Making a Choice or Someone Making It For Me ...

My husband & I have known eachother for 18 years and he has been big into to health and exercise ever since I have known him. He has been working in the health field for the past 10 years & it was painful for him to have to watch how quickly my health was declining. Watching me paralyzed with information & not making steps for myself as far as treatment, he took it upon himself to research for me. I had become so bogged down with information that I became even more confused as to what I should do to deal with my disease, so for him to research for me was such a blessing. He researched for several months & kept coming to the same conclusion as to what I should be doing.

At this point I was exhausted ALL the time. All I wanted to do was sleep. A normal day for me was to wake up in the morning get kids & ready for school. Once they were out of the house I would often go back to bed for 2-3 hours to sleep. If I stayed up then by 11 or 12 I would go back to bed for a few hours before I had to pick up my kids from school! If I didn't get this nap in the morning or afternoon I was in bed after I got the kids from school for a couple hours. I could no longer clean my house in a day. It had to spread out between several days & quite frankly a lot of things just NEVER got done ... There was just no energy to do it. I am the type of person that always has a to do list in my head. I feel good when I am accomplishing things ... if I am not in this place it is very easy for me to become depressed. Being in that place adds to the already exhausted feeling & creates a monster of moodiness!

In January 2008 my husband finally came to me & told be that he had ordered me a bunch of supplements. In my mind I thought ... "I am already taking supplements & have been for years, why on earth do I need anymore?" I didn't say anything to him about it, but when they came I took them knowing that they would not hurt me, but would only be good for me. I was NOT expecting to notice anything or feel anything from them! About two weeks after starting on these new supplements I remember calling my husband at work, as I was waiting to pick up my kids from school, and telling him, "I think this stuff is actually working." As I sat there waiting for my kids it dawned on me that I was not tired. You see I always slept in my truck while I waited for my kids to get out of school & that day I was NOT TIRED!!!! I sat there reflecting on what I had accomplished that day ... I had cleaned my WHOLE house, done laundry & sent several emails for work & I WASN"T TIRED!!!!! It felt almost too good to be true!

It's been over a year now that I have been feeling like the "old" me! It feels AMAZING!!!! ... it is one thing to feel amazing, but the question of feeling good & wondering what is happening inside my body is another thing. Could it be that I was just feeling good, but the MS was really getting worse ... more lesions? more inflammation? could I be on the verge of another attack? These were all the questions that went through my mind.

I received great news on my birthday between my last two MRI's, the first one taken before I started this new supplement "regime" & one a year and a bit after gave me some of the answers to those questions. The results: I have NO new lesions & ALL of my old lesions have decreased in size. For today that is GREAT news to me. Am I cured? NO! Do I feel great? YES! ... and knowing that this is where I am is ok with me! I only have today & today I feel good, so I must choose to live it, because I do not know what tomorrow will bring!

I got the results of my last MRI on my birthday & this is what I worte ... it was one of the greates gift I could have received!

Birthday Wishes .... Monday, March 22, 2010 at 10:04pm

Today is my birthday! I'm not saying it to get any more wishes or to get attention ... Every year I get older I have a more difficult time with the "DAY." I guess you can say that I don't like getting older & therefore I don't like birthdays! ... so why am I writing anything about my birthday then???

Today was a different kind of birthday ... probably the best birthday I could have ever asked for. I didn't win a million, didn't get any big fancy presents ... Today I received something invaluable ...

In 2005 I woke up one day & had double vision ... it lasted for 3.5 weeks. A scary place to be, not knowing what was going on and of course worried about the worst. After seeing numerous Doctors & Specialists & undergoing test after test it was finally determined that I had Multiple Sclerosis. I received the news in February 2007 & by this time I was dealing numbness in all my extremities, terrible debilitating fatigue, cold feet & hands, an inability to sleep, extreme emotional ups & downs ... I struggled to keep up with both my home & work. For someone who likes to check off my list & get things done, this was a difficult place to find myself! Emotionally it was difficult to come to terms with the fact that I wasn't able to do all the things I had always done. The fight with depression was very real for me.

For my husband it was difficult to see me struggle with all of these things & so it became his mission to try to help me help myself. Through his dedication & research he helped me start a natural treatment plan in January 2009. I was consistent & stayed the course with it not knowing how it would help me. Within two weeks I started to feel noticeable changes in my health & over the past year I have seen my health turn around in amazing ways.

This past January I went for another MRI. I go every year for them so they can see if there are any changes in the amount & size of lesions I have in my brain & spinal cord (It's one of the markers they use to see if there is any progression in my disease). Today was the day I had to go & get the results of that MRI! Why I booked it for my birthday I can't say for sure! (If you are going to get bad news you probably don't want it to be on your birthday!) I felt anxious and began questioning whether or not the improvement I felt would be shown in the results of my test.

So the present this year is that I have no new lesions ... & the icing on the cake ... the lesions I do have are smaller! ... It may seem small & insignificat to some, but to me it is HUGE! ... I have hope & the knowledge that I am healthier today then I was last year & that my disease, for today, is not progressing.

So to say I had a great day today would not even come close to how I feel ... in fact I don't think there are any words that describe the feeling in my heart! I am blessed!