legions of leisions

There are many things to do with MS that can make life tricky. Each day when I wake up I run a full system check. Usually for me its the degree of numbness from my right big toe emanating up my right leg. At its worst it is pretty much from my midrift down. Today its pretty calm.

Other days I get what I call shaky dog leg syndrome. You know when you see an old dog struggling to stand and its legs are all visibly wobbly? Well that’s me. In fact that’s todays treat, for me. When its really bad my legs feel like they are made of lead and i trip over everything, my own shadow included.

Some days are just total MSsy days. When i was diagnosed with MS I saw my MRI scans, which shocked me. my brain looks like a swiss cheese!

Basically for those who don’t know about MS, my immune system is pretty good, pretty good that is until something comes along to wind it up. Then it just doesn’t know where to stop and that’s where the damage to the myelin sheath on the nerves begins. When it gets really carried away the damage crosses the blood/brain barrier and pretty much eats away at bits of my brain. Or at least that’s what it looks like on the scans.Brings a whole new meaning to dark matter.

 

my brain!

I found this blog a very interesting read http://ireland-ms.com/2015/02/19/brain-2/ and shows the damage pretty well.

Sadly for me this has not only caused me MSsy problems but following a routine check up last year my neurologist told me that I had epilepsy. Well actually he sauntered out of the room to get his prescription pad saying you can take these pills for your epilepsy. ‘What epilepsy?!’ I asked. And that was it, yet another thing to deal with and such a casual diagnosis totally out of the blue.

I much prefer its correct title though, complex partial seizures. I don’t fit, I don’t have absences so I feel very lucky, I am just a total space cadet. I can talk sometimes with it, I can even do a tesco shop, but don’t expect me to be helpful or make any logical sense.

And its all thanks to my lesions. I have a sort of short circuit in my frontal lobes which cause it so on the most MSsy days it can be really hard work.

I follow the MS Society and MS Trust on Facebook a lot for ideas and inspiration. I found out about the MS register through them too. If you have MS please sign up to this, the more information they have the more that can be done to help us eventually. http://www.ukmsregister.org/Portal/Home

I still know I’m lucky on the grand scheme of things, I also know to watch out for swiss cheese eating mice too!