We'll See What Happens

WebMD Member Columns We asked readers of the Multiple Sclerosis newsletter to tell us about their lives with MS.

Hindsight Is 20/20 | Stories Shared | Order Out of Chaos | From Symptoms to Diagnosis | Attitude Is Everything | My Faith Is Strong | A Human Pincushion | Diagnosis in Just Months | A Better Perspective | A Glorious Task | Everything for a Reason | A Great Escape | We'll See What Happens | MS Is Not a Disability | Keep Your Head Up | Light at the End of the Tunnel | Retirement With a Twist | Coming to Terms With MS | Long Journey to Diagnosis | A Mountain of Strength

I'd spent all of my focus and energy on career and had done little to nurture myself or supportive relationships. Then I blew a gasket, popped my cork, crashed and burned big time. Couldn't stop crying for a week.

I went to counseling, resisted, then took drugs for depression. I was down for the count. About two weeks afterward, I woke one morning to discover, slowly, that my entire left side was numb. I stuck myself with a sterilized safety pin to be sure. By golly, I was numb from my toes to my nose. I wrote it off to having painted the rec room ceiling the day before. That was June of 1992.

Symptoms abated, I managed to forget about it until around September of 1995. Suddenly, I was missing my pockets. I'd try to put my hand in my jeans or jacket pocket and it wouldn't go in. I'd look down and see that my pinky was caught outside the pocket. That's why my hand wouldn't go in, but I couldn't feel it -- I had to look to know what was going on.

In 1997, I had a major personal crisis that included numbness of the feet. It was no longer a guarantee that my foot would hit the clutch and not the brake.

I began to have these sudden "I gotta lie down, I need to rest" moments, often occurring at the start of events we were hosting.

Jim insisted that I go to the doctor. When we discovered that I had MS, we cried for about six months and then began to deal, each in our own way.

There was a time when I thought I'd never get through the terrible pain of integrating this disease with my life; of remembering at odd times that I'm really disabled -- I have a parking pass to prove it. Now, it's almost a given and I must either go on with life or not -- I think I'll live it; do more than just deal.

It is critical that each of us is a pilot in our own treatment and rehab. We can not expect our doctors to know everything. We must take responsibility for our own health research and rely on our doctors for their ability to evaluate and bring perspective to new treatments and therapies.

I have a grip on my meds, on my rest and energy needs, on what causes exacerbations for me. I feel prepared. We'll see what happens.

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