Things I've learned in the last 24 hours

Yesterday morning I had an appointment with my neurologist, Dr. Granger. He told me my blood work came back normal, but my MRI showed abnormalities. He explained that I have lesions on my brain. The first time he said, "...MS..." my mind was so shocked that I stopped time, rewound it, and listened to him say it again, just like they do in the movies.

To clinically be diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (The revised McDonald Criteria) you have to have more than one (multiple) attacks with MRI's that show lesions in at least 2 different parts of your brain. They have to be at least 30 days apart. You also have to rule out anything else it can be. To be diagnosed with only one attack you have to have 9 or more lesions affected multiple parts of the brain. I only have 7 or 8 lesions (multiple parts of the brain) and this is my first attack. Dr. Granger briefly said that if this only happens once I would be diagnosed with something like acute vasculitis (there was an acronym that had more words, but I can't remember), [I just figured out it's called acute disseminated encephalomyelitis] he strongly believes it's not that. Basically, because my attack and MRI show classic findings of MS and all of my other tests have come back normal, I will most likely be diagnosed with probable MS.

Dr. Granger wants to treat this attack before getting into treatment options. Next week I will go to Banner Baywood on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to get injections of solu-medrol through an IV. Then I will see Dr. Granger in a couple of weeks to discuss treatment options.

About 2 months ago I noticed that when I stood up my right arm and leg would tighten up and kind of go numb. It got a little worse and more frequent so I brought it up to Dr. Shredder at one of my appointments thinking it was a complication of one of my medications. He said it wasn't normal and referred me to a neurologist. Dr. Granger said it was called paresthesia and said it could be caused by over 400 different things. He said we would start by testing for the scary stuff first with a blood tests and an MRI. He said statistically nothing would show up and we would do more tests when we got the results of the first round. The insurance took several weeks to approve the MRI and I finally had it done 3 days ago.

In the meantime, my symptoms continued and the surface of my left arm went permanently numb. Then the weird attacks on the right went away and my left leg started going wonky. I would tell it to walk, but it would kind of do whatever it wanted to do. I compensated by just kind of throwing it out and pretending everything was fine. It always seemed to start out shaky, but eventually I would get it under control. Then I started to randomly get dizzy for a very brief span of time. Actually, all of my symptoms (but the skin of my left arm being numb) last for under a minute. So, even though it sounds kind of crazy it didn't really effect my life. Well, with the exception of my broken left pinkie toe. That is the fault of my wonky left leg. I've learned to be more careful though. The latest symptom is when I stand up my abs on the left side go numb and get that pins and needles feeling. It doesn't hurt or make me unbalanced, it is just extremely weird feeling. It actually makes me laugh. All of my symptoms happen more frequently now.

I am totally in the researching/processing/analyzing phase. I won't really be able to tell you what I'm thinking or how I'm feeling until I'm done thinking. Those of you that know me very well know that sometimes that takes me awhile. However, there are some things I have learned about this whole situation. I will list them for you.

Things I have learned in the last 24 hours:

• Brain lesions can heal and the symptoms I am experiencing should go away. Yay!
• You should bring someone with you to the Dr.'s office because when you're told you probably have MS you don't remember very much of what else the Dr. says.
• Only 10% of people with MS end up disabled and in a wheelchair.
• 1/750 people have MS.
• MS is the second leading diagnosis of neurological problems in women between the ages of 25-35. The first is migraines. Women in this age bracket are the leading demographic to be diagnosed with MS. Women are 2/3 more likely to get it then men.
• One of my first reactions to an abnormal MRI was relief that I wasn't imagining this.
• MS is when the immune system, for some unknown reason, decides the mylin sheeth that protects the nerve fibers is a virus and attacks it. When it is damaged the brain has trouble sending signals to all of the parts of the body.
• When I'm thinking about something, I don't like to be alone, but I don't like to talk to anyone either.
• Lesions often have no symptoms. My symptoms are caused by the lesion in my temporal lobe, which is not my biggest or worse lesion.
• You cannot catch or spread MS.
• Every MS patient is different and the auto-immune disease varies greatly between patients.
• When the doctor says, "You should take it easy." I interpret that to mean eat chocolate peanut butter ice cream from Baskin Robbins, and chill in Pam's pool.
• I instantly developed an intense adversion to changing my routines or making a big deal out of this. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would have a meltdown if someone suggested I do.
• The little inconveniences I have been trying to ignore are all of a sudden a lot scarier when I realize they are caused by problems with my brain.
• I feel like the less I tell people, the less they will worry about me. I HATE it when people worry about me. Except I love knowing that I'm important enough to worry about.
• I have the worst time letting family and friends help me. I don't know why.
• The unknown is definitely the most scary thing in the entire world.
• Everything is going to be okay because I will still be able to love and be loved, and that is what life is all about.

If you know someone who has MS and you have a scary story to tell me, please refrain. I wrote this because I needed to. I am a very private person, but I don't like to hide things. However, I would prefer for you to know without me having to tell you in person. : )