Another warm summer August day, in 2008, I headed to the ball field for some softball with some ladies of all ages. My favorite sport to play. I started playing at 11 years old and continued thru high school and after.
We do our stretches, some throwing and I decide to take off and warmup by running down the 3rd baseline. Once I reach the fence, I felt as if my knee wasn’t there and I hit the ground. I had no idea what or why it happened, but my knees felt tingly and weak when I stood back up. Everytime I ran I felt the tingling down to my toes.
The next day, I called my neurologist and told him what happened at the game and also I had tingling in my hands when I looked down. Yes, I already had a neurologist because I had a cyst on my spine that he had drained in 2005. He wanted to do another MRI to see if the cyst had filled back up with fluid. Waiting for the results was nerve racking, I didn’t want to go thru another surgery.
I received the results three days later, confirming the cyst was full of fluid again and he suggested I have it removed. So on a cold December day of 2008, I go in for surgery. I felt my legs like normal, no tingling and fully functional. The cyst was two inches long by an inch wide, at the end of my spine and tailbone.
Per my neurologist this kind of cyst he usually sees on the brain from trauma. He asked if had trauma to the area? I recalled landing on a stick, while sledding riding down a big hill, when I was in high school that brought me to tears, because the pain was so intense. I had hit a groundhog hole, which sent me flying in the area and came to rest on a stick, sticking out of the ground.
The surgery went ok, I had 9 stitches in my back just above the underwear line, that ran alongside of my spine. I spent two days in the hospital and I noticed I could not feel my legs completely. My doctor said, to give it time I should get my feeling back within a year.
Oh and I was scheduled to start a new job a week later, which I probably should have gave my body another week to recover, but I needed the job, which I still work at to this day.
Jump a head, to my 6 week follow up appointment. I still had the tingling in my legs that I didn’t have prior to surgery, and I still had the tingling in my hands when I looked down. So he wanted to do some more testing, to see if something else was going on, because the tingling in my hands couldn’t be from the cyst it had to be from something in my neck or upper back area. He wanted to test me for lupus, ms, lymne disease and he listed a couple other things …none that sounded good. I think I went thru every test possible, ct scan, lab work, MRI without and with contrast, another test where I was laid on a table moved in many different directions and positions, trying see where the contrast went or didn’t go. I just wanted answers.
I will never forget that call. On a cold March day, heading home from work, the week of my 7th wedding anniversary. I pick up my cell phone to hear my neurologist’s voice…. “Martha, this is Dr. Zakeri. ” I have the results of your MRI and other tests. I’m sorry to tell you but I believe you have MS.” Running thru my head…what’s MS? Is it curable? What is going to happen to me? He was very sympathetic, but said he wanted to do one more test to confirm, which was the spinal tap/lumbar puncture.
I hung up the phone called my mom, to tell her, the bad news. She asked what it was and all I could tell her was that it was a incurable disease called multiple sclerosis or MS. I could hear the sadness in her voice. Her baby of four had something she couldn’t fix.
Two weeks later I had my spinal tap. Which is a needle going into your spine to draw fluid out under local anastiea. My mother in law had pre-warned me about the headache you can get and the hospital told me where to go if I got one. Guess what? Yep. I got one. It was the worst headache I had ever gotten in my entire life. I couldn’t lay down or sit up. I couldn’t do anything to get comfortable. So yes, I went to the outpatient clinic I was told to go too, for a blood patch. I entered the building to a room full of people. I walked up to the receptionist window, which was closed, pounding on the glass, to get someone’s attention and tell them I needed to lay down or I was going to pass out. They whisked me away into the back, took 4cc of blood from my arm and injected it back into my back where the spinal tap was done. Instant relief…amazing!!!
So by April of 2009..It was confirmed I have MS.
Life with multiple sclerosis 