The Diagnosis

My week has been long and stressful. I thought my life was stressful until this week happened. Before this week, I was like most people my age: stressed about money, stressed about the job I am in - normal things. My life is also not normal in the since that my wife has severe asthma and we are always trying to find ways to make it not act up. Also with the ritual of inhaler usage and the nebulizer, we were starting to get back on track. Life felt like it was coming back around for the good. Then this week happened:

I was sitting on the couch on Monday, watching television with my ladies (Noel and the dogs April and Joslyn), when my hand fell asleep and then swelled up. We thought it weird, but then it changed. I started to feel numbness in my hand, then my shoulder, and then my face. So we ventured to the hospital to see what was going on. After numerous tests, the results came back undefined with a couple of options available. The options are: slight stroke, seizures, migraines or Multiple Sclerosis (MS). I was told to follow up with the neurologist the next day and left the hospital with the unknowing of what is wrong with me.

Tuesday comes about and we are lucky enough to get in to the Neurologist. We show up and he runs a few tests on numbness and reaction. He informed me that he doesn't think I have MS or seizures. He said more then likely it is migraines that are causing these problems, but we will need an MRI done to figure it all out. This however does bring the stroke back into play which is now a higher possibility then the seizure or the MS. Once again we go away with the unknown of what is going on.

Wednesday and Thursday pass and nothing changes with my symptoms. Weird feelings happening, sometimes the symptoms were acting more more and others were going away. All in all, no change.

Today brings us a new adventure. Today I wake up with the same symptoms, but something new happens. I go to grab the Orange Juice out of the refrigerator like I would on a normal basis - BAM - OJ down on the ground and me trying to figure out how in the world my hand didn't squeeze enough to hold the OJ container. Noel, my wonderful wife, decides to call the doctor right away and he informed her that we need to go the ER again. So, back we go, same story to all of the doctors, RNs and PAs. My file form Monday was misplaced when we get there and everything is not going well. The doctor we spoke with today, however was very surprised that we were sent home on Monday after everything that happened. We inform him of the tests that were ran and now he wants to have an MRI done. 30 minutes shoved into a big magnetic tube and we finally have our answer. I left eh hospital with a diagnosis and some prednisone.

I was officially diagnosed with MS. My life is going to change. For good or bad, I don't know. We will see what the future holds for me. I am feeling confident that with the people I have on my team, I will walk tall during this new adventure in my life. However, on the back side of things, I am scared. I was scared during the week because of the unknown, not knowing what is wrong with me and what I can do to fix it. Now I am scared because of the known. I am not a doctor, but I have heard of MS. I have heard many people have it and it reacts differently in everyone. I don't want to read online about MS because I feel it will scare me even more. Which leaves me back in the world of the unknown again. This is going to be an adventure and I hope I can keep the time to keep writing this blog about my adventure so it could possibly help someone who is diagnosed in the future.

For now, thanks for reading. If you have any information about MS, I would love to hear it.

Augie