Thanks for the thread Sally. Several of us have been on this journey together for a long time. We just didn't know how we got on this train.

I'll start out like Starz did. I knew something was wrong when I was just a child but found out it was only that my Mom gave me baby brothers!!!!

OK, I promise to be nice. I was out shopping in 1997, age 47, and noticed that my right leg wouldn't cooperate as well as the left when getting in the car. We finished shopping and went home. I was tired so I sat in the recliner, pulled the foot rest up and rested. But I found I couldn't move my foot or leg at all. Now being a nurse I should have been alarmed at that. But I knew I had several bulging disks and since I was a nurse used to diagnosing myself, and not knowing orthopedic or neurology very well I just said it was the bulging disk.

The next day everything was the same so I knew that something was really wrong but I didn't have nice gowns and underwear to wear to the hospital. So I went out to buy it. So by then my left leg wouldn't cooperate very well. I could slowly walk but if I as laying or sitting down the legs or feet had nothing. So I went home with my new stuff that was befitting a preacher's kid to wear in the hospital and did I call the doctor???? No, not yet. I had to take a bath, wash my hair and shave my legs. I knew I couldn't shave my legs to easily if I had back surgery so better do it now. So I finally called the doctor and was told to immediately get to the hospital, and to have some one drive me. So I called up my parents, who didn't even know anything was happening, packed my new belongings and went to the hospital.

I had a spinal and brain MRI the next day and played the waiting game. I walked down to my unit to see what they were up to and waited. At about 11 PM that night the neurosurgeon who was going to do surgery if my bulging disc had herniated came in and asked if I wanted the good or bad news first. I said good news. Joyce, you don't have a herniated disc. Bad news, you have MS. Then he left. Nothing more said! This was back in 1997, and the neurology unit's neurology books all were so outdated. I read all about the nurses job in MS was preventive care to take care of bed sores, pneumonia for aspirating, etc. Scared half out of my mind. To late to call my husband, didn't leave a sleeping pill for me. So the neurologist saw me the next day, ordered many more MRIs, EMG, everything. So after it was all over she confirmed the diagnosis. So I had one lesion involving all of the pons which all the nerves in the brain travel through to get to the spinal cord. Nice place to have one. Not.

I had an injection of acthar gel as soon as I had got to the hospital to reduce swelling so the symptoms were already improving but when I saw my neuro, I'll call her Carla, she ordered my first course of the IVSM. Quite a shock to have that first course of it.

Years later I had a short time of optic neuritis which made Carla to change the diagnosis from clinically propable to RRMS. I still just have the one lesion and have MRIs only when needed. I am left with cognitive difficulties, fatigue, pins and needles in feet and legs, some bowel and bladder issues.

But it was when she told me that the trigeminal neuralgia that I had already been diagnosed with back in 1992 that I had propably had MS since then. But then I though of all the vacations I took, all the work I did and I did it with no problems that I could do this MS thing. Sure I had to watch doing stuff in the heat but I could go on and not let this thing scare me.

I worked full time for over 2 years after my diagnosis and then had a big exacerbation mainly my legs again, took 2 rounds of the IVSM and then two rounds of the follow up prednisone to get it back to it's base line that I knew I had to quit work.

Just like the Batman, losing weight and getting back in better physical shape has done so much to make me a much healthier person and tolerate this much better.

I still count having MS as one of the greatest blessings that God has given me. It was the slap in the face that I needed to make me prioritize things in life a bit differently. Nursing was always first and then far down on the list were my family, God, church. My youngest was just graduating from high school and we were empty nesters so I was 'just a house wife'. But I was able to see where I had some things really messed up in life. I ca easily say it was and is a blessing because my MS isn't that bad. I can still walk fine, do mega shopping, go on vacations if I use a scooter on vacation. I stayed with my daughter a full week when she had both of my grand children. If I had been working I couldn't do that. I have been able to many things in life because I am at home now.