Hi Sally, I don't think I have ever read your story before. Thanks for sharing it

In the spring of 1985, at the age of 24:

My husband (married 1981) was out of town on business. When my husband was out of town, which was quite often, I took care of all the yard work. Early one morning I hauled out the lawn mower and preceded to mow (keep in mind this was not the first time I had mowed but, was the first mowing of the season).

Normally I would cut both front and back at one time.

On this day I started in the back. About half way through the back my legs started to get weak, numb and pins/needles. I kept going but it got worse so I shut the mower off and went in the house.

Since the weakness, numbness and pins/needles continued I never made it back out that day. I woke up the next morning and felt fine so I went back to mowing. I couldn't even finish the last half of the backyard. My legs got weak, numb with pins/needles again. I had a hard time getting back to the house.

I never did finish the mowing.

The pins/needles, numbness and leg weakness did not go away this time and more symptoms were starting to pop up. I developed hand tremors, really bad fatigue, and the one that scared the poo out of me, Lhermittes.

I remember explaining to my husband how each time I bent my head down I had odd sensations from my waist down. His response? Stop looking down!

I made an appointment with my PCP. He listened to me, did an exam and said he would be back in a minute. He comes back in and says, I can't help you and handed me a referral to a Neurologist I had never heard of a Neurologist and didn't understand what this could mean (there was no internet at that time).

The Neurologist ordered x-rays, blood work, Myleogram, lumbar puncture, brain MRI and VEP. When I had the LP the Dr. showed me the spinal fluid and said, do you see how cloudy it is? This means there is something going on I had the Myleogram right after the LP and I scared everyone In the room. Apparently I turned as white as the towels, I thought I was going to pass out.

At my follow up appointment I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. When I was told I said, okay. How do we fix it? I was then told there was no cure and no medications. He did prescribe Prednisone for the exacerbation.

Complete and total shock set in. I had been married 4 years at this point and I was "only" 24. I did tell my husband I would understand if he wanted out of the marriage. He got angry and said he had no intention of leaving. We are still married (almost 34 years).

Over time I came to understand that I have had MS since childhood.

It took me almost a year to recover from that exacerbation and at about that one year mark, in the summer of 1986, I had my second exacerbation. We had our first child in 1989 and our 2nd in 1992. I went on to have 3 more exacerbations, 1994, 2001, 2002. In May 2013 I was diagnosed Secondary Progressive.