Brit's Fight Against MS
Do you know what it's like to sit down with your child to help with elementary level homework, but to sit and stare at a sheet full of simple math problems, and to be stuck? To not be able to add 6+7. Imagine that...
My sister, someone who because she is older than me, I was taught by society to look up to. But I don't look up to her because society tells me to - I look up to her because she is the strongest person I know. She has been fighting an unpredictable progressive neurological disease for the last decade. A disease that is silent to outsiders. A disease that many do not understand - even doctors. No two cases of it are ever the same. A disease called Multiple Sclerosis (MS).
Many people do not know what MS is or how diverse and complex the symptoms can be. It's a neurological disease that causes your immune system to attack the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. There is unfortunately no cure.
Over the years I have witnessed my sister receive painful infusions from the hospital, lasting 3-5 days. The infusions don't cure the disease or remove brain lesions, they can help ease some of the symptoms. These infusions which help calm her flare ups, are not cheap. Neither are the MRI's, CAT scans, or daily medications that go along with living with MS. She is a single mother to a beautiful little girl named, Madison. For the last ten years she has worked up to three jobs at a time to afford her medical care and to provide for Madison.
Unfortunately, for the past four months she has not been able to work after suffering an attack that caused 3 new active lesions and her brain to swell. She has been suffering many side effects from this.
For the last four months I have seen a woman that I do not recognize. We will talk and one minute she is telling me about her appointment with her doctor and a second later she is silent, and asks me what we were talking about.
But in the last month I have seen how far she has come since the attack. The time off has been wonderful to her and I have seen SO MANY improvements in her because she has taken time to heal. Her Neurologist clearly stated that he does not want her to return back to work until after 6 months to prevent permanent brain damage. To give her brain a chance to calm down and to get her symptoms controlled by different medications. None of which are cheap and all have scary side effects. The injections she must now administer herself daily come from a specialty pharmacy in which her insurance does not completely cover. Unfortunately, the insurance company will no longer pay her for the remaining time off of work. Now she has the added stress of trying to put together the money to pay for her rising medical bills, on top of taking care of herself and her daughter while not having income for the remainder of her time off.
What triggers an MS attack? STRESS can. So she is in a constant state of being stressed financially and worrying it'll cause new or worsening symptoms.
Some of the symptoms that she has been suffering from from this latest attack + her ongoing permanent symptoms are:
Muscular - muscle weakness; muscle rigidity; problems with coordination and balance; clumsiness -more than average; overactive reflexes; and heavy legs.
Fatigue - think staying up for 48 hours straight type of tired, even after sleeping for 10-12 hours.
Sensory - L'Hermittes Sign which is an electric jolt down her spinal cord when she looks down; tingling, and extreme itching; pins and needles in her legs, hands and feet.
Mood - anxiety; depression; and mood swings.
Cognitive - difficulty thinking and understanding; retaining and retrieving new information; attention and concentration; verbal fluency; difficulty keeping up with conversations; and difficulty making decisions or showing poor judgement.
Many of you know my sister, but many of you may not have seen what this disease has done to her because she does not like to show it or talk about it. She jokes about it and tries to make light of it because that's her. She is positive about it, and tells people 'there are worse things to have'. If you know her, you also know she does not like asking for help, but I am asking you from the bottom of my heart. Please help my sister. She is drowning from the medical debt and quite literally drowning emotionally from this set back. Imagine what it is like to wake up every day and the first thing you ask yourself is if you're blind and if you can feel your extremities...You never know when the attacks will come, what the symptoms will be, and if they will remain permanently or go away after a round of infusions.
Please help, any donation, prayer, or share will be much appreciated.
Thank you!
For more information about MS please visit the National MS Society
http://www.nationalmssociety.org