My MS Bully and Me

© C King This week is the ten year anniversary of my MS diagnosis. Having a diagnosis anniversary is unlike any other. You don’t celebrate. There are no gifts.  It’s a reminder of how much you’ve lost and how far you’ve come. You remember it with both sadness and hope. For me, it’s been an opportunity to reflect. Of course, I’d be lying if some of this didn’t involve thinking about where I was as a person ten years ago. No fatigue, lots of energy, virtually no pain (other than the relapse confirming diagnosis) and living day to day. I never felt the need to look back and had no concerns about my future. I even wore heels. I was diagnosed two months into my marriage and well into the mindset of having children; not so much a want as it was a need. Even then, I had other parallel health conditions, such as PCOS. Professionally, I was in demand and at the peak of my career; very much an expert in my field.   When you reflect, it’s hard not to revisit the...

I get asked this a lot by people who don't have MS and, of course, I'm not expecting them to magically gain an exact insight, but I hope that in my explanations I can at least get them to better understand. Fatigue is a big one but because of this I feel it deserves its own post so I'll leave this one to another time. Cognitive Fog 'Cog fog', as it's known within the community, often acts in conjunction with fatigue. It's a disconnection from the world, a lack of alertness that brings on other symptoms such as issues with word-finding and concentration, and sometimes slurring of words. I sometimes feel like my brain is following but my mouth or hands are catching up. It's one of my most frustrating of symptoms as I know how articulate I can be and I often worry about how others, who may not know I have MS or if they do, may not understand it, perceive me. It's like being drunk without all of the benefits. It's yet another devious remin...