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I woke up one morning in late August 2004 and my right leg was
tingling and numb, like I had a muscle knot. I went to the
chiropractor, the massage therapist, and the rolfer - and none of
them could change the feeling. The numbness increased, as did the
banding (now I know what that is!) and the pain in my legs. In
mid-September I went to my doctor and mentioned it to him - he said
I was overreacting when I mentioned the possibility of MS. Ok,
whatever. In October I realized that I had no feeling on the right
side of my body - so the doc finally sent me for an MRI. The
results came back that I had MS. Huge panic for the doc - put me in
the hospital and gave me prednisone. That didn't help. I was sent
to the MS clinic in Vancouver (800 miles away) - they told me to go
home and rest. Symptoms continued to worsen, and finally in 2006 I
had a spinal tap - and the diagnosis of TM. Here I am almost nine years later - managing the pain, and the numbness and the burning, and the . . . and the . . . - I know that you can fill in the blanks. I am working full time - at great expense to my body and my fatigue - but I have no choice as I am a walking wounded. On bad days I use a cane, on worse days I stay in bed, and on good days I am so grateful. The lesion is at T4-5 Of course the diagnosis is idiopathic TM - but interestingly enough about a month earlier I fell out of the back of a pickup truck (after using an outhouse in the back of the truck while partying with the seniors - be careful when partying with seniors!) and broke my wrist. To this day I believe the blunt force trauma of hitting the ground that hard - the stairs collapsed - contributed or caused the TM. I have had no further attacks, but I do have some excruciating days. Janet BC Canada |
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