Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week

My journey with multiple sclerosis began in 1977 when dizziness blindsided me. I had to hang onto a counter or table to keep from falling over. Fatigue took me from the 95 mile an hour lane (as if life was supposed to be lived that way), and put me in a 50 mile zone when I had to take a rest after lunch to make it through a day at work. Tingling in my extremities and pain at the base of my skull hounded me. But the symptoms came and went, disappearing for days, making me feel like I must be making them up.

Specialists ruled out one thing after another until a neurologist gave me the diagnosis I already suspected. This was before MRIs, but I had enough symptoms he felt sure--and so did I. I had raised funds for the National MS Society the year before because I'd become friends with a woman who had it. I knew a lot about the disease already: There were no substantiated human cures. It could blind me. Make me weakened, numb, even paralyzed.

The only place I knew to go was to God. I believed he loved me. Somehow he wouldn't desert me now. But why did I get it now that life had taken on such meaning?

More tomorrow...

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