MS

Yep, it's been confirmed. I have MS. Let me walk you through my last 2 weeks OK? 3 weeks ago Monday I woke up throwing up. I think I even posted as to how wonderful my DP (dear partner) was to hold the puke bucket. I never really recovered. Kept feeling sick to my stomach, throwing up, and just not feeling well. So, on Thursday last week I had an appt with the MD who did my discography. I go in, pay my $15 co-pay only to have her tell me that yes, they replicated the pain on disc's L4/L5 and L5/S1 and the fact that the cortisone helped for a few days confirmed for her that I have degenerative disc disease in those disc's. I asked her what that meant and she said that I had to meet with the surgeon. Now, I am feeling crappy, about to cry because I just spent money I didn't have for her to tell me information I already knew and I said, "Wait, tell me what this all means". I have arthritis in my spine in that area and I need spinal fusion surgery says her. She rambled off some of the options but I really don't remember what she said and I left with an appt for a consult with the spinal surgeon in her office. I have heard from several people that he is a good surgeon, but I will be getting a secong opinion!

So, Friday I had a regular appt with my primary doc. I go in and he tells me I am not looking good and I tell him that I have been sick for almost 3 weeks and he thinks it might be diverticulitis since I have some pain. Now, I have had that before with different symptoms, but to humor him, I go to the ER. Before I leave there, he tells me that the MRI came back confirming the MS diganosis. He went into a bunch of scientific goblydygook, but all I heard was MS and already feeling miserable, I just wanted to lay down and go to sleep.

So, I call Cheryl and she meets me at the ER since I had Katie with me. It takes them 6 tries to get an IV into my dehydrated body. They do a CT scan without contrast because there was no way I was keeping that stuff down, but no diverticulitis. I meet the best ER/hospital MD ever there! He tells me that he thinks that because of all the vomiting I haven't been keeping enough of my narcotics down and I am feeling some effects of withdrawls. So, they admit me, give me a few doses of dilauad along with my regular narcotics and boost me with fluid and the next day I am much better. I go home and have been home since.

So, now I have to deal with these issues of impending scary spinal surgery along with the DX of MS. I am scared. I am sad, mad and every emotion in the book. I won't know more until I meet with the neurologist. My MD says there is a great one, but he's afraid she's booked out. I am waiting for their call with the referral. So far my most worrisome symptoms are short terms memory loss. Cheryl tells me I am asking her things over and over again a lot. I forget words easily and it scares me. What makes me the saddest is the vision problems I have with my eyes going wacky on me. I am no longer reading 6-7 books a week, more like 1 if I can get through it. This is a tremendous loss to me. I love to read. Gait is still off, but not so much that it bothers me or that I think people notice. No falls, but a couple of near misses.

SO, that's it for now. I am trying to move from a place of fear, and some denial to a place of power and taking over the MS and not letting it take over me. You'll be hearing much more about this in the weeks to come I am sure.

Hold on folks...it's going to be a wild ride!