I guess it’s about time to tell the story of how this whole MS ordeal started for me. Cue January 2013…I think? Honestly, my memory is not what it used to be. Anyhow, somewhere around new year’s I started feeling slight numbing sensations in my thumb and index finger of my left hand which I dismissed as just general “falling asleep of the limb” that happens on occasion. It came and went on and off and slowly started spreading up towards my elbow. A day or two later of this, I started feeling the same numbing on and off in my right foot that slowly extended upwards. The spreading continued until i was numb all over the entire lower part of my body, butt, front, stomach, back and left arm and shoulder. Basically, the only parts of me that weren’t numb was my right side arm, shoulder blade and breast.
Walking was extremely creepy since I really couldn’t feel much of anything, going to the bathroom was even weirder because I couldn’t feel what I was doing, so as you’d imagine I was pretty freaked out at this point. I think this whole numbing thing started and spread in 3-4 days maybe, so it was fairly quick (at least in my experience). So I went to the emergency room, mostly because I was worried that I was having a stroke or something. Got there, waited for like an hour before getting in to see a doctor who did a neurological exam, blood tests, blood pressure and then said “I think you just have a pinched nerve. Wait a few weeks and if it’s still the same or worse, come back.” In hindsight, I should have pushed for an MRI, but I was just happy that it wasn’t a stroke so I went home.
The numbing slowly started disappearing over the course of 2-3 months. I never returned to the doctor because it was getting better, so I figured there was no need for a doctor’s appointment. 6+ months later, I still had less sensation in my left hand but I guess somewhere in my mind I justified that with it being a slow process. Life continued on as usual, I spent 12+ hours in the lab every day working on my project and didn’t really think much about it whatsoever. I remember being super tired and fatigued all the time back then, but I attributed that to my general lack of sleep and being stressed out with deadlines and never really relaxing and turning my mind off, even during my free time. I now know that the stress was causing the extreme fatigue, but I just didn’t really think about it much at the time. I remember complaining to N about not being able to let go, stop thinking and just relax.
So…for the following…year (?) not much of anything really happened health-wise. Until November of last year. It was a Saturday evening and I was sitting at the computer playing games with N and friends when I started feeling my eyes getting sore. Kind of like when you strain them too much by reading or something. I didn’t really think much of it other than “huh, I’ve been sitting here staring at the screen for too long”. A few hours later I started seeing that heat-flowy-fog-thing that you see outside when the sun has been frying the pavement for a while and it sort of…flickers? It’s the only analogy I can think of, but I’m sure there are better ways to express it. Anyways, that was kind of odd but again, I attributed that to the fact that my eyes felt tired and strained. I went to bed and figured it’d be back to normal after a good night’s sleep.
I woke up the next day with sort of blurry/hazy vision, figured it was just that typical thing you get sometimes right after waking up that disappears once you’ve been up a little while. Well, mine didn’t disappear. The blur/haze evolved into shadows that slowly spread over the course of 2-3 days until I had pretty much lost 75% of my left side field of vision and maybe about 50% of the bottom part. If N was standing/walking on my left side, I could NOT see him in the corner of my eye if I looked straight ahead. Pretty damn scary. Since it was the weekend and the clinic being closed, I didn’t want to go to the ER, and I figured that it’d maybe get better on its own, so I waited. Wednesday rolled in and there was absolutely no difference, so I decided to go to the clinic. Got in to see a nice older doctor who examined me and felt that it would be best for me to see an ophthalmologist so he remitted me to one and I went home thinking I’m gonna get to wait at least a week before getting called in. That was not the case, they called me that same afternoon to ask if I could come in so I went. Spent 4 hours there while she performed every eye test in the book and established that it wasn’t my left eye that was the problem (which I thought since it was the left side that wasn’t behaving). She couldn’t find anything wrong with my eyes and decided that I’d need to do an MRI. So, I went home – again figuring I’d have to wait a good while before getting an appointment.
Another phone call right after I get home, asking me to come in for an MRI the next day. At this point, I’m beginning to freak out a little bit, since they’re so quick with the appointments. N tries to reassure me that it’s good, they’re being serious about whatever is going on and want to help me, but jesus christ that doesn’t really work as a reassurance! The next day I go in for an MRI of the brain, it’s painless (but a little bit unsettling because I’ve never done it before) and quick and 30 minutes later I’m heading home again. About an hour or two later, the ophthalmologist calls and says that she’s arranged for them to send me an appointment for MRI to which I tell her that I had it done a few hours earlier.
“Oh, hang on then, let me check if the results have come in”. Uhh…okay… “You need to go to the ER, show them your ID and they’ll get you right in. A neurologist needs to see the MRI results, I’ll call ahead and tell them to expect you.” Uhh….okay…..(?!?!?!)
Obviously, I’m freaking out, but off I go with N to the ER. The waiting room is not too crowded so we only wait for like 20 minutes before going in with a nurse. She checks my pulse and blood pressure, draws some blood and tells me to sit tight and wait for the on-call neuro. I’m jittery, N looks pretty worried and every minute feels like an hour. In walks the neuro, she’s friendly but obviously stressed out. She asks a bunch of questions, the usual medical history, how I’m feeling right then etc, does a neuro work-up and says she’s gonna go look at the MRI results and will be back in a few. Eek! She comes back:
“So, it seems that you have some changes in your brain from what I can see in the pictures. We need to admit you, right now, tonight.” This is the part where I sort of stop breathing and just stare at her. I ask her what that means and she says that she can’t really say because it’s difficult to tell from the pictures and that they need to run a lot more tests. She excuses herself and says she’ll send a nurse in to show me where to go. I stop her in the door and ask if it’s ok for me to go home and come back early in the morning because I would really like to sleep in my own bed tonight. She says that’s ok but that I still need to wait for the transport to come and take me up to the floor and show me my room. MY ROOM. She leaves and I just sit there.
I look at N and he’s all pale and gaping more or less. I feel…numb, shocked, in disbelief. They want to admit me? What the hell is wrong with me, am I dying? You know, all sorts of thoughts are racing through my mind and I can’t remember the last time if ever when I was admitted to the hospital. So here we are, sitting in a small exam room, both with a look of panic on our faces, trying to comfort each other by saying: At least they want to run more tests and figure out what’s going on. At least they will help.
A few minutes later, a nurse comes in and leads us out to a waiting area where we’re supposed to wait for the transport (which essentially is a guy/girl who takes you around the hospital to where you’re supposed to go). We wait. And wait. And wait. 2 hours later, they finally come and show me up to the 8th floor, one of many neurology departments and room 5, MY ROOM. I meet the floor nurse, check in and tell her that I’ve been allowed to go home for the night and ask what time I need to be there the next day. She’s kind and friendly and says 8am but it would be good if I could be there earlier if possible because rounds sometimes start before then. So, home we go…at this point, it’s around 11pm and I’ve spent 4+hours there. I get home, call my parents and tell them what’s going on. They start freaking out and worrying, I spend about an hour trying to comfort them and then pass out.
I go back to the hospital the next morning and end up spending 2 weeks there being poked and prodded, sleeping extremely poorly in a hospital beds for 3-4 hours each night, talking on the phone with my parents several times a day etc etc. They release me 2 weeks later, after a 3-day steroid treatment, I get home and basically sleep for 14 hours. The vision slowly starts returning after 3 weeks, but it takes several months for it to go back to nearly normal. I get my diagnosis end of January.
During all this, I never got a chance to deal, never got a chance to process what I was feeling or going through, because I was busy taking care of and comforting all my loved ones. Honestly, I’m not even sure that I’ve ever really processed or dealt with what has happened, to this day. Hopefully, that won’t come back to bite me in the ass.