Somewhat of a start to my life

I want to start by saying this. I do not, at the time of writing this, have any formal diagnosis for the symptoms I am experiencing. I know a few people with MS and my symptoms may align with it. I accept my symptoms could be a multitude of other conditions, but as of now I have been adapting my life and treating my symptoms as if they are caused by MS. The minor life changes I have made have helped, so if at any point I refer to MS I am not diagnosing myself. This is just how I cope with my symptoms and if in the future my circumstances change then so will my mindset.

For as long as I can remember, my ‘energy levels’ always felt a fraction of those around me. Even as a child and the kids around me ran around chasing a football, tiredness would strike me in a quarter of the time it took to affect the other kids. I just always assumed I was less healthy, maybe I didn’t eat enough or maybe it was just laziness. This tiredness has always been with me and in adult life I feel like those around me judge me for not doing as much as another person. For example, when me and my partner moved out I had to sit. Whilst my partner and his step father lugged around the heavy boxes and furniture. I knew my stepfather felt like I was slacking and I needed to pull my weight but I had no piece of paper that said cannot help for x, y or z. So, I would force my body to go harder even though I knew the rest of that day and I would spend the next with crippling exhaustion and pain. Dread would fill me because I knew even if I suffered the next day, I would end up forcing myself to do more.

The suffering of my body and the urge of my brain to continue were always at odds. When I was about 14, I helped my friend dig up his front garden. It sloped at a rather dramatic angle, and they wanted to have it paved instead. Digging the earth was so fun as a kid. I grabbed the pickaxe and with all my childhood might I swung the pickaxe into the dirt. Me and my friends made countless Minecraft jokes. Though it may have been dangerous, we would jump on any overhanging bit of dirt until it broke off and we slipped down. Occasionally my friends’ grandparents would bring out shandies. For anyone who doesn’t know what a shandy is, it’s an alcoholic drink mixed with lemonade. Now it was more like a shot of beer mixed with a whole glass of cold lemonade, so I doubt it was even a half percent proof, but we all felt so naughty and powerful drinking alcohol.

I found myself only able to swing the pickaxe a couple of times or scooping up a few spades of dirt and then having to sit down, in the shade. Even though my mind wanted to dig more and scoop more, it had to concede to my body.

So, this has always been with me and it happens regardless of if I want it to or not. I had worked around it. Then over the period of perhaps two years it got a lot worse. Even a flight of stairs was enough to put me out of commission for a few hours. I had become less active and even more so when Covid struck. I just ended up putting it down to being unhealthy and lazy until one day when things changed dramatically and fast. The following happened and you might ask why I didn’t go to A&E. I was already seeing a doctor about my tiredness and they have run blood tests and found that my Vitamin D was very low. The doctor had referred me to a neurologist prior to this ‘episode’. The neurologist ran an EEG to make sure I didn’t have epilepsy, but at this point I was waiting on the neurologist to plan the next step.

On the day, when things had changed, I woke up about every hour with pain in my neck. I assumed I had just slept funny, so each time I just plumped my pillows and tried to move them into a better position. The last time I woke up it felt like the neck pain had spread all over my body and one of my eyes was blurry, but at that moment I wasn’t wearing my glasses so I didn’t notice the vision issues. I brushed the pain off as a trapped nerve from sleeping in a bad position. Then I tried to get out of bed. I put on my glasses and the vision in my right eye was still blurry. I went to take my morning medication and my right arm wasn’t strong enough to push the pill through the foil cover on the medication. It also twitched a lot. When I sat upright and placed my feet on the ground, I couldn’t feel the ground and my right foot just drooped.

I was anxious, but I just pushed through it. I needed to go to the shop that day so I got dressed and even that felt difficult. Pulling my shoes over my feet was difficult with a droopy foot and I grabbed the laces, but I couldn’t remember how to tie them. This was when I panicked. I did the wrong thing of googling my symptoms and the first result was MS and my brain clicked my symptoms were so similar to those of people I know who suffer with it. This somewhat calmed me down, so I just went through it. I knew I was waiting to see the neurologist and with Covid going around I decided to not go to hospital unless it got serious.

Each day that passes since that episode and what I believe to be my second relapse so many little things in my life just makes sense when you think about them from the point of view of having MS. If I am honest, I am not sure why I’m sharing this story, but perhaps it will help someone and maybe someone will be interested in my little story. There is so much to me I have often been told I could write a story about it. Sometimes they even said its genre could be a horror. This is a major plot point in my life so if you want to read more please let me know. Thanks for reading. Stay safe and stay strong.