Diagnosis Story

 Diagnosis

As I approach my one year diagnose-aversary, I've been thinking a lot of how I came to be diagnosed with MS. I wanted to write out my story as a way of remembering, although I'm not sure I could forget if I wanted to. 

I woke up with my left eye blurry and pain when I moved my eye. It was weird, I could still see but it was almost like someone smudged the front of my glasses lense. After confirming that this was in fact bizarre to have this come on so suddenly, I went to urgent care (although by the time I got myself to go to urgent care, it had been nearly a week of this.) They concluded that they assumed this was just a migraine and not to be concerned. 2 days later and nothing was any better.  After much urging by family members, I went to the Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary ED, however because I went on a Sunday evening, the majority of the different scans they wanted to do were closed. They then asked me to return the next day. Did I mention that Moshe wasn't allowed in with me because of Covid? Given my hesitancy to drive in the city along with my reduced vision in my eye, my father in law drove me in the next morning. We assumed it would be a quick couple of eye exams and tests and that he could wait around, but after they discovered inflammation in my optic nerve, they decided they wanted to do an MRI which would take a while. After a long exhausting day of shlepping around the hospital to different exams and not eating much because of needing to wear a mask, I got to take a little nap in the MRI. Post MRI I had to head back to the ED to hear my results, while Moshe and the kids waited for me in the car.

The head of the ER was on the phone and kept peering over at me. She approached me a few times with different questions: "does anyone in your family have an autoimmune disease?" and "do you ever have tingling in your hands or feet?" I couldn't understand why she was asking me this, but then she walked over to me. "your optic nerve is inflamed and you have lesions on your brain. this is usually indicative of multiple sclerosis. you'll need to follow up with MGH neurology." and that was it.

I got into the car completely numb; how the hell do I have MS? Am i going to end up in a wheelchair? The ED left me with no answers and getting in touch with MGH to schedule an appointment was nearly impossible. Thankfully, a neurologist friend in the community was able to check out my scans and talk me through my new diagnosis. He explained that treatments for MS have come a long way and I'll be ok. He was also able to get me an appintment at MGH with a former colleague of his. This gave me a lot of relief.

Well...that's the story of how I got diagnosed. Just about one year later and am I doing better? No, not really. More symptoms came on pretty quickly and I'm still have some trouble with my eye. I haven't developed any new lesions according to my most recent scan, but I'm still having newer sumtpoms so we aren't sure if I'm on the right medciation. 

One thing I have learned is who is there for me. My friends and family have gone above and beyond during this very difficult year, and for that I will forever be grateful.