So, today is Tuesday, 2/18/18, and it’s another gloomy day in North Carolina. We’re supposed to get MORE rain over the next several days, so guess we’re turning into a southern Seattle. Seattle is WAY cool BTW. I have only visited that city twice, but would love to spend some serious time there! One day…
Anyway, this is a blog about MS right? Speaking of Seattle… I COULD tie in a random geographical MS fact if you’d like? You would? Great… here goes. Did you know that the farther you live from the Equator the more likely you are to be diagnosed with MS? So, the closer you are to either the North or South Pole.. the better the odds (so the speak) of an MS diagnosis. Weird.. HUH? Makes me feel for Penguins and Polar Bears (Gotta take a chance on humor whenever/wherever I can)! BTW, if I haven’t mentioned it, I grew up in Minnesota and Northern Ohio, so perhaps there’s something to that! 🙂 Good times!
As this is only my second “blog” and some of you who have inadvertently found yourself here may be wondering just what MS is… I’ll do my best to provide some definition.
MS is: A disease of the central nervous system (Brain and Spinal Cord) where the immune system attacks something called Myelin. Myelin is a sheath/covering on nerve endings that helps the nervous system communicate with the rest of the body. As Myelin is attacked and depleted, the brain has a harder time communicating with the body, resulting in issues that many of us with MS experience. Most folks tend to think that MS is limited to Physical Issues (Fatigue, Trouble walking, Balance Issues, Numb feet/fingers/hands, Wheelchair bound, etc), but there are Cognitive Impacts as well (Trouble speaking, Short term memory issues, etc.). Cognitive impacts aren’t always “easy to see” and, therefore, are often overlooked or poorly understood by friends, family and work associates. It is my belief that a better job needs to be done to help us all understand the cognitive impacts of MS. 🙂
I also want to throw this in there….
MS is NOT: A death sentence or a reason to not participate in life! Don’t assume! More to come on this topic over time… And trust me, there is a lot to elaborate on the whole “a reason to not participate in life” piece. MS sucks and for those who have it (And yes, for their families and friends too), it’s not always easy, or even possible, for everyone to participate in life everyday. I get it, so don’t get mad at me! It’s a state of mind thing for me and am reminded of it often. Just saying!
So.. this post is getting long. I believe I’ll focus a bit more on my background and how I have arrived at this place and time during my next post. 🙂 Also, I plan on getting into the whole medication thing, at least from my perspective, to show what’s out there and what our doctors “Think” the meds do to help us! Such foreshadowing…
