Tuck and roll, dealing with life's up and downs

I guess I’ve found that life is full of ups and downs. One day you have never been happier and more optimistic about the future, then the next life punches you right in the gut. I got married almost a month ago to a wonderful woman. The wedding and honeymoon had me on cloud 9 and we were planning on having kids soon. The first day she was back to work after our honeymoon she texted me that she was having weakness in her arm and she kept dropping things, half joking I asked her if she just had a stroke. Honestly I thought it was fatigue and stress from being back at work after two weeks away. That night she was still having the symptoms but we really weren’t sure what it was. She had her nurse at work check her out earlier and she had passed the tests. The next day I got a text that she was going to the doctor because the symptoms had gotten worse, I thought it was a good idea. About an hour later she called me and said they found something on the CT scan. I left work right away and got to the urgent care just in time to see her loaded in an ambulance. At the ER they did an MRI and a lumbar puncture, turns out she has MS.

Multiple Sclerosis is a neurological disease caused by the body’s own immune system attacking the nerve cells. There is no cure, but it seems like they have treatments that work pretty well. There are basically three courses the disease takes. One type the patient will have maybe one or two of these attacks their whole life, this type is often not diagnosed. The most common is remission and relapse, where the patient has attacks followed by a recovery period. After each attack the patient recovers a portion of the lost function, but over time the function diminishes. The third type is chronic progressive I think about 20% have this where function continues to decline over time with little to no recovery. The symptoms can include muscle weakness, loss of motor skills, speech impairment, vision problems, loss of bladder and bowel control, pain, depression, and general cognitive abilities.

We don’t know yet what type she has and we’re hoping for the best. She spent three days in the hospital and has been home for a week now. She is in physical and occupational therapy and feels like she is slowly getting back to where she was. She went back to work for a couple half days now and we will see a specialist in a few weeks to get more details about what they know.

So I’ve just been riding the bull market of married life for the past month. I’m not sure what the future holds, but I know that the two of us are going to rise to the challenges of this disease. Just kind of makes everything else seem irrelevant. I know there are a lot of people out there who have this illness or are caring for someone who has it, I’m hoping to be able to do something to not only help my wife, but others as well. Stay tuned maybe collecting pledges for the MS150 next year or something.