Multiple Sclerosis Warrior: Diagnosed

MS = Multiple Sclerosis = Many Lesions

I can’t speak for everyone with MS. I can only speak for my MS.

The experience is unique for each of us.

We don’t know what causes it. There is no cure. At least not yet.

One Sunday late in November of 2016, I started to feel a little strange on my face… a sort of numb yet tingling patch near the edge of my mouth, chin and cheek. When I slid my fingers across, it didn’t feel any different from the rest of my skin but I couldn’t quite feel my fingers touching me. And when I say “not quite” think of it as the difference between touching your skin with your finger (skin on skin) and then trying to touch your skin through a blanket. You know you’re touching it, you can feel yourself touching it but it’s not as sharp of a sensation.

It was weird but it was just a little bit. I thought maybe I’d had an allergic reaction to something and decided just to monitor it. The next day it had spread much further down my chin and neck as well as up my cheek. Nothing else had changed, it was a Sunday, I had no desire to be in the ER for something that wasn’t painful or bleeding so I decided to just wait.

Monday morning I went to work and one of my coworkers got very concerned with my symptoms so I called my doctor’s office. They told me that facial numbness could be a sign of a stroke and to get checked in the ER. Since I was still feeling fine, I took the bus from my downtown office building to the hospital. It was close and quick, I guess I’m stubborn, I didn’t see the point in getting a cab.

Once checked in, they took my vitals and since I wasn’t in immediate distress they seated me close enough to be observed in the waiting room. I got an EKG and a few other tests done. They looked at me and said “well you’re not having a stroke, do you want to do an MRI and see if we can see what’s happening in your brain?” to which I immediately agreed. I never had an MRI before. While I was waiting for my results, I drew a picture of my numbness and tingling and the painful headache I had. I used blue for the numbness and red for the pain, it came out rather interesting and actually became helpful in being able to describe what was happening.

The doctor diagnosed me with Multiple Sclerosis right there in the ER. It was shocking, but I was just as surprised that there was a definitive answer so quickly. The doctor was impressed that I knew what MS was. As a chronic illness it doesn't have the notoriety of something like cancer that everyone has already heard of.

I knew about MS because for 3 years I had been riding in the BikeMS fundraiser with my work team. Raising money for a cause I had no idea was my own. All that time I was riding with MS and didn't know it… I didn’t just get MS recently. I’ve had it a long time and was unaware. The amount of lesions on my brain made it evident to the neurologist it's been around for years.

So I left the ER at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle that day with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, walking out of there alone with a new perspective on life. Weighing the news and re-evaluating my life as I knew it and the possibilities of what it was to become.