"SUFFER" from MS?

Is my MS so bad that I suffer from it? It has held me back at times. It has weighed on my psyche. Fatigue, heat, loss of balance, wonky eyes, tingling, moments in the restroom...those are all symptoms that I have. I prefer to think that I am learning to almost block them out. Sure, I stop every now and then and take inventory to see how I'm doing. But, for the last year, the symptoms have not worsened, and I have proven that I am still able to function in my business world. If people don't already know, and I don't tell them, they would not know that I have MS.

I know we all deal with our MS differently. I know our MS is different from individual to individual. Our support group's are all different. I live with my dog and no other family members. My nearest family is over 900 miles away. How do I do it, I ask myself sometimes. I am not debilitated, but knowing I have a disease that can be debilitating can have an emotional effect; which again, we all deal with in our own personal and individual way.

Lately, I have spent more time trying to do the things I want to do, whether I feel fatigued or not. I do them and I concentrate on overcoming the physical and emotional fatigue that I feel; mind over MS, I call it! I give myself a personal pat on the back for doing it and I feel joy and accomplishment. It takes pushing. Having the idea to do something is easy. Planning to do it, still easy. The last step; actually going through the front door out into the world to do whatever you have planned, that is the biggest hurdle for me. Over the last year, there have been many events I have planned for, only to stop at my front door when the time came. It was easy for me to blame it on the physical fatigue of MS, but really, it was the failure of my mind to win that battle.

I guess, I am writing this because I have been out reading other people's blogs and I read where someone said, "I suffer from MS." And, part of me wanted to disagree with that statement. But, I don't know that person. I don't know how bad it is for him. I don't know what kind of support he has. And, THAT is why I was out reading his blog. I need to go back and read more, and I will. Right now though, I am here writing and I want to finish. I started out writing this blog entry to say that we shouldn't be "suffering" from MS! The more I thought about it, the more I wrote, the more I knew that YES!, I "suffer" from MS. My life suffers. I let MS get the best of me. It is hard to not let it. I wish all my blog entries could be about how I beat my MS! But, that isn't true. There are many times it gets the best of me. I will have my victories, though. And, I guarantee I will be here sharing them when I get one! MIND OVER MS! I'm not ready to give up...

Well, this was a Saturday morning rambler...

YES, I have MS

My first blog...what is the theme of my blog? Let's see. Thinking. How about ME.

YES, I have MS. But, it appears it is a milder MS than some. It is relapse/remitting, as the doc says; certainly not to be taken lightly. My symptoms are not advanced. I can see, although it was my vision that first caused me to go to the doc. My vision gets what I call 'wonky'. The eyes start wandering a bit, well, at least one of them does. And, not all the time. I also experience numbness and fatigue in my legs, but I am still active and I try to do all the things I used to do. My abilities are impaired compared to what I was like just a few years ago. Although, I am certain that I have had MS for a long time without realizing it...probably 20 years or more.

Anyways, my eyes had acted like that about a year earlier and it went away then, so not really caring for a visit to the doctor's office, I forgot all about it. Then, the next time, after a year, and I thought, 'again', maybe I need glasses. It didn't take that doc long to get on the right trail. She said I needed an MRI. That sounded serious enough that I scheduled a trip to the MRI store the next day.

A day later, I get a call and there is a suspicious lesion on the MRI and the eye-doc tells me I should see a neurologist. So, not wasting any time, next thing I know, I have a copy of my MRI and I'm looking at it at home before I see the neurologist, and it is plain to see...there is something there. Now, I have a history of cancer, having had a melanoma-positive mole about 10 years earlier. So, the immediate concern was cancer. The neurologist confirmed that, but he was not eager to dive in, it seemed, so I sought a second and third opinion.

Brain biopsy was the consensus decision, and in less than two weeks I was strapped to a state-of-the-art operating table having a hole bored into my skull and a needle inserted into the largest of the suspect lesions. The on-site pathologist saw no cancer, but did see demylenation. In the blink of an eye, my life expectancy went from six months to whenever. So, I found out that a sample of your brain will not allow a neurologist to diagnose you with MS, even though, that is what I was told it PROBABLY was.

Seems there is a torture protocol invloved in the diagnosis of MS that includes a spinal tap and my doc was intent on seeing that I didn't miss out on that. This was the longest of all the processes as it turned out...the OFFICIAL diagnosis. Multiple MRI's, counting of lesions, positive spinal tap, and finally the diagnosis. I was ready to start the treatment, but which treatment...my doc and I decided on Betaseron...then I had to wait to get APPROVED for the treatment. When it was all done, I felt like I had been INITIATED into a club or some sort of fraternity, with all of the hazing INCLUDED!

So, as I said, my MS is mild, but that is not to say it does not affect me. I think the mental and emotional toll is the worst of my symptoms. The fact that I can't run and jump like I used to can easily be written off as getting older. It was only a few years ago that I could still jump and get above a basketball rim. That is history now. One of the things I have noticed and I don't know if this is MS or if I am just a wuss. I find myself tearing up when I am watching TV, viewing a tender moment or an exciting sports victory. I watched the movie Seven Pounds, and I swear, I cried from start to finish. Took me three days to recover from that experience. I have talked to friends and family about that movie and some couldn't understand why I would cry over it. Hmmm...maybe I am a wuss...