Monday, June 22, 2009
Possible Multiple Sclerosis?
Possible Multiple Sclerosis? (Numb) It was like a right hook out of nowhere. One of the cruelest things a doctor can do is to send a letter of referral with a possible diagnosis. Especially, when your doctor tells you nothing days before at the doctor’s visit, he was not a neurologist; he was a practical doctor I went to about numbness in my arms and fingers. I remember that moment I opened that letter from my doctor, and read those words. It was August of 2000. Not only my day, but my world was ROCKED! Standing in my bedroom lost. At that time my kids were ages 11,7,6,4 and 2. What the HELL! “Whats” started hitting me in a whirlwind effect. What is MS? Do I know anybody with this? Then came the “How’s”. How will I do my job, it requires me outside year around, lifting and carrying things on a construction site. I was a single mother of five daughters, making $8.50 and hour, no child support from ex-husband, that’s another chapter in itself. How did I get this? Where do I go from here? Why would this doctor drop this BOMB on me like this? I tell you, I wanted to go and kick his ass! I just laid down in bed and cried. For about a week, I stay cooped up in my bedroom with the black shades down and away from everyone and everything. Finally, I reached a point where I needed information on ms, so I went to the public library to check out books and try to educate myself about myself. The next phase was “I am not going to claim it” I don’t have time for this bullshit, I five kids to raise”. Therefore, I went in the out of mind out of sight mode because at that time I wasn’t in an exacerbation mode.
Hindsight, can you remember your first sign of MS?
Summertime seemed to bring on my multiple Sclerosis. Summer of 1999, my arms from the shoulder down to my fingertips went numb. At that time, I was a data entry worker, who typed for 40 hours a week. I thought the numb and tingling sensation in my fingers was the start of carpal tunnel. I would go outside to smoke on my breaks. A good friend of mines at the time would from time to time tell my “You dropped your cigarette” and she would pick It up for me. Usually while I was talking, I couldn’t feel the cigarette roll out of my hands. She was concerned that I was beginning to experience carpal tunnel, because she had it. Self-diagnosis was the name of the game. The numb tingling sensations lasted for the whole summer non-stop. The next summer, again I numb and tingly from the waist down like it was clockwork. I had to do a lot of walking to get to my new job. The funny thing about it was, I felt like I was half a person. Like on the old Tom and Jerry cartoons when Jerry would cut Tom’s body in half and Tom continues to walk with his body detached. When I go through these symptoms, I find myself constantly looking at the infected area of my body in disbelief. I wonder if anyone else reacts in that matter.
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