I can do hair.

 So before my MS was being treated  my left hand was practically useless for a few months.I couldn't lift my hand up over my head very well. Simple things like getting dressed, and buttoning my pants took much longer. With basic tasks becoming a lot harder it made it really hard for me to want to do anything extra,  washing and doing my hair was terrible, it felt like I was scrubbing straw because of the numbness in my hand. I would still  wash my hair but had no desire to do it afterwards. Even worse than that my three daughters wanted me to do their hair but I couldn't,  we even cut my youngest girls lovely curly locks off so it would be easier for me to handle. After a while I got sick of looking at myself in the mirror, and started brainstorming as to  a new hairstyle I could have that wouldn't take too much work. In the meantime  my doctors were able to get me on a good prescription  my medicine started kicking in and I've been able to get back all of my hand mobility. I have to constantly keep tabs on my left hands capabilities and I am often moving it in different ways just to make sure I still can. I found a cute short hairdo that is really probably more flattering than my previous hair do anyway, it's super easy to do so hopefully if my hands don't work well in the future I can still do my hair.  This Sunday marked a special day for me because all three of my girls head cute hairdos one had crimpy hair that her sister had helped her with the night before. One had the cutest little French  braid that I did yay!  And the oldest had beautiful curls that I was able to do. I wanted to take a picture but life got busy and I totally forgot.  But I'm writing it down here so at least I can member the great feeling I had of being able to do my girls hair again. It amazes me how much you can  take things for granted but once you are unable to do those things and then have those abilities restored what a blessing it is being able to do the simple things once again. I am so grateful for all that my body can now do.

Life is going well

I find that when life is going well I like to pretend that MS is not real, not talk about it, not think about it, and not blog about it...and what a blessing that I can be doing so well that I can forget about it sometimes. In a lot of ways I would say I am doing better than normal, I am still working on developing my talents, and have regained my passion for painting, I have a few paintings planned for Christmas gifts, now the hard part is finding the time to paint and still do all I need to do as a mom. It is easy to spend hours painting, but kids don't usually let me have hours to myself, but I have found I can still get some good painting time in while the little ones are napping, and if the older ones come home while I am still painting, they love it, and I can still help with home work while I paint.

This year for Thanksgiving I am thankful for a new thing that I have taken for granted in the past...modern medicine, I am amazed that I can have had MS found and treated to the point where it is only 2 pills a day and still a bit of numbness (that may never go away) otherwise I forget that I am any different. This is because of the gift of modern medicine.  Even 10 years ago MS was way worse.  So this year I am so thankful that people have worked so hard to make a medication for me to help make my life so normal.

Things are falling into place

So things have been going well, I feel like I'm getting in the groove, although whenever I say things are well and I'm getting in the groove it  feels like something happens to shake things up a bit, nonetheless I do feel like things are good now. My body has gotten used to the medication and I have no side effects yay.  I was even able to go without eating for a day doing my religious fast and my stomach was hungry which is normal during the fast but I did not feel sick, which I personally counted as a little miracle.
 As far as the diet I was on, I do not know what I will do with it I have not tried it again since I was feeling so sick on it, and as I reflect on how things went for those 3 weeks of that diet the only real positive result I found from being on the diet was great weight loss, which at first was exciting for me because my baby is now one years old and I'm trying to shed the baby weight. But good weight loss and terrible stomach pains do not equal healthy in my mind.  So for know I will not use the special auto immune diet, but will stick with my normal diet, but if I ever feel like I should use that diet I will try it again. 
My hands are still numb but super functional I can type a little bit I've started practicing piano not very good but I wasn't good before. I started painting again which I haven't done in many many years, that is the picture I painted in the previous post. It feels like getting MS and being Limited in my abilities has strengthen my desire to do as much as I can and to try new things. For a while there I used to run half marathons to help me lose weight and get into shape after babies,  by the way I have six kids so losing baby weight is a regular part of my life. I ran my last half marathon about 2 1/2 years ago and had no motivation to run any more, but after having my legs numb and walking up the stairs being a challenge and then having my body function normal again, with medication I now want to prove that I can run a half marathon again.  I have started running a mile at a time and would like to improve my time to a 12 minute mile. Once I get my speed up then I will start running more miles. There is a fun race called the Baker's dozen half marathon in December I don't know if I'll be ready to race by then but if I am that would be a fun race.
Something that is actually quite nice about all of this is remembering the parable of the talents in the New Testament I haven't necessarily been hiding my talents in the sand but I had let being a mom prioritize my life over developing my talents. Through this experience of getting MS and loosing physical ability and then gaining most of that ability back I have gained a new desire to develop my talents, and I have realized that I don't have to pick between being a mom or developing talents I can develop my talents while being a mom. In fact I can do it with my children, helping them find joy in the things I love to do like painting, running, singing and playing the piano. 
Life is hard, but I am finding that having a positive attitude, really does bring joy into any situation, and I am so glad that I have faith in God, because that faith is the foundation of my positive attitude, and with that attitude life is good.

Medication update and things I can do

Real quick medicine update I have been on the Myer way diet for three weeks and the last week I was also taking my medication and having infusions. I felt like the diet was making me feel better, but that only lasted for three days which coincides with the three days I was having a steroids infusion. Once I was done with the infusion I started feeling a bit nauseous, I actually wondered if I was pregnant it felt a lot like morning sickness. After about a week of doing the diet while feeling sick I couldn't take anymore of the diet, literally the idea of eating another vegetable made me want to throw up (and I love veggies) so I put grains back into my diet and have felt so much better.  I'm still eating healthy not having a bunch of junk food but I am having my grains and I feel so much better. I think the 2 weeks of the diet before I started medication the diet really helped, but now that my body is on medication and it is going well, I don't think I need to do the diet (no Dr. told me to do the diet, I just felt like I should).  And now I feel like I don't need to do the diet anymore.
My mother-in-law has been so sad to find out I have MS really morning for my losses nearly as much as I have. She has been thrilled to see any little thing that I can do again or can still do and she suggested I should tell the world the things I can still do with MS, to give others hope. I thought that was a great idea so I will share some of the things I can still do. My MS showed up in a form of numbness particularly in my hands the worst in my left hand which has been hard because I'm left-handed. The worst thing has been losing my ability to write which is rather embarrassing when I go to my child's school and try to write something and I look like I should be taking handwriting instead of her. I have been doing physical therapy on my hand and my handwriting is slowly getting better. Before I had kids I was somewhat of an artist but with kids there's not a whole lot of time that I prioritized for painting especially because they get into it and make a mess. But when I was given restrictions in my ability from MS for me it made me want to prove that I can still do things and that I can keep learning and growing. I have decided that I'm going to still paint and have been amazed with the abilities I still have. I also married an adventurous guy and we love trying new things and doing things together like hiking, mountain climbing, boating... and though I don't have as much energy as I used to I can still do all of those things to a lesser degree. I even went to Lake Powell with my family and my awesome husband made a zip line into the water all I had to do was hold on to the rope for like 5 seconds and then let go and drop into the water. I really wanted to do it but didn't know if I could hold on long enough, so I grabbed onto one of the beams on the houseboat to see if I could hold on for 5 seconds and sure enough I was able to hold on and decided to try the zip line which I did and I'm glad I did because it was awesome! I wanted to try it again later in the week and part of the process of getting to the zip line was climbing a rope up a rock, I was really frustrated because my arm strength was not allowing me to pull up the rope this second time, but my husband tied me to the rope and helped lift me up and I was able to climb up the rope and go down the zip line a second time, I am lucky to have married such a wonderful man who wants to see me still live life to my fullest and helps me as much as he can. As time goes I hope to be able to find I can still do many many things I am grateful that though MS is no fun I can still do so many things.

this is my first attempt at painting after MS.

Finding the balance between the medical world and the natural health world.

Before I got MS I was very healthy and did not go to the Dr's much, I use essential oils and found home remedies all the time. When that did not help my symptoms of MS I reached out to the medical world, and though it took me a few tries to find a Dr. that was able to help me I am very happy that I went the medical rout and have a name for my health issues now.  though MS is new to me and I have appreciated my Dr's help for some reason along with seeing the doctor and my neurologist I felt like I needed to read the Myer way book/diet (Dr. Myer is a functional medicine  Dr.) and get started on her diet plan which I thought was interesting because I also felt very strongly that I still need to be seeing my neurologist and going with the medication plan the Dr. offered which seems to be counterintuitive to be doing both, but I know God knows what I need and if he is inspiring me do both  I will do both the diet and the meds.
Last time I had my steroid injection to get ride of the symptoms when I very first was diagnosed  with MS I was taking a steroid infusion for five days and saw very slow results and I was ridiculously tired. Now with everything taking so long about getting my daily medication (2 months) I actually had my symptoms start to get worse again. I talked to my neurologist about this and she signed me up to get some more steroids.  I have also started my daily medication just a day ago . I had hopes that the steroids would work and work better, but reality told me that my experience would be similar to last time slow help and really tired. But a few things have changed since last time I took the steroids and the biggest things I changed are 1. I am now taking my daily medication and 2. I am on the Myers Way diet. So it has been two days now that I've been taking my medication and have no negative side effects which I was really worried about, I also had my first day of steroid infusion yesterday and was not at all tired and have already started to feel numbness go away:) . Now I'm not a scientist so I don't know exactly why such a drastic change is happening when I am having the same steroid infusion, but I really believe that it has to do with my inspiration of doing this diet as well as the medication. Like I said I'm only two days in so we'll see how things continue but I've been very pleased that following my inspiration to do a little bit of The medical world and a little bit of natural healing world is blending so well for me, so far I am pleased with the mix.
Through this whole MS trial I have really seen Gods hand in my life showing me that though he is not going to take this trial from me (I have so much to learn from having MS) he loves me and will help me know how to get through my trials if I listen and follow his promptings.  God knows exactly what my body needs he is the perfect physician.

Hand writing

So it's taken a long time to get everything finalized with getting my medication. I have actually started to notice my hands getting worse in numbness again so I called my neurologist and she ordered me up for another round of steroids. And I finally got everything worked out to start taking my medication, the meds that I will be taking every day forever. The numbness has started to get worse but the dexterity in my left hand has actually gotten better as I have been rehabilitating it fairly intensely. 
Currently life feels as though it is back to normal for the most part which I didn't expect to happen. It's back to normal except that I'm a little slower at doing a lot of things,and still have the numbness, but I am not stuck in bed so I am happy. 
I have started prioritizing what is really important to get done, in my day,week...life because I don't have the energy and speed that I used to in order to get everything done. I have prioritized my children more, I have prioritized little things like keeping a tidier closet. I have also prioritized looking cuter because for the last little while I've had no motivation to try to look cute at all( it was hard to do my hair when my hands didn't work). I got a short haircut that is a lot easier to do and maintain whether or not my hands work I can still have pretty cute hair now.
As part of rehabilitating my left hand (which by the way I am left-handed) I have started a practice journal/ my symptoms journal just so I can keep track of when things happen with MS symptoms. Anyway I've been rehabilitating my left hand and in the past I've never liked my hand writing it's been really sloppy and I've decided with rehabilitating why just rehabilitate why not make my hand writing even better than it used to be? It is kind of like I get to start over and learn to write again but this time I can do even better. I guess what I'm trying to say is that with this disease it has forced me to slow down and with the slowdown I have reevaluated my life a bit and decided to be the best me that I can and slowing down has really help me narrow down the things I want to improve on.

The emotional side of finding out you have MS

My first two fingers on my right hand started to go numb not a big deal not painful but it didn't go away this didn't seem like much, so I figured I'd go to my chiropractor and he'd fix it real quick. But the numbness didn't go away with the chiropractor in fact the numbness kept spreading I think about every week it would spread a little further and it was getting frustrating. Each week got more frustrating I felt like I was taking crazy pills,I saw 1 more Dr with no answers. The first time I felt any kind of comfort was when I finally saw a new doctor, he was the first person who said something is wrong and I finally felt like it wasn't just me and I wasn't going crazy.He said I needed an MRI for him to really know what was going on.
When money is tight it's hard to want to get expensive tests taken so I waited a few weeks hoping to resolve the numbness by myself and not get the MRI but nothing was getting better in fact it was getting worse, less mobility in my right arm, and spreading all over my body. Finally one Monday I broke down in tears and realized I can't fix this myself and set up an appointment for the MRI. 
At this point all I really wanted from the MRI was answers to what was wrong with me. When the doctor called the same day with the MRI results I knew something was up. He quickly told me it looks like MS and I was actually super happy. I was so happy to know that I wasn't crazy and that something was wrong with me that now that we knew what it was we could work on fixing it. That whole weekend I was super happy, I actually think it made people uncomfortable with how happy I was.
It wasn't until the following week that it really started to sink in. After 5 days of steroid treatment with minimal success I got quite frustrated and it started to sink in that this is not a quick fix but a lifelong struggle. I got pretty frustrated and finally admitted to myself and to God that I was angry, angry that I have MS.  It seems funny but it was very therapeutic for me to acknowledge my emotions of anger, once I acknowledged I was angry and admitted that there was nothing I could do about it I was going to have MS whether I was angry or not, surprisingly I was able to move on. I felt much better and was able to cope.
About two weeks after the MRI I got a spinal tap that was TERRIBLE!!! I was on my back in bed for a week with a spinal headache. In one way though it was a good experience because once I was able to get out of bed again I realize that being bedridden is worse then having my numbness, because at least with my numbness I could still do most things.
I have been super thankful for a cousin and neighbor and surprisingly Ann Romney, Who all have MS, they all shared there hope with me that though it is not fun to have MS there is a new normal and things will get better with treatment.(Ann Romney has some YouTube clips talking about how she dealt with MS, I do not know her personally). having others who have gone through what I am going through really is so comforting.

I have MS

I Just got diagnosed with MS!!!
wait what? I have been supper healthy all my life,  now I find out that I have MS!!! OK I guess I have MS.
 How did this all come about?
At the end of April 2016 my right hand started going numb, no big deal, but annoying  and it did not go away...and about every week it would spread to a new area eventually spreading to both arms, legs and my trunk. After about a week I thought I should see a chiropractor, that did not help.  I then went to my family Dr. and was given some muscle relaxant, took that for a week and no improvement. I then decided to see our neighbor who is an internist, who was the first person to show real concern, this was very nice to feel like someone else thought something was wrong, I knew something was wrong just didn't know what.  He felt like an MRI would give us some real answers so he ordered it up and yep, the MRI showed lesions in my skull and neck, and he said he was 99% sure it was MS. The Dr. put me on some strong steroids to help with the numbness,(which is slowly starting to work, I get really excited with every inch of skin that gains feeling) then they did a spinel tap to confirm that it was MS. In a week I will meet with a neurologist and we will see where this journey goes from there.
This is the physical story of what happens, the emotional side of the story is just as long or longer so I will save it for its own post next time.
So yeah, my life has just changed in a way I did not expect, and I feel like documenting it as it happens will be therapeutic, so her goes my ongoing story of my journey with MS.