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Pressing Past the Pain

I was first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010. It started out as blindness in my right eye. I went to the emergency room and test were ran to show that I had optic neuritis which was the first sign of multiple sclerosis. I was treated with steroids and my site came back. I didn't know much about the disease at that time. Later on I started having weaknesses and paralysis in my left side. I also start having headaches and pain in my neck. After the paralysis I had to go back to the hospital where they told me that I needed to have a spinal tap. The spinal tap and the MRI confirmed that there were lesions in the brain and the spinal cord, and that was the proof that I had multiple sclerosis. I was in the hospital for about 2 weeks getting therapy and taking steroids. It got some better so I went home. February of 2014, I started have a major serious tingling in my feet and numbness and I became paralyzed from my feet to mid chest. I called the ambulance went to the hospital and they told me I had had an MS relapse. I had to go through various treatments with steroids and pain medications, as well as 30 days of intense therapy to get me walking again. Once released I had to come home to home health, occupational therapy, physical therapy, to help me to adapt to my lifestyle that has now changed. I had to take a medical leave from college, which now I was told because of the tremendous stress level could have been a factor in my MS relapse. I still have limitations due to the MS relapse and I'm not able to do a lot of the things that I did before. For example, doing laundry is a chore I have to have the laundrymat do my clothes sometimes. Grocery shopping I can't always go and get groceries due to the fatigue and weakness, so I have a store deliver them. Simple household chores may take me a week to get done instead of a day. Often I must take a lot of power naps.
I still have continued fatigue weakness and numbness in my legs and my left side. I often use my gazelle machine to help me to get exercise in when I can't leave the house. I would recommend this machine it really does help with being able to move and to get some energy back. I get on my machine at least two to three times a day. Vitamin b12 also helps with energy. But what I have learned through all of this is you have to keep moving as much as possible. You press through the pain.

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