This is the last day of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Awareness month. I realized that I have not talked about how I knew that I had MS. So here is my story from before I was officially diagnosed to present day.
Driving home from Columbus on a Sunday, I had just taken my manicure licensing exam(I passed). All of a sudden, there was a blur in the center of my right eye. It was so weird. I rubbed my eye, still there. I pulled my glasses off and cleaned them, still there. I ran the wipers across my windshield. Still there. I went to the eye doctor. “There is something wrong with my eye!” His response, “I don’t see anything. It may just be a change in vision due to your age“, (I was 32). That was some bullshit. So that blur right in the center of my eye was still there and it stayed that way for about a month and a half. Until one day it was gone. Ok I don’t know what the hell that was but thank God it’s gone. Fast forward to about 2 months later, my left eye is doing the same exact thing. I went from “I don’t know what the hell it is” to “oh something is really wrong, this is not normal“.
With easy access to the majority of information at your fingertips, I went online searching. My search words were simply “blurred vision”. This yielded the usual conditions, cataracts and glaucoma. I knew I didn’t have either of those conditions. Also, diabetes (nope), stroke (no), migraines (don’t get those) and a brain tumor (GOD I hope not). I was reading about one of these conditions on Wikipedia and I scrolled down to the bottom. At the bottom it had links to other conditions that may cause blurred vision. At the bottom of this particular page I seen multiple sclerosis. Ok, what the hell is that? With that one click onto those two words, my life changed. Words that I had heard before due to Richard Pryor and Montel Williams, but still was not truly aware of what it was.
At the top of the Wikipedia page was a list of symptoms associated with multiple sclerosis. Out of the 10 or so symptoms listed, I had a good 7 of them. Things that I had brushed off as not important, as symptoms related to my other health condition (I have hypothyroidism) and other things that I thought may have just been due to stress, listed here at the top of the page. This weird tremor in my leg is unusual, but it is not bothering me so whatever. I am so fricking tired I keep falling asleep at my desk. Fatigue is one of the top symptoms of hypothyroidism so maybe my levels are really off and I just need to start some medication. Lhermitte’s sign, an electrical sensation that runs down my back when I bend my neck. Ok, I work an office job and my neck and shoulders are tight. This feeling is just from relieving some of that tension from stretching. I had an answer or an excuse to write off all the symptoms I was experiencing. Multiple Sclerosis did not and would not have ever crossed my mind.
I had zero intentions of telling anyone what I had discovered. One, I just read a bunch of information on Wikipedia, I think I should talk to a doctor first. At this point, it would be my own self-diagnosis. Two, why make people worry? If the end result was not MS, but maybe Lyme Disease (has similar symptoms but is curable), I got everybody worked up for no reason. Well, God had different plans. It was the very next day after my discovery. Before I even had the time to process the information and come to terms with the possibility of MS, I received a phone call. It was my mother. She had a dream that I fell down and could not walk. My stepfather and her had to carry me. Then they put me in a wheelchair. Creepy as hell right!?!? Yep. Ok, one other health condition, hypertension. She believed that I could have had a stroke in the dream and that is why I was unable to walk. She goes on to lecture me about the how-to’s of handling a stroke. I allowed her to finish and then I shared my information with her. When I say this was the last person I had intentions of telling. We know how our parents are and she is the straight up typical parent when it comes to me. Worry, pray, worry and pray some more.
So from this point on, I involved the doctors. MRI, lots of blood labs to rule out other possibilities (that’s how I knew Lyme Disease had similar symptoms) and the spinal tap. To the Cleveland Clinic with 2 of my best supporters, Selena and Monica, and I am diagnosed with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. The crazy thing is I have never had a relapse that involved blurred vision in either of my eyes again. Now I do get the floating spots but that’s it. My life with an MS diagnosis is definitely different. But I am thankful because I know that it could be worse. I believe in the power of prayer and I believe because of prayers that I am doing so well. I am grateful for everyone’s prayers, my mom’s, my friends, strangers from the soup kitchen, strangers in general, coworkers and other people who I know.
Even though Multiple Sclerosis Awareness is observed in the month of March, the National MS Society will be holding the walk in Toledo on Sunday, May 19th at the Huntington Center (new location). I am sure they keep pushing it back due to bad weather. I don’t think I have attended a walk where the weather was decent yet. The walk starts at 8 am which I know is pretty early. If you would like to participate, you can sign up at walkms.org/signup. You would look for the Toledo, OH walk and my team name is Ebony’s Avengers. I welcome anyone who would like to join my team. If you have any questions, please email at elsims27@yahoo.com. Until the next post, be well and whole.
