T H E Diagnosis or Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez

Dr. B told me he'd call me on Tuesday to let me know what the spinal fluid showed. So I waited. And waited. And waited. The longer I waited, the more I knew it wouldn't be good news. Dr. B had already scheduled me with a Neurologist for that afternoon after work.

At 4:00, right as I was leaving work, Dr. B. called. He said he wasn't sure if he should tell me, but since he had promised me, and since he didn't want me hearing the news from a Dr. I hadn't met yet, he decided to give me the results of the tests: I have Multiple Sclerosis. I started to cry. Then he felt bad (it's not like a brain surgeon isn't used to giving bad news and having his patients cry). But I think it surprised him a little since in every meeting with me he had mentioned MS and I hadn't gotten upset. It was just easier when I didn' t have the definitive diagnosis. It's a difficult thing to hear that you have an incurable disease.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez. Happy Mardi Gras. Happy Fat Tuesday. February 5, 2008.

But in his thought process, based on his examination of me, he felt I had a "simmering case of MS." That my MS hadn't really developed and there were treatments that Dr. S., my Neurologist would explain to me.

I cried on the way to the Drs. office. My blood pressure was an amazing 147/97. No one in the Drs.' office even commented on that. I guess they are used to patients being stressed at bad news there. I had a huge questionnaire to answer with all sorts of weird questions, very few of which I could even answer. (In retrospect, I guess that's a good thing). Then Dr. S. called Ernest and I into her office. She started talking conversationally, and I told her we could cut to the chase because Dr. B. had already spilled the beans about the MS. So she explained MS. I took notes because I knew I wouldn't remember anything. Now when I look at them, I can't read my writing! I was writing between the tears. Clinically I have MS even though I am asymptommatic. My cervical, thoracic and brain MRIs show "lesions" or "sclera".

Basically I was told that this is a good age to have MS, because there are a number of "DMDs" (Disease Modifying Drugs) that weren't available 10 years ago. So I would be started on one of them, Avonex, a particular type of interferon. By injection. Once a week. Intramuscularly (that means it's a needle 1 1/2" and I inject in my thighs (my lap).

But before we started those meds I had to go in the next friday for a complete set of MRIs, this time with a contrast medium injected in me. These MRIs would show if I had any active lesions, therefore, an "active" case of MS.

That would bring my MRI count up to 8 since November.
, but who's counting? (I AM!) I wasn't happy about having 4 more MRIs done, all at once (a couple of hours!) So I opted to take the several tranquilizers. they offered. And I do think I snoozed a little, while Ernest who accompanied me, waited, bored to death in the waiting room (holding my jewelry). Let me say again, that Ernest has been my Rock throughout all this.

The following Monday I was scheduled for inpatient/outpatient steroid treatments. Steroids seem to be the preferred treatment for a flare up or "episode" of MS. That didn't necessarily apply to me, this time but since my spinal fluid showed inflammation and I couldn't have my herniated disk surgery as long as I had any spinal inflammation it was a necessity. Thus a long course of steroids was in my immediate future.

We left Dr. S.s office with me in tears, worrying about how to tell the kids. I suggested to Ernest that we drive directly to his mother's house in Pearland. I needed a mother's shoulders to cry on. And I did. When we later got home I hid out in the bedroom while Ernest told the kids (more calmly than I would be able to).