oday is February 20th and, if you live in North Carolina, it is supposed to snow a bit later today. If you don’t live in the Southeast or, really, anywhere South of the Mason Dixon line… you don’t realize the impact of a snowy forecast to “us” Southerners! My wife and I like to call it… (Drum roll please)… SNOW-MA-GEDDON! Our grocery stores are likely out of bread, milk and eggs. All for an event that will leave, maybe, an inch of snow on the grass today… with not one speck of it left by Noon tomorrow. 🙂 Yet… I digress.. again! This will likely occur each post, just be patient with me please.
So, a question I have heard frequently is, “What happened? How did you find out you had MS?”. Well, one thing I CAN tell you is that I wasn’t really surprised by the diagnosis, once it came. I had been having small issues off and on for years that I attributed to: work stress and long hours, not enough exercise or maybe too much of it, poor eating habits or even blood pressure medications. When my feet felt “heavy” I would blame it on my new shoes. Or one time, and this has only happened once thank GOD, I was watching tv and both of my eyes moved rapidly side-to-side (This is called Nystagmus). When I say rapidly… I mean I’m surprised they didn’t vibrate out of their sockets. Fortunately, I shut my eyes tightly for a few seconds and the problem went away… I blamed my 70 hour work week and exhaustion on that one! Wouldn’t everyone? These are just a few of the “weird” things I always explained away and blamed on life. What else could it have been?
Of course, and unfortunately, I really never mentioned any of these occurrences to my doctors… until…
A bit more background is needed here to set the stage properly! I have always enjoyed the outdoors and being active. I used to ride my bike a LOT around my neck of the woods near Charlotte. Riding my bike allowed me to “lose” the day/week, manage stress and help me sleep better, etc. One of the times I really felt the need to bike was when I was dizzy. Dizziness, I now know, is a very common symptom of MS, but back then I just thought it meant I was freaking out about work or some other silly thing. Well, one day I was feeling particularly dizzy so I decided to go for a bike ride….
The temperature was in the low 90’s (Did you know that high temperatures can exacerbate MS symptoms? I do now.. for sure) and I went out for about an hour ride. When I got home and parked my bike in the driveway, I felt a strange sensation in my left butt cheek (Hey, we’re all adults and can say things like “Butt”.. right?). Anyway, I ignored it at first and walked across the street to pick up some trash. The sensation grew stronger as I walked back to my driveway and I started having trouble with my left leg not moving properly, so I ended up half walking and limping into my house. Once I got into the house, the entire left side of my body “Seized up”! I couldn’t move and was having a hard time even taking a breath. My left arm and leg were both… it’s hard to explain… pulled tight against my body. My leg bent at the knee and my arm at the elbow, like someone who had a stroke impacting one side of their body. I couldn’t call out to my wife or kids as my jaw was clenched shut and, just as I was about to really panic, the seizure (as I call it) just stopped. Stopped cold. Like nothing had ever happened! So, like I am sure everyone else would do, I blamed the whole silly thing on a bad leg cramp. I assumed I hadn’t had enough water so I drank a glass and went on with my day.
This all happened on a Saturday morning … and as it was on my mind just a little bit… I told my wife about it as we were going to bed on Sunday night. That’s when things got a bit more interesting…. More to come in my next post! You’re probably hoping I’m finishing this one up anyway… if anyone is reading it at all! 🙂 Until next time.. Cheers!
