Welcome to my blog.
I'm a 33 year-old successful lawyer practicing in Toronto, Canada. I am a strong Christian and love God more than anything. I have an amazing husband of four years (no kids yet) and I am blessed to be part of the most wonderful family anyone could ask for. My mother, father, brother, sister-in-law and I are disgustingly close. We're like one of those annoying TV families most of the time. I have great friends which I now know I took for granted far too many times.
I didn't know how much I would need my family, my friends and my faith until the morning of June 12, 2011.
June 11 ended like any other day. My husband and I enjoyed a wonderful evening with a friend and his wife at our place. We worked hard that day to spruce up the house. I slaved away in the kitchen and we played PS3 games until the wee hours of the night. I went to bed happy as a clam.
I woke up on June 12 with a very slight tingling in my right index finger. I chalked it up to using too many cleaning solutions the day before. I just kept dousing it in cold water. Nothing helped.
By the end of June 12, the numb/tingly feeling had crept up my right hand and wrist. I wasn't worried at that time - just thought I might have worked myself too hard the day before.
On the morning of June 13 I woke up and completely freaked out. My entire right arm had gone numb and tingly and the feeling had spread into my right side from shoulder to hip. Nothing had hit my legs or my face. I seriously thought I was having a stroke. My husband and I hightailed it to our local emergency room, where I was told that it was "transient" and I should take two Advil and go to sleep. That night I followed the doctor's instructions.
By June 15 the numbness had spread into my back and I had developed pain on the right side where my arm meets my torso. I also had some pain in my right armpit. It was uncomfortable as all hell to put my bra on. I was pretty convinced it was a pinched nerve but I talked to my mom (a retired Registered Nurse) who told me to haul ass to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (in my opinion, one of the best hospitals in the country). I followed doctor's orders. After four hours in the emergency room and a good neurological exam, I was told that an outpatient MRI of the brain and spinal cord were ordered for me and I was told to go home and wait for the MRI.
A couple of days later I called Sunnybrook to follow up on the MRI and found out that the resident who had requisitioned the MRI messed it up in three different places. They said I had diet-controlled diabetes (I don't) and only ordered the MRI of the brain instead of the brain and spinal cord. I pretty much lost it at that point. When you have a health care system like Canada, you cherish the "free" health care but you also have to demand your treatment.
I went to an urgent care centre at North York General Hospital on Sunday June 19 and demanded a CT Scan just so that we could get things moving. (The fact that my firm practices medical malpractice law did quite a bit to move the doctors along, I must admit!) The CT scan came back fine.
I went BACK to Sunnybrook's ER on June 20, dropped the medical malpractice lawyer thing, and was promptly seen by all six of the neurology residents as well as their instructor. During that visit, I noticed that the reflexes on my right knee weren't working. The chief neuro instructor, bless his heart, finally told me during that visit that he was "really worried" about multiple sclerosis. I don't think I really heard him because I was so focussed on this being a pinched nerve.
I jumped on the back of the MRI department at Sunnybrook and got an MRI of the brain and spinal cord booked for July 1, 2011. I was also able to get an appointment with a neurologist at Sunnybrook for July 5, 2011. Looking back, things really happened at a breakneck pace in those first couple of weeks. Someone up above was definitely looking out for me.
On July 5, 2011, with my mom and my brother in tow, I went to the MS clinic at Sunnybrook and met with two neurologists and a MS clinical nurse, who calmly told me that although I had a "pretty good" neurological examination, the MRIs showed multiple lesions in my brain (one had "lit up" indicating demyelineation) and a lesion from C2 - C4 in my spine. I looked at the MRIs and began to cry. I swore to the doctors that I had never, ever experienced anything like this before in my life.
20 minutes later, I was diagnosed with Clinically Isolated Syndrome highly suggestive of MS.
And my life changed in an instant.
