I was too tired yesterday to write this blog so it is a day late. Yesterday marked the first day of my treatment for Multiple Sclerosis. I was diagnosed on August 26 of this year after two separate episodes over the course of the last four months. Since this is my first post on this new blog, I'll give a little background. You may have heard it but bear with me for you new readers... It started in April with optic neuritis (AKA temporary blindness)... Never heard of it? Neither had I. My eye doctor thought at first it was optic migranes that can cause temporary blindness but after two more days of being blind in my right eye, I went back and the eye doctor thought it was optic neuritis. I said, "Ok, what's that?" It's inflamation of the nerve behind the eye. It can be random or caused by a head injury but most often it is the first sign of MS. "What the heck? Did I hear that right?" Wait a minute I am young and healthy. I am not supposed to get MS. Cancer maybe, but not MS. My mom died of cancer at 43 so if anything, I imagined that might happen, but not this. "What is this anyway?" So after a good FREAK out on my part and a call to my husband and friend, I had an MRI on Easter Sunday. The MRI showed that I did have optic neuritis but it didn't show that I had MS. We thought our prayers were answered... The doctor said you don't have MS, you don't have a brain tumor and let's just let your eye heal. The next few days got worse but then it started to get better and better... My eye doctor recommended I see an opthoneurologist. "A what?" That's a brain doctor who specializes in the eyes - well optic nerves that is. I got an appt there but it was three months away. I continued to heal and gave little thought to the risk of MS. My appt came in June and the Dr. said we should have a full body MRI to just check things out for sure so on July 2, I went in the MRI machine for the second time in my life and guess what, I got the same response when I came out... No signs of MS. What a relief... I thought this was it. I am good. I made it out of this and God healed me.
I started to notice numbness in my right arm when I would run. It didn't really phase me at first until August 12. I woke up that day and noticed that I was feeling numb in my right leg and my stomach. This numbness spread over the next few days and I sort of panicked. "Could this really be happening?" The doctors said I was fine... How could this be? After two weeks of numbness that spread across my body and into my left hand where I lost the ability to put a ponytail in Anna's hair. I couldn't carry a dinner plate because it was too heavy and exhausting. I bet I sound like a big baby to you huh? Can't carry a dinner plate? What a weakling I am. I went in to the doctor and explained my symptoms and they scheduled an immediate MRI. I had the third MRI of my life and then I waited... a few hours went by and my doctor was back to meet me. He pulled up my spine on the screen and sure enough, a lesion was there and my spine was curved out from being swollen... He looked at me and said, "Between you and me, this is classic MS. If I were in a room full of medical students, I would use you as my text book example." I handled the news surprisingly well I thought. I was relieved to know that there was a diagnosis but I was scared.
A month went by and I read three MS books and basically went into MS information overload. I was scared. I had read about all the things that go wrong when you have MS and I read very few things that encouraged me. I wanted knowledge and boy, did I get it. A little too much actually.
I went to the doctor and decided on Copaxone, a daily injection. I started it yesterday. Let's just say, you don't know what you are capable of til you try. I never imagined I would have the courage to take a 1 inch long needle and stick it into my arm! One of 8 places available to inject. Today it was my stomach... tomorrow it's my stomach again. I can't believe I have to do this every day for the rest of my life...
I am not asking for your sympathy, just your encouragement and prayers.
Here we go...
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Monday, October 26, 2009
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