Its been awhile

Ok so I have not exactly blogged any lately. Its been a long time. I think since I last wrote anything I have gone back to work, slightly started to walk better, and decided that I will not try for disability. I do now have a handicap sticker for my car but I do not always use it. Just a little stubborn I am. I only work part time and am living with my family. I do not wish to always live with my parents. It is kind of embarrasing to be almost 30 and living with family. However I wish to return to college and have to live with them if I am going to be spending my time in school. I just do not know what I will major in. I am thinking about accounting but also am thinking about computer programming. There is many other things that I think about majoring in and it changes from day to day. I realize that no one but me is going or currently going to this blog but I will start to blog here anyway. Maybe the more I blog the more people will come to see what I have to say.

Time to go to work

Its frustrating when you have to go back to work because of money but your not able to get into see the doctor for six weeks and you need him to sign off on you returning to work. I guess this is my fault. I knew a long time ago when I would have to go back to work. I just did not know they would want his approval.

They tell me I am disabled

I have been on a leave of absence from work for two months now. I had to leave for awhile because I was going through a flareup and it was to much for me. While I was working my coworkers would tell me on a daily basis that I should just collect disability and stop working forever. First of all it not all that easy to be put on disability. You can not just tell the government that you are disabled and expect a check. Secondly I do not know if I want to be considered disabled. I am only 29. There may be a lot that I can not do but there is still some things that I can do.

Multiple Sclerosis Medication

Before I was born my granddad had a disease called Addison's disease. He lived with it until he died at the age of 85. When they first diagnosed him he almost died because of the disease. My family had to move to be closer to some doctors that new more about Addison's disease. From what I know it has to do with your adrenal gland not working right. I tell you all this because at the time he was diagnosed it was a bad disease to have. But with time and research they created some medication that did not cure him but made it so all he had to do is take a pill every day and everything was fine. I believe this could be the case some day with multiple sclerosis. It would be great if I could just take a pill everyday and then I would fill fine. Maybe I would not have balance issues or be very weak. Maybe I would not have vision problems. That could be the future. A pill a day keeps the MS away.

In today's world I take a medication called Copaxone. Everyday I give myself a shot. It is considered a good drug. They have made some good progress with the research on MS. There are other drugs besides Copaxone. Avonex is another medication. With Avonex you give yourself a shot once a week. Yet another medication is Tysabri. Here you get the drug through an iv once every four weeks. My doctor is talking about me switching to Tysabri some day. They have good results with all of these drugs. So I guess I can say I now am more hopeful of the future. I do not have to end up in a wheelchair. Someday I can take a pill and everything will be okay.

Having a flareup

Recently I have been going through what is known in the Multiple Sclerosis world as a flareup. This is when all your problems seem to get worse and sometimes you can develop some new ones. I already struggle to walk but when this occurred I barely could walk to the car. I normally would fall down at least once a week but now I was falling down almost daily. What really took my surprise was I could no longer sign my name or do much of anything with my right hand. After seeing the doctor they gave me steroids through an iv. For five days I went to the hospital and set there for two hours while they gave me steroids. This definitely made me stronger where I could walk better and sign my name again. Thankfully there are people and medicine out there that will help me.

What is MS

I was not sure for a long time. For me it was just a disease that you read about in some school textbook or a magazine discussing some new medicine. When it becomes part of your life you seem to learn more about the issue. Multiple Sclerosis is where your immune system attacks your nervous system. That is the simplest way to put it. One part of your body destroys another part of your body. Of coarse there is a longer definition but basically your brain does not get the information to your body correctly and therefore you have problems such as walking.

Knowing or not knowing

I do not know which is worse. Having Multiple Sclerosis or knowing there might be something wrong and not knowing what it is. When you do not know at least you can hope they will find something small and you can just take a pill that will fix you. Of coarse when you do not know then it is always in the back of your mind eating away at you. Having MS can be rough but I have to say there can be a lot worse diseases I could have.

I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis

You go through your life trying to make something of yourself. You think everything is going ok when you start to notice little things happening to you that you may push aside and not think much of. Maybe the bottom of your feet go numb for a short time. Perhaps you start to have a small amount of blurred vision. You could start to have a little bit of balance issues. Finally you decide you need to see a doctor. So you go and the doctor does not seem to know anything. Your eye doctor runs a bunch of test on your vision and nothing comes up wrong. So you think maybe they are right. There is nothing wrong. Before you know it any issues that you had starts to go away. Through the years there is nothing wrong. Your job is coming along well. You have a great family that supports you. Then it hits. Your balance is completely gone. Your losing your strength. You go to the doctor again. Once again the doctor does not know. Luckily you are referred to a Neurologist. Different test are run. They stick you in a small tube that makes a lot of noise and they complete an MRI. Finally they stick a needle in your back and do a lumbar puncture. They tell you that you have Multiple Sclerosis. Now what do you do?