How it all started..."The disease discovered" Part 1

I understand that a lot of people do not want to spend a lot of time reading, so I will tell this story (along with others) in sections.

I was 38 years old at the time this all happened. I was an accomplished law enforcement officer with 12 years of action packed experience. I had experienced everything in my department except being a school resource officer. I had no desire what so ever to do that job! I worked in corrections, patrol, supervision, criminal detective, narcotics detective, field training officer and was a specialized firearms instructor. I had earned several awards during my career and honestly loved my work. I loved helping people and honestly believe that I was put on this earth to be a peace officer.

Well, in May of 2013, I was outside on my day off cutting firewood with my chainsaw. I noticed that I suddenly became extremely fatigued and nauseous feeling. I began to wonder if I would make it back inside my house which was only about 100 feet away. I left my chainsaw and equipment sitting in the woods (I would normally NEVER do that) and went inside to lay down. After I rested for a while, I went back and put my equipment up. I thought that maybe I was getting sick, kind of like a stomach bug or something. Didn't think anymore about it and continued with life. I also noticed that while at work, I had trouble staying alert and focused, which in that line of work is pretty important. Again, I just chalked it up as getting older.

At the end of this particular week, I had the weekend off and was just relaxing at the house. My wife and I were watching a movie on the couch and I began having a very painful and sharp pain in the side/back of my neck and upper back/shoulder. I chalked this up as something common and basic like a crick or at the worst, maybe a slipped disc or something like that. My wife offered to take me to the Emergency Room but I declined. Im not one to go to the doctor over every little thing and especially an emergency room on a weekend night. In my area, the emergency rooms are packed on weekend nights, mostly with drug addicts attempting to get a fix. I tried to tough it out and was taking several different medications I had to relieve the pain but it just wasn't working. I even took sleeping pills in hopes of going to sleep and it might be better when I woke up... I know, pretty stupid.

At 1:00 in the morning, I couldn't stand it anymore. The pain was unbearable and I have a very high tolerance to pain. I had to be shot with a Taser before I could carry one at my department and that ranked as one of the most painful things I have ever been through. But I would rather be shot with a Taser again rather than go through the pain I was in, it just wouldn't stop! I woke my wife up and told her that I had to go to the ER. She was not in the best of moods since she offered to take me earlier at 9 pm and now its 1 in the morning. The drive to the ER was miserable! I was demanding that my wife turn on her flashers and floor it! She didn't want to and I became furious! I told her that we were in my jurisdiction and I wasn't concerned about getting pulled over. Didn't work, she drove 10 mph over and that was it, I was about to go nuts! It only took us about 15 minutes to get there but it seemed like an eternity!

After arriving at the ER and being evaluated, I was given shots in the rear end for pain and inflammation. They also conducted a cat scan on my neck. The doctor spoke with me and advised that he saw some inflammation in my neck and evidence of degenerative disc disease but nothing out of the ordinary. Degenerative Disc Disease is apparently common with people over 35 years old. The doctor told me to follow up with my family doctor and sent me on my way.

Well, when it rains, it pours. My hot water heater went out the following Saturday so my father and I were installing a new one. I noticed that the left side of my body felt weird. I opened my refrigerator and grabbed a canned drink with my left hand and noticed that it was warm. I thought, "Great, now my refrigerator is broken!" but then I put the can in my right hand and it felt cold. I was like, this is really weird. Then my dad was drilling a hole in to my cinder block wall to mount a junction box, removed the drill bit and handed it to me. I took the bit in my left hand and felt an unfamiliar sensation in my arm and extreme confusion set in. I then realized that the bit was extremely hot and was burning my hand but my brain was not relaying the signal properly so I didn't realize it at first.

That following Monday, I followed up with my family doctor and summarized the events that had taken place. I didn't actually see my doctor but her assistant. She advised me that she thought that the nurse that administered the shots in my rear end may have gotten close to a nerve and that is why my left side is feeling weird. She said that it should be back to normal in a few days. Well, she was totally wrong and after a few days I called back and advised her that nothing has changed. She advised me to contact the ER doctor that originally saw me and have him order an MRI. So I called the ER and relayed her information. They said that she was incorrect with her diagnosis because if they had gotten close to a nerve, it would have effected just my leg and not my entire left side. They advised that my family doctor needed to order the MRI since she was the last doctor I saw. I was getting pretty frustrated at this point.

After my family doctor ordered the MRI, I was waiting in the hospital room with my parents. My mom works at the hospital and was concerned about what was going on. My mother left the room to talk to the doctor and when she came back, I could tell something was wrong but she wouldn't say anything about and to just wait for the doctor. The doctor finally comes in and tells me that the MRI showed lesions on my brain and spinal chord. I asked what does that mean and he said that it could be Multiple Sclerosis but he couldn't be sure. He further advised me that he was going to send me to a bigger hospital via ambulance that has specialized doctors. I really don't know what to think now and am getting a little concerned because I had no clue of what MS was.

After arriving at the hospital, the fun part began. I felt like a lab rat being studied and tested. I cant remember how many tests they performed on me but it was a lot! Another MRI was ordered after I just had one at the other hospital. My neurologist came in the room and began telling me about what was going on. She stated that they were 99.9% sure that I have MS but they would need to perform a spinal tap to be 100% sure. Let me tell ya about the spinal tap for a second...They took a HUGE syringe and stuck it inside my spinal chord in THREE different places to take fluid samples out! You cant be numbed or sedated for this procedure because it would invalidate the test. The pain was horrid!

She then told me about the disease and how it works and what to expect. She said that I wouldn't be able to get too hot and I was like "Well, how hot can I get? ( With a sarcastic tone.) She said that everyone was different and she really couldn't answer that. But she did tell me what could happen if I did get too hot and had a relapse. It could be basically a number of things like going blind, becoming paralyzed and all kinds of fun stuff. If it was a full blown relapse, then I would have to be put on steroids to treat it. If it was a pseudo relapse ( a mini version, basically), it would probably only last for about 24 hours. Heat is not the only thing that can trigger a relapse. Stress, lack of sleep, any type of infection and getting too fatigued can also trigger a relapse.

For those who don't know what MS is, it's an autoimmune disease that attacks your own body. It is not a contagious disease. There is no cure for it and it is not known how it is contracted. Your brain and spinal chord have a protective sheath around them called myelin. For some reason, my immune system thinks that the myelin is bad and starts to attack it by eating a hole through it. Then the body will repair the hole which will leave a scar hence the name Multiple Sclerosis which means Multiple Scarring. Since the human body is like a huge electrical system, any interruption in the wires (nerves) will cause some type of problem depending on where the scars are at on the brain and spinal chord. Just like earlier when my left hand couldn't detect heat properly. My brain was trying to say "Its hot, you big dummy!" but the signal was being interrupted. Like I said, there isn't a cure for the disease but there are medications to help control it or slow down the progression. I will talk about my experiences with the treatments in Part 2.

After leaving the hospital after 3 days, I returned home and let my mind race. I seriously considered suicide and went as far as researching if my life insurance policy would pay out to my wife if I went through with it. I knew it was going to be a hard road ahead and I didn't want my wife to be burdened with what was to come. I was basically told that sooner or later I would be in a wheelchair, it all depends on how fast the disease progresses. I thought about how difficult it would be for my family to cope with me taking my own life and couldn't stand the thought of it. I decided to give it my best shot and see how things went.

I continued to work in law enforcement but it was getting extremely difficult. In the beginning of June (About a month after being diagnosed) I was off work and the hard hardheadedness came out in me. It was a beautiful sunny and hot day. I love to work outside anyway and I thought that I would test the waters. I wanted to see how hot I could get and what would happen. I mean, how else am I going to know when to seek shade or air conditioning? So I went outside and worked in the yard all day long. During the day nothing really happened other than getting really fatigued but I fought through that. Well, when I finally went inside for the day, I noticed that the vision in my left eye was going away and I started to panic. I had access to a 24 hour nurse that I could call. I called her and she said I was having a relapse and I needed to get to the hospital ASAP.

I think this is going to have to be a stopping point in my story for now. I'm not the fastest at typing in the world and I have been in front of this laptop long enough. I will pick up where I left off in Part 2. Thanks for taking the time to read this!