This is the first is a series of posts I will be sharing over the week, to raise awareness of Multiple Sclerosis.
Yesterday marked the start of National Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week, a week-long effort to spotlight this chronic neurological disease. MS is long thought to be an autoimmune disease which damages the central nervous system (think brain, spinal cord and optic nerves).
This video has a good explanation of what Multiple Sclerosis is, better than I can speak to:)
The side of MS that I can speak to, is as one of the 400,000 Americans diagnosed and living with the disease.
I was diagnosed with MS 2 1/2 years ago, after months of medical tests and a great deal of anxiety. I had not been feeling well for a while and knew something was not right in my body. I went to my general doctor and she started testing me for everything under the sun and then some. I was picked, prodded and poked more times than I care to remember. I was feeling weakness in my legs and numbness on the right side of my face. I found this odd, as I was in an incredibly healthy place at the time, where an hour of kick-boxing would be followed by an hour of pilates.
What we thought was just a mix of low vitamin levels and the flu, continued to get worse. I was starting to experience a weakness in the right side of my body, which felt the way your foot or hand does when they fall asleep. But unlike your hand of foot falling asleep, which goes away quickly, this feeling was not going away at all. My right side wanted to move, but despite my best effort, it would not. Frustration was beginning to build up inside and my body was telling me this was something more. I can not emphasize enough that our bodies have the ability to tell us when something is not right and it is our responsibility to listen to these signs.
After some research on my own and quite a few heated discussions with my doctor, I was sent to go through a series of MRI’s, to see if there was any unusual brain activity (ok, well unusual for me) 
. Let me tell you that waiting for the results of a MRI on one’s brain, is a little anxiety provoking to say the least and the longer you have to wait to find out results, the longer you have to sit and think about what might show up. Talk about a powerless feeling that comes over a person when you are left to wonder. Scared only begins to break describe how I felt. The mind really is both our friend and our foe, huh?
Once my MRI results came back, I found out there was “white matter” on my brain and I needed to get in to see a Neurologist quickly. I complied and soon would begin my challenging relationship with the world of neurologists. More MRI’s were ordered and then a spinal tap was done. You see, there isn’t one particular test that can be done to diagnose a person with MS. Rather, it is a process of elimination, for some cases are easier than others to diagnose. In my case, the spinal tap was the final step in confirming what had been suspected.
On a sunny and hot day in August, shortly after my 27th birthday, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. I remember my Neurologist at the time asking me, “are you ok with this?” I could only wonder what the heavens that meant and proceeded to ask him if there was a rewind button I was allowed to hit and turn back time. He didn’t get my sarcasm and I immediately knew this was a relationship which would be troubled in the long run, but I was really just in shock, so I think I mumbled something to him along the lines of, ” Yeah, well this pretty much sucks…”
Shortly after my diagnosis, I was introduced to the wonderful world of “disease modifying drugs”. These do not come in pill form, rather they beauties come in shot form and are no walk in the park. These are not cures. There is NO CURE FOR MS.
Disease modifying drugs do not necessarily improve the condition of a person with MS, rather their goal is to slow down the progression of the disease. For some people they work rather well, for others they sometimes prove to be worse than the actual disease. They do leave their marks, I have plenty of bruises on my body from “shooting up” and I do wonder if they will ever go away.
Once I was diagnosed, I had this awesome idea that I would be back to my “normal” self within a few months and this wouldn’t be anything more than a memory, must like my first boyfriend . Aaaaahhh, you do not know how many times I wish I could go back and recapture that innocence. The last few years have changed me in so many ways: physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
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More to share with y’all about moving forward, what this diagnosis has taught me and a guest post from one of my favorite ladies
If you are interested in learning more Multiple Sclerosis, I encourage you to visit The Rocky Mountain MS Center by clicking here.
The National MS Society has a great deal of info. you can find, by clicking here…
