In mid March I was running late for work (as usual) and was toweling off after a quick shower when I noticed that a band of skin under my breast bone felt.....weird. I looked in the mirror. No rash. I poked at it. No pain. It just felt like the skin had gone to sleep and was tingling. I chalked it up to a pinched nerve or sleeping funny and finished getting ready to head to the office.
The next day after my shower, I felt the same tingling. Three days later, still tingling. In fact now it was tingling all the time. All day long. I was busy and didn't have time to deal with it. I was leaving soon for a week in Mexico with one of my best girlfriends and figured it must be stress related from having to cram all my work in ahead of time.
April 1st arrived and the tingling had progressed to pain. It felt like someone had wrapped an ace bandage around the top of my ribs as tight as possible. It hurt to breathe. I was rubbing my stomach all day long. One of my co-workers begged me to call my Primary Care Physician. I was leaving for Mexico in 14 days. The last thing I needed was to be sick. I called my PCP's office and they had me come in that afternoon. My doctor was out, so I saw another doctor in the practice. He did a physical exam and drew blood. He assured me that it was probably a virus or a nerve issue and that we shouldn't worry too much about it. "I am sure we are not looking at anything like cancer, Parkinson's, MS or something serious." he told me.
Two days later I got a call that all my blood work was normal other than a mildly elevated white count. Call if I got worse or failed to improve, but otherwise we would assume it was a virus that would run its course. I figured the elevated white count and a virus would explain why I was so tired too. I figured that once I got out of the country and enjoyed some sun and relaxation, I would feel much better.
On April 15th we left for Puerta Vallarta. My hands and feet kept falling asleep on the plane. I figured I was dehydrated and really pushed a lot of water into my system the first 24 hours we were there. My stomach had finally stopped being numb all the time and I was on my first vacation in 5 years. It had to be stress and too much work. I just needed to relax.
On the 17th we went snorkeling. As I bent my neck forward to pull on my flippers, I felt an electrical current pulse through my body. I looked up in surprise and turned to my girlfriend to see if she had felt it too. Apparently not, since she was still getting into her wetsuit. I turned my attention back to the flippers and felt it again. Throughout the rest of the week I could produce the same result by pulling my chin down to my chest. The electrical pulse only lasted a second, but it was strange and alarming.
My hands were numb off and on for the rest of the trip as well. Thankfully it was a vacation and we had no scheduled agenda other than eat, sleep, swim, drink; repeat as necessary. I wasn't tired anymore, but I was also sleeping 8-10 hours a night and napping for 1-2 hours every afternoon. It was like I had sleeping sickness. I decided I was just really relaxed.
When I got home and wrapped my brain around working for a living again, I checked my voicemail and found a message from the doctors office. They wanted me to repeat the CBC panel. I went in, had the draw and once again my white count was elevated. No change in the past 3 weeks. They decided to refer me to a hematologist for further testing.
The hematologist was a fanatic about blood. I learned more about blood from him in the 3 hours we spent together than I ever did in biology class. He felt that my blood looked pretty normal, but he was concerned that my white count was STILL elevated 6 weeks after my first draw. He felt that we should run a special test to screen for myelomonocystic leukemia. He also ordered an MRI to, "rule out brain/spinal injury, tumors and MS". So I scheduled the appointment, bummed a Xanax off a girlfriend (hi, claustrophobic!) and spent 2.5 hours in a banging, clanging tube while being filled with magnetic waves and glow in the dark dye.
Two days later I began pestering the doctor for results. When I got his PA on the phone she said she would have to have the doctor call me back because he wanted to give me the results himself.
This can not be a good sign.
When the doctor called me back he said that there was no indication of tumors (whohoo!), no damage to the spinal cord other than a mildly bulging disc in my cervical area; which given the multiple car accidents I have been in, was not surprising and no big deal. But there were multiple lesions in both hemispheres of my brain and that I would need to get a referral to a neurologist.
Lesions? What lesions?
"Multiple Sclerosis. You have MS. The radiology report is very clear in its definitive diagnosis."
Not. what. I. wanted. to. hear.
Remember how we were ruling MS out? It wasn't on my list. Besides, I like my brain. Without lesions, thank you very much. And a chronic, incurable auto-immune disorder? Ummm, NO. No. NOOOOO! I want something we can fix. Something predictable. Something that will GO AWAY!
I just wanted a diagnosis. Not a life altering condition.
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