How my journey began...

Wednesday September 4th marked 3 weeks into my journey with having Multiple Sclerosis.  And to celebrate this I had an MRI.  LOL.  I must say I am really not a fan of MRI's, but as I have learned they are going to be my new best friend.  So I put on my "big girl pants" and headed off to have it at Metro Imagining.  Oh and by the way, Metro Imagining (in St. Louis) was a very friendly place.  I highly recommend it if you should ever have to get any imaging done.  One of the hardest part of the MRI is having to lay perfectly still for close to an hour.  They did put music on for me, however the machine is so loud when it is taking pictures that I could barely hear the music.  So this left me for close to an hour with only the thoughts in my head.  So I started to think back at how this new journey began...

I guess I should have thought more about my very strange symptom on Mother's Day, but looking back I still probably would not have done anything different.  We had a wonderful Mother's Day at my in-laws house on the lake.  My parents came to join the lake fun.  While we were going for a boat ride my Mom noticed that I was rubbing my foot.  She asked if I was okay and I told her that my foot was numb.  It was a very strange feeling!  It was like it was asleep but without the tingling feeling.  Then when I was walking it felt heavy just plain weird! I would ask my husband, Scott, to squeeze it as hard as he could and he was shocked that I could not feel it.  Then I told him to do that same thing to the leg that I had feeling in and I about screamed when he squeezed my leg.  This numbness lasted for about 4 days or so.  I honestly never thought about going to the doctor.  What was I going to say, "Hi I feel perfectly fine, but my foot and leg are numb".  I have never been a go to the doctor type person.  I pretty much have to have a limb detached to in or in an excruciating amount of pain for me to go to a doctor.  Which I did not have, I could feel no pain because I was numb.  Then after about 4 days the numbness slowly started to fade.  All I thought was "wow that was just weird!"

Okay now fast-forward to about July 25th.  I started to have a new numb feeling.  This time it was on the left side of my face.  It started at the top of my head and went down my nose until right about the bottom of my cheek bone.  Even half the roof of my mouth was numb.   Let me clarify my "numbness" if I may.  By numbness I do in fact mean numb, but this time it was almost as if all my nerves were on overdrive.  Everything HURT on my left side.  It hurt to put eye shadow on my left eye, brushing my hair on the left side and I cannot even describe what it was like to brush my upper teeth on the left side of my mouth.  While everything HURT so bad, it still felt numb.  Okay I know I made that as clear as mud, but it is the most indescribable feeling in the world.  I honestly thought it was the worst sinus infection in the world.  After about a week I did go to the ENT (Ear Nose Throat).  I had a feeling that this could be a little more than the average infection.  Oh and with me only waiting a week to go to the doctor is HUGE.  Usually I wait at least two weeks or longer.  He prescribed an antibiotic and told me to come back in two weeks to see how I was.  The problem was that I was not getting better on the meds or at least not as well as I thought I should be.

Then on Monday August 12th when I woke up my numbness was gone.  It was the weirdest thing! Literately it was like a switch was flipped and I was better...or so I thought. About an hour later I noticed my numbness had shifted from the top of the left side of my face to the right side of my body.  My arm was numb and my whole leg was numb. All morning I did not feel "right".  And let me just say that I had NO TIME to be sick.  The girls were starting school in 3 days and we had hair cuts to get, school supplies to get and the last bit of summer fun to have.  Being sick did not fit into my plans!!! I did what I always do when I do not feel well, I powered through.  Or at least that was my plan.  I mean the next day was when I was going back to the ENT, I could power through one day.  However, I did realize pretty quickly while I was driving, something was definitely wrong. I felt like I was drunk at 10 am, for lack of better terms.  I honestly felt that if I was pulled over I was not going to pass a sobriety test.  Thankfully my Garden Angles were there to guide my car safely home.  Then I canceled the girls hair appointment, I did not feel safe driving anywhere.  Shortly after I cancelled the appointment I started to feel very dizzy.  I just did not feel right!  I was stumbling when I walked and needed to use the wall to keep me from falling.  What in the world was going on! By now I was starting to feel pretty scared, even though I was not going to admit it then.  Thankfully I have the most wonderful and caring neighbor next door who let the girls come over and play while I rested.  I still felt out of it for lack of better way to describe how I felt.  I guess I had motion sickness from my dizziness and got sick to my stomach.  (Sorry I said this was an honest blog.)  I called Scott to see if he could take our youngest to her soccer practice because I really did not feel well.  During all of this my wonderful neighbor kept checking on me trying to encourage me to go to the doctor.  But I kept saying that I was going tomorrow.  I would be fine until tomorrow.  Right? She then had her daughter call me to see how I was and to try to convince me to go to the doctor.  I told you I have the best and the most caring neighbor!  Of course I was my stubborn self...I was not going to go to the doctor.  But by now I noticed I was having a hard time taking and the right side of my face was no quite right.  My speech was slurred and I felt like I was concentrating on how to talk.  So my now my walking pace was VERY SLOW as well as my speech.  I did not know what was going on, I just knew I was starting to get pretty worried.  Shortly after I started thinking that maybe I should go somewhere, Scott called.  He said he was coming home and I needed to decide which hospital I wanted to go to.  I knew there was no getting out of this one.  So my neighbor (who was the one who told Scott what was going on) came over to be with me while he drove home.  She did not find me resting, nope she found me going through and sorting the girls school supplies.  I told you I had a lot to do that week.  After I had the supplies sorted and the list highlighted with what we still needed my husband came home.  I truly believe my extreme stubbornness was due to the fact that I was scared beyond words.  I knew in my heart that something was wrong, very wrong. It did take Scott about 30 minutes to get me out of the house.  Not because I was walking very slow or stumbling, but because I knew once we got to the hospital they would keep me there until they knew what was going on, and I did not want to know.  Because once I knew, it would become reality.  There are something about that day that will always be etched in my heart.  I will always remember the love and concern I felt from my neighbors and the look of love and concern on Scott's face.  I knew the moment he saw me that it was serious.  Little did we know how serious it was going to be.  The ride to the hospital was one of the longest ones.  I was hoping not to get sick again and I was scared to go but I was more scared not to go...