Like Clock Work

    If you've been following my MS you know that I was diagnosed at the young age of seventeen. Like any true teenager, I reacted to the life sentence/diagnosis with true teenage fashion. I was scared/ashamed, I didn't know what it was and I wouldn't let my parents tell my brothers and sisters. When my neurologist came in and casually/matter of fact(ly) said, "Are you ready for your shots?" I said no and put up a huge wall between him, my parents and I. Then the guilty. One night when m parents were trying to get me to do my shot, i pulled out the, "You don't know what it's like to have to do this!" 

   Then the college years were even better, it was time for it denial stage. No I didn't do any crazy stuff the a lot of kids do in college (because I really was scared of what my MS would do with it and I didn't really see the appeal anyways), but I did do some things my doctors told me I needed to stop doing. I played basketball with friends, I took weight training and body conditioning classes where I wasn't exactly easy on my body and even did some running. 

   About a month or two before I turned 23, I found out I was being kicked off my parents health insurance. So I called up my boyfriend, who thankfully had already talked with me about getting married, and told him we needed to get married. 

   For some reason, he said ok. And we got married. 

    Anyhow, fast forward about 6 and a half years and we had our 3rd baby. I thought we were done having kids, because the doctors (and all of the research I had done on my own about MS) had always said that's when things start to go downhill or present itself more. 

     Then almost 6 months later, we found out we were having another baby. I was 29 and not too worried because my MS still really hadn't done much to me. There were some small annoyances that would happen, but since they didn't last long, I was fine with it. 

    The pregnancy wasn't too bad. Around week 12 my Achilles' tendons decided to take turns of which one would work right so that I could walk, but even that only last a couple months. 

    In the middle of week 35 I did what any mother would do. I made my hubby get up early on a Saturday to help me take the kids to the Santa train that was not too far from our house. I was having some Braxton's hicks, but I wanted to take me kids to see Santa. What I didn't know was that even though we live in a tiny town, there would be tons of people and a super long line out in the cold to wait in for a couple hours. Thankfully, they made it fun enough to keep us waiting until we got to see Santa. 

    Sadly later that day,  I ended up going to the hospital because I was in labor. Why does that matter much to my MS you might be asking. Here's why. 

I got to hold him for maybe a full minutes before he was taken to the NICU. 

   He was in there for almost the weeks before I got to take him home. The hospital was very nice about giving me a room to stay in while they kept my baby, but all the stress that little guy caused didn't help my MS much. 

    Moving on. Again we're going t fast forward a bit here. Baby #4 was about 3 months old and I noticed that my left side was being a little cranky and going slightly numb at times. So I decided to make an appointment to see my neurologist and get back on some meds for it. I was scared and yet thrilled when he told me that he wanted to have me take one of the pills instead of doing a shot everyday! But nothing in life ever comes easy. I was to stop nursing if I wanted to take the pill and should be able to start the pill in two weeks. Three months and lots of research about the pill later, I finally get to start taking it! I was so happy and just overcome with relief of not having to take a pill again that I actually cried. Seriously, I had the pill on my had, sitting on my bed, looking at it and crying. 

    Over the next few days I was super strict with myself about taking it. Then the hubby asked if I thought I was having any side effects. I told him that it was only the migraines (which I usually had even before the pill) and some tingling in my right hand. Then he reminded me that the tingling was under the "call your doctor if" part and I should call my neurologist in the morning. 

    I called him. Might have been one in the afternoon, but I called and left a message. They called back and said to stop taking it for a few days just to see what was still going on and what wasn't. 

    Called them back Thursday morning to tell them that the tingling stopped, but I still had some light numbness in my left arm and hand. So they said to stay off of it for the weekend and call Monday and tell them how I was feeling. 

      Monday came and I had a lot more to tell them than I wanted to. Sunday morning my lower left arm and hand and my lower left leg and foot decided to go numb. Not like usually. Not like they were just playing with me. Bad enough I actually let my husband know what was going on and even wrote down, with times, what was going on and to watch my handwriting slowly go away. 

   I ended up talking to my doctors assistant three times yesterday about everything that was had gone one, was going on and what the doctor wanted to do to treat it. 

    

      So now I'm off the pill still and get to start three days of infusions tomorrow. Then I get to do nine days of steroids and maybe another MRI since I have a new spot (sclerosis) on my MRI that wasn't there last time. And to make things ever worse, I feel like I'm in a hair style rut and can't figure out what to do about it!