In 2013, Tamara Sellman was on a camping trip with her family when she realized that she couldn’t read. She could see the words on paper, but they made no sense. Alarmed, she made an appointment with her doctor and had an MRI the same day. The lesions in her brain were apparent, and she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She likens it to having “corroded personal batteries.” Treatment has brought many of her symptoms into remission, but she still has tremors in her left arm and leg, balance and dizziness issues, tinnitus and chronic fatigue.

"The lyrical and often humorous pieces in INTENTION TREMOR illustrate the challenges, joys and sorrows of life with an MS diagnosis, allowing the reader to open her heart to another human’s journey."

While the MS diagnosis changed Tamara’s life forever, she was a writer before the onset of MS, and she is a passionate writer still. She has turned her experiences into INTENTION TREMOR, a short but revealing collection of poetry and prose about life with the disease and the people and situations that have helped, harmed and witnessed.

Now that so many of us have experienced quarantine, her 2016 poem of the same name resonates more strongly.

       Immunocompromised, I
       belong to that exclusive
       club filled with babies and old
       people, defending against

       that much larger club who fears
       the modern miracles of
       vaccines, eschewing science,
       praising herd immunity

We learn something in every piece, whether about MS, the treatments, the symptoms, or just good old human nature. Here’s a bit from her poem, “Kanab.”

       At least you don’t have cancer.

       At least it won’t kill you. 

       My old self at diagnosis was tossed
       like a broken mannequin into the
       salal-ridden ditch of lost identities, not by
       a careless doctor or a cruel nurse,

       but by those who I expected to know
       better than to lob trite comparisons. 

The final prose piece, “Zebrafish,” gives us a window into the research value of these transparent, fast-growing fish: "There is this problem of no answers when it comes to MS. MRI handed over some answers, which accelerated the journey to a cure back in the 1980s. Now, we can peek inside the brains of zebrafish, give them MS, and then --- yes! --- get rid of it!"

The fight to conquer COVID-19 has drained a lot of research dollars --- with good reason --- but many non-profits still need some love. Tamara is donating the proceeds from this book to the Accelerated Cure Project, which works to accelerate research and improve the quality of life for those affected by MS. The lyrical and often humorous pieces in INTENTION TREMOR illustrate the challenges, joys and sorrows of life with an MS diagnosis, allowing the reader to open her heart to another human’s journey. In this time of isolation, that can only be a good thing.