, they don’t automatically work, and I think my hips overcompensate to keep me upright. The movement of the horse loosens them up. If my legs get stronger, my hips won’t be so overworked. Victor, my chiropractor, used to do an adjustment to unlock them, but as much as I love Victor, the horses are more fun! And there is just something about them—majestic, compelling and yet calming—that makes me feel so completely wonderful after I ride.

November 7, 1995

It should be easy to keep riding as I really love it, but it’s not! If I don’t ride for a while my body forgets how much I love it and I lose the desire. This is awfully familiar. It was always like this for me with swimming, and with hiking, skiing, sex, most physical stuff. I can forget that I love it and lose the desire to keep going.

Today Khyah, my five-year-old granddaughter, comes with me to the stables. We are all standing around before my lesson. I am going to ride Brew, then she will ride him next. Brew is in the crossties, I am changing my shoes and Khyah, who knows no fear, marches right up to him and he bites her. He actually bites her!

Khyah wails. Brinna takes charge. Go get the first aid kit. The skin’s only slightly broken.

Khyah is wailing less.

He’s broken her skin? I scream.

Only slightly, says Brinna. Khyah is fine. She will help me feed the horses. You go ride.

You want me to get on that horse now? I say.

Khyah, no longer crying, says, I’ll help feed the horses.

So I go. I am somewhat appalled getting on the beast that has bitten my granddaughter, but I go. We have a rather interesting ride because I am pissed off with Brew and am being much more forceful. The power struggle is definitely less intense. My body language says, Don’t mess with me today. My hands are firmer on the reins. My legs are stronger. I am sure he hears the I-am-mad-at-you tone in my voice. He is not messing with me, just nicely doing what I ask of him.

I know horses understand control and fear. I am vividly reminded of the day the horses ran away with me and my daughter, Johanna. It was one summer about ten or eleven years ago after Johanna and I had done a lot of trail riding on a camping trip to the Cariboo. She would have been twelve or thirteen at the time. When we got back to Vancouver, we found a stable in Maple Ridge where we could rent horses and go off by ourselves. Of course, horses know when you don’t know from nothing. We rode up the street to a gate, but we couldn’t make them go though it. We needed to go through that gate to get to the trail, so we got off the horses and tried to lead them through it. We couldn’t do that either. So we got back on the horses and turned them around. The horses immediately knew they were in