Three More Sleeps

Mr C sits in the fridge waiting.  He doesn't take up much room for 28 doses.  Small and inconspicuous.  Isn't that the one your mum told you to look out for?  Oh, no it was the quiet ones that give you the most trouble.

Three more sleeps until AI day... auto inject day.

I had my first pang of fear today - fleeting, but fear just the same.  I guess it's the not knowing what's going to happen, how Mr C may effect me, how my life might change.  Uncertainty.  Maybe in a few months time, when this change has become routine and I know that my life hasn't changed much, I can get back to where I was less than a week ago.

As per all long term changes, eventually they become routine and normal.  It's taken me a long time and much apprehension to figure this one out!

Today, I discovered two more friends who know other people who have MS.  An old boss, who was mostly well, although suffered from some fatigue and a relative in her seventies living on a farm doing the organic thing.  She uses a walking stick.  I also have another friend, who including me, knows three people with MS.  One is an elderly aunty, who has a few falls and the other is an old work colleague, who again suffers from fatigue, my friend says from "doing too much".

Today I received a much awaited email from a friend of a friend who was diagnosed with MS ten years ago.  She has taken the path that I chose not to seven years ago.  Well almost anyway.  My GP, who originally sent me for tests before referring me on to the neurologist, suggested that if I were his wife and she was in a similar situation that perhaps, he would advise her to not to go through with further testing.  Imagine being blissfully unaware, until some big symptom may have or may not have shown up.  I could have spent the last seven years and right now not knowing I had MS, not even knowing much about what MS was, because I have had minimal sensory symptoms to date.  There was wisdom in what my GP suggested even though I didn't see it at the time.  I was horrified and appalled by his suggestion then.  There have been many documented cases of people dying of old age and an autopsy being performed to reveal a brain riddled with lesions from MS, which they didn't know they had.

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

Recently I said to my groom, you know how after exercise you kind of get a tingling from over exertion.  He said no, that doesn't happen to me.  So, you know, perhaps I would have never known any different.  Perhaps I would have just thought those weird sensations were normal and they just became routine and forgotten about.  I would probably never have mentioned them to anyone else, who could have corrected me.  My itchy spot on my back, would have been just that... an itchy spot.

My friend of a friend, was diagnosed, but has decided not to see her neurologist regularly, as I did for about the first five years.  Although she does not take medication, I think she will be a good ally to have in my corner.  I am grateful for that.