Just getting this out of the way...

The little guy has just mastered turning the TV on. Might have to unplug it like we had to do with the Playstation. :p

So, I wanted to go ahead and get this out of the way so that I can just move on with future posts. I'm afraid it might be lacking in personality and sparkle, but I hope it at least makes sense. I'm just trying to pound it out to have it done.

In November of 2006, my feet went numb. I saw a doctor who did blood tests (3 times, since the lab kept leaving my blood out to rot) and sent me to a neurologist for a nerve conduction study. I also saw another neurologist back home over Christmas vacation for a second opinion. Nothing was amiss, so they decided it was Guillian-Barre Syndrome, which is peripheral nerve paralysis, and told me that if the numbness crept up to my waist, I should go to the ER. It never climbed higher than my ankles and disappeared nearly a year later. That was weird and frustrating, not being able to feel anything with my feet for that long. But no big deal.

In February of this year, I had double vision for a week that took me to the ER because apparently double vision, dizziness, and nausea aren't good things to be experiencing. I had a CT scan and they said that it was just bad migraines, take Excedrin and Coke (the soda, lol) and it would go away. I was hopped up on hyperdoses (no pun intended) of caffeine for another week before I started feeling nasty having that much in my system. A few days later, my feet and legs went all numb and tingly again, so I went to the doctor and told him that I thought I was getting another flare up of Guillian-Barre, which he didn't think was likely, because it's ridiculously rare to have it twice. I was a little weirded out because my feet weren't completely numb like before, they felt dead and tingly. I also had some intense muscle weakness in my legs. He did more blood tests and found out my TSH levels were crazy out--"Your thyroid is out of control," were his words. "It could be auto-immune disease. But I could test a hundred of you and ten of you will test positive but only a few of you will actually have it." I assumed "you" was women or something...he was brusque, no-nonsense, no-questions-thank-you, and freaking me out. He asked me to go in the next day for more blood tests to make sure my thyroid really was that dysfunctional, and asked for my OB's number to compare my bloodwork from when I was pregnant. (Utah healthcare sucks, by the way...they did one blood test at the very beginning and one urine test halfway through when my blood pressure was too high. They had nothing for my doctor to compare my blood tests with.) Anyways, he put me on Synthroid, set up a follow up appointment in 8 weeks, and referred me to a neurologist for further testing. The closest appointment I could get was 7 weeks away.

I started noticing that when I bent my head forward or bent a buzzing, vibrating sensation in my spine that would shoot through my hips/pelvis and sometimes down my legs. I still had several weeks before I could see the neurologist or the doctor again, and, thinking that maybe I was having pinched nerves, I found a chiropractor. After my exam and x-rays, I found out that my back was all screwed up: my neck had no curve, my middle back was twisted to the right, my lower back was twisted to the left, my hips were out of joint, and one leg was higher than the other. Sweet, I'll get this fixed and things should get back to normal. This might fix my feet and the buzzing.

A few weeks into chiropractic treatment, I started having really intense burning in my feet. I'm talking the kind of pain that kicked me out of bed, crying, and landed me on the couch watching TBS for hours in the middle of the night. I was taking ibuprofen for 3 days with no improvement so I called my doctor on a Friday to tell him my new symptom. They were closed for Memorial Day weekend, so I left a message. I called again on Wednesday and left a message with the front desk. I went in that following Friday to get my records and asked to speak with my doctor, since I'd heard nothing from him. I was asked to leave a message again because he was really busy. Since the label on ibuprofen said to call your doctor if your symptoms hadn't improved in 10 days, I was starting to panic. I was nearing the end of the 10 days. Monday rolled around, no word, and we were leaving for Washington the next day, so I found an internal doctor nearby and called to make an appointment for when we got back. They were so great. They got me in to see the doctor within 2 hours, and she gave me a nerve painkiller prescription and took more blood. She sent a note the non-communicative doctor to let him know she'd seen me. I got another brusque voicemail from him later that day: "Uh, hi. *Doctor.* Got your message. Call me back." The next day he called again and was almost sickeningly pleasant, but in an annoyed, superior manne: "Hello, *Doctor* again. I called you yesterday and didn't hear back from you, so I'm calling again. Please call me when you have a minute. Again, I called you yesterday and you never called me back." Guess which call came AFTER he heard that I'd seen another doctor. (I cancelled my follow-up with him and haven't been back.)

Anyways, I saw the neurologist. While I was waiting in the room, I took a look at the magazines they had lying out. No People, National Geographic, Vogue...just MS magazine. I'd been doing research on my symptoms and everything pointed to MS, so I flipped through them with a mixture of apprehension and revulsion. I teared up a bit with self-pity. Waited a bit longer in an empty room before the neurologist came in an did all the little tests like reflexes, eye movement, the pinwheel up my shins, balance, smelling, etc. I gave him my brief medical history that I'd typed up, and when we got around to my having had Guillian-Barre in 2006, he looked at me and said, "I doubt that's what you had." I teared up again, waiting for him to say it was MS. Instead, he got me set up for 3 MRIs, with and without contrast and said that he thought that maybe the shingles virus (I had it in 2004) had gotten into my spinal fluid. If so, they'd have to do a spinal tap. HECK NO. So when I went in for my MRIs, I focused on the positive sides of them either finding something in my brain or finding nothing. If they found something, then I wouldn't need a spinal tap. If they didn't find anything, then my brain was fine. I spent 4 hours in the tube. Gosh, you sure get sore just laying on a hard table forever.

I continued to research my symptoms and went through the emotional trauma of preparing myself for the diagnosis of MS. My husband said that, no, that can't be it. But I told him I was preparing for it so that if it was, it would be ok, and if not, well, great news. He reminded me that his grandma has MS and that she just recently needed the help of a walker and had several children. That cheered me up a ton. His grandma is amazing. She's totally an inspiration to me.

While we were in Utah over the Fourth of July (this was last week(, I got the results for my blood tests and MRIs: Hashimoto's Disease, the most common cause of hypothyroidism. Well, that's no surprise! What a relief! Then I went into my follow-up with the neurologist and saw my MRIs, and saw all the lesions in my brain and spinal cord. And he officially told me that it was MS. (I guess they don't like to tell people that they have MS over the phone or something.) And I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't really bother me. I didn't freak out or tear up. I just looked at my MRIs with the bright white spots thinking, "Wow, that's my brain. I look like a textbook!" I guess all of my emotionally distraught prep work had taken the shock out of the diagnosis. He said that I'd probably had MS since at least my numb-feet attack of 2006, and that that was probably my first MS attack. He seemed disgusted that they just randomly diagnosed Guillian-Barrie, especially since my nerve conduction tests were normal, and that's how GBS is diagnosed. (Remember I said Utah healthcare is crap?) He also suspects that my double-vision episode was my second attack, and that my burning feet pain is my current attack. He said that he wanted me to get on treatment right away, so I'm waiting to hear back from the copaxone people about when a nurse will come out to train me how to inject myself every day.

I'm actually way happier now that I know what's wrong than I have been for a while. (Although, I think that finding out that my insurance is covering my chiropractor bills properly took my major stress away...it'll be hard to stress me out after having to potentially pay $2000+ in additional chiropractor bills!) Anyway, I feel a huge sense of relief. It's nice to know that I'm not crazy, and that what I'm feeling is real. It's nice to know that what's wrong with me is treatable. AND it's nice to know that other symptoms I'm having are also caused by MS, so they might improve with treatment, too! (For the record, these other symptoms are intense fatigue, serious brain fog, and what I feel are depressingly diminished cognitive abilities. It's so hard and embarrassing for an avid reader with a BA in English to have trouble writing well, thinking clearly, remembering words, and committing embarrassing spelling mistakes--thank goodness for Google Chrome's built-in spellcheck. Although, I should just keep reading so that I improve those areas anyway :) ) I'm excited to start treatment, and to know that they're releasing oral treatments next year.

My main concern was not being able to have any more children, but that's not a problem at all. I just have to work closely with my OB and the neurologist. And if treatments deal with my fatigue, I feel like I'll be a much better mom. The thing that makes me most sad and that scares me, that I try not to think about, is that I'll somehow be seriously disabled at some point and my kids won't understand why, or they'll be embarrassed of me. That they might not know me, but some shrunken, dysfunctional shell of who I used to be, or something else entirely. But like I said, I try not to think about that. Lots of people have MS, my husband's grandma is still going ridiculously strong, the treatments are effective, and I get to start treatments soon, so my brain won't shrink :)

I'm doing great. It's nice knowing that I've probably had this for nearly 5 years now, so it can only get better, now that I can start treatment. And it's nice to have a medical reason to be easier on myself, to go slower and not push myself so hard. Instead of suddenly feeling like my body is some sort of alien being, I feel like my body is the most familiar thing, and that the whole world has tilted or shifted or changed colors around me. I don't know what will happen in the future, so it's nice to have a reminder to take things one day at a time and put the important things first. And the important things are my relationship with God and spending time with my family. (And taking care of my family with good food, clean clothes, and a clean house :) )

Oh yes, and I forgot in my list of things I'm relived about/grateful for: I offically don't need a spinal tap! :D