2020 was one hell of a year. Not only for me, but for the world. The Covid-19 pandemic hit, and I was stuck at home working remotely and spending much needed quality time with my husband. In May, I started to notice my right hand felt like it was “asleep”. You know that sensation when a limb “falls asleep” & you shake it until it “wakes up”. It felt like that, but it wouldn’t “wake up.” I ignored it, didn’t tell anyone, & hoped it would go away. You see – when you’ve been checked for MS twice & been told you don’t have it both times, you start to think it’s all in your head… but that’s a blog post for another time.

A month went by… and one night in June, I was taking a shower and remember looking down and feeling that electrical sensation down my spine. The EXACT same feeling I had several years ago the first time I was checked for MS. That was my “oh no” moment. In that moment I knew my hand tingling/going numb and this tingling down my spine wasn’t just a coincidence. I finally told my husband what was happening and he insisted I call my neurologist ASAP. The following morning I called my neurologist in tears. I was worried sick. They told me they couldn’t see me for a month. So I kept waiting…

On July 15th, I finally had my appointment with my neurologist. He did the standard neuro exam, checking my reactions and we discussed my symptoms. He asked me to move my follow up MRI from September to the very next day.

On July 16th, I went in for my MRI. I was 99.8% sure nothing was going to show up on my scan. They checked me 10 months prior, and I’m always “fine”, so surely that would be the case this time around too. Wrong. I got home around noon, and at 2pm I noticed my neurologists office was calling. Typically you don’t get MRI results for about a week, so I assumed the office was calling about something else. I answered the phone & it was my doctor himself. I knew in that moment he probably had bad news.

He asked me if I was at home and if I could sit down. My stomach dropped. He went over my MRI results, which was a bunch of jibberish, and then said “This means you have early stages of MS”. I was SHOCKED. I was NOT expecting anything to come from my scans and I was truly in disbelief. I felt like my world just stopped. My whole life was going to be changed from that moment forward. It’s a surreal feeling dealing with something so heavy, privately. Everyone around me was consumed by the pandemic, and I felt like I was just standing there with life just spinning around me.

On July 16th, 2020 – I received my diagnosis.