Re: Multiple Sclerosis (Long)
I was diagnosed with MS Sept. 30, 2007. I was a new nurse and in orientation in a cardiac unit. It began as I was studying for my critical care pharmacology competency. The letters on the page looked washed out, as if there the printer the page was printed on was running out of ink. I went to work the next day and couldn't read the numbers on an insulin syringe. Needless to say, I told my charge nurse what was happening and she reassigned my patients. I went to my eye doctor, who couldn't find anything wrong with my eye. He suggestd I go to the ER. Of course, after just having gone through nursing school, all the worse case scenerios were going through my mind...brain tumor...cancer.. I was even more freaked out because I was already blind in my other eye from a child hood accident.
Anyway, after an MRI and and an LP I was diagnosed with MS. I felt as if my world had been turned upside down. I went through all of stages of grief, denial and anger then bargaining (it can't be true, I just finished nursing school in top 5 % of my class...I save lives... I run 12 miles a week... I eat healthy food...). Then depression, while recovering at home from optic neuritis and taking steroids, and finally and reluctantly, acceptance.
Looking back I've probably had MS for at least 10 years (I'm 39 now). I just attributed vague tingling and intermittent pain to injuries, vertigo and fatigue to being a mom of three young kids.
When I was first diagnosed my neurologist said I had a choice as to how I could handle the disease I could do nothing (as many people choose to do for financial reasons or because they can't stand to take injections) or I could fight. He explained a little about the fight (expensive injections, side effects, etc.)
For me it wasn't a question. I'll take a fight any day, this was nothing new to me. I fought to get into nursing school, I fight for my patients every day. I went on Rebif and experienced the flu-like side effects and Raynauds in my fingers. Then after three months my neurologist checked my liver enzymes and they were 10 times normal. We tried reducing the dosage and they kept climbing. I went off Rebif and began taking Copaxone. No side effects at all. I've been taking it for 8 months and I've had no exacerbations. Also, no return of Raynauds.
Yes, I get the little lumps at the injection sites but the way I look at it, that is just evidence of the fight. Every time I give myself an injection I know I am doing something to help myself. I will fight this disease and I will continue to work as long as possible.
I loved reading all of your posts. I felt so alone with the diagnosis, like I was the only one. My family was supportive but I had no fellow nurses who were surviving with MS to look to for hope, and to say, "If she can do it, I can do it". I explored internet resourses like the National MS society and other organizations and that helped, but reading about other nurses who are surviving and working despite their challenges is inspiring.
That was depressing to hear. 
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