There I was just living life – wandering along – minding my own business. Working. Falling in love. Going to school a few times. Making a home. Getting married. Life – she was sweet.
Two weeks after my honeymoon I started having petite seizures. I’m always good at writing health things off as something else. I was tired. Stressed. I had just gotten married. There was so much going on! I stumbled into my regular chiropractor appointment, and he was concerned right away. I was having trouble speaking! After determining I wasn’t having a brain hemorrhage, he convinced me that I needed to see a neurologist. (THANK YOU, Doc Halperin!)
My new medical team quickly figured that whatever the issue was – it was in my brain. They treated me with ani-seizure medications that made me crazy – like seriously crazy but stopped the seizures. Blood tests and brain scans. I was stuffed into a few MRI tubes. There were so many tests. I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in November 2006. Life – she’s sometimes a bitch.
I was lucky. I was diagnosed quickly. Many people struggle with diagnoses for years before getting an answer for the multitude of symptoms that come along with this disease.
MS is not who I am. and MS has not stopped me. MS is something that I deal with every day. Something that I carry around all the time. It is a progressive, degenerative life altering disease. I seem to have stood in the wrong line, like signing up for a class in college I didn’t want to take – but now I can’t withdraw.
It’s been 18 years now. We bought a home in CA, quit our jobs and moved across country. We got new jobs. Made friends. And found new community. There were struggles. We loved fiercely and laughed hard. We tried hard to have a baby. There were tears and sadness. Then Devland was born in 2012. We lost a few kitties and gained few more. We adopted chickens and lost them too. Life keeps going along.
I stay healthy. Eat decently. Take my supplements. Never miss a day of medication. And get stuffed into MRI tubes a few times a year. There are days I almost forget I even have MS. Yes – there are some bad days. But most of my days are really good!
I’ve got things to do. I have a life to lead. I have plans, and some holes in my brain and spine are certainly not going to stop me from getting there. They may slow me down at time – but slow and sometimes unsteady – I’ll get there. Although my MS diagnosis does not define me, it is part of who I am. It lives with me. All the time. But come on – let’s go – there is so much left to do!
MS SUCKS. But that ain’t stopping me.