5. Diagnosis

The next day brought my MRI.  I had a really great doctor there.  He was sincere and honest.  He walked me through the MRI and said after it a neurologist would see me.  He assured me that he wouldn't know anything I didn't and wouldn't keep me waiting. The MRI and MRA took a good hour.  Im not sure really what the difference in tests was, but the doc said one allowed them to see blood flow in the brain better.
As I lay in bed awaiting the results, I texted a close family member that has advanced MS.  I kind of already knew in my head I guess what the diagnosis would be.  I told her I might he new understudy.  She was calm and supportive.  She told me that "some other tragic accident not withstanding, you are not going to leave 3 kids without a mother.  You will live a long happy life, your body just may not cooperate with you at times".  This gave me my one shred of comfort.
The doctor returned shortly.  He sat down next to my bed.  He told me he didn't want to keep me waiting. He reviewed the MRI and consulted with the Neurologist who also reviewed it.  He told me there was no easy way to hear this... That I did in fact have Multiple Sclerosis.  There was one lesion on my brain that he said has been there for years and there was another very big one at the top of my spinal cord which was the one giving me all the problems.  He went on to explain how there are many types of MS and people do pretty well with it.  "It could mean the difference of walking with a cane at age 60 rather than without".  He was very optimistic and wanted to start treatment immediately. I, however, had done my Google homework on MS and was not as positive as he.
 Treatment is a "super human" course of IV steroids for 5 days.  5 DAYS?  I WANT TO GO HOME.  I WANT TO BE WITH MY KIDS, NOT HERE!!!! I DONT WANT ANY OF THIS.
I wanted Al.  I asked him to come to the hospital immediately.  How was I going to tell him?  How was I going to tell him that I screwed everything up?  That I let everyone down?  That we were no longer a team? That he would have to now carry the burden of taking care of me for the rest of my life? That he now has to sacrifice his dreams because of me? 
He came in the room and I told him and he just hugged me for a long time and told me it would be ok.  What else was there to really say.
He waited with me until the Neurologist came to see me.  He repeated the diagnosis.  He also wanted to do another MRI of my Thoracic spine to see if we could find any more lesions, maybe the one causing my chest tightness.  He also would start my day tomorrow with a Lumbar Puncture to look for other MS markers and test my spinal fluid for other viruses/diseases.  I didn't want any of it, but I was going downhill fast so I wasn't going to fight it.  They began treatment.  They said I would start to feel better soon once the steroids attacked these lesions.
This is the point that Al stepped into my life for me and I became on onlooker.  Do you know how lucky I am to have someone like that?  Someone you are comfortable enough to let just take over?  I still let him, out of need mostly.  He talks to the doctors, schedules my appointments, gives me my meds, takes care of the kids, the house, the bills...  I still cant mentally handle that part.
As the doctor predicted, I lay in bed all night tracing back symptoms and events in my life that I blamed on other things, but were actually MS.  I can actually recall symptoms up to 4 years ago that could have been early signs and I thought how lucky I was that I didn't get diagnosed years ago for I would never have had my 2 youngest children.
 My mom came to see me that night and I had to give her the same news I gave Al earlier.  Im supposed to be there to take care of her as she ages, not vice versa.  It was a long night, alone there in a strange place, with this new diagnosis, without my children.
So....The Lumbar Puncture did reveal more MS markers and was negative for anything else and the MRI did reveal the newest lesion, on T2/T3 vertebrae, which was the culprit of my "heart attack feeling".  I could no longer blame it on anxiety....or Stuart.  It DID NOT reveal a massive tumor wrapped around my spine that couldn't be removed and would only allow me to live a few more months (Amazing what your brain tries to tell you).  So, that was good news!
I continued on the daily IV steroids but only got worse.  I couldn't walk at this point.  My muscles were uncoordinated and weak.  I was still pins and needles from my neck to my toes.  I had no feeling in my hands and they didn't work at all.  The next few days were a blur.  Al and Ivory would come by to visit, walk me to the bathroom, feed me, shower me and try to tell me things would get better.
I remember one of the last mornings I was there.  The nurse brought in my breakfast tray, put it next to my bed and left.  Al and Ivory were late and I was starving.  The steroids make you very hungry.  I waited as long as I could.  I managed to pick my arm up and swat the lid off the plate.  There was an English muffin and a package of cream cheese. Great! I "casted" my arm out a few times until I hooked the cream cheese and I managed to get it to my mouth.  I took about 20 nibbles out of the top before I could finally peel the lid off with my teeth.  My hands and arms were too uncoordinated to handle the knife or put cream cheese on the muffin.  Forget it.  Im starving.  So, I clumsily "cast" my arm out again and grab hold of the muffin.  I look like a shaky caveman, but Im eating it.  Just then, my daughter finally comes through the door.  She has a completely shocked look on her face, like someone just gave her a kitten for her birthday.  She exclaims, with an enormous smile "Mom, you can feed yourself!!!!".  What I began to realize is that my kids don't need me to be SUPER MOM.  They just need me to BE.  There isn't a day that goes by that one of them doesn't say that, in their own little way....and THAT is what keeps me going!
My last day of treatment came and there was talk of transferring me to another hospital for some other 7 day IV treatment, or transferring me to a closer hospital to where we lived, or maybe sending me off to another floor of the hospital for rehab.  I don't know what Al said or how he did it, but he had the doctors agree to discharge me and let me go home.  A big part of it is that part of our house is completely handi-cap accessible. So, it took the safety hazard part out of the equation.
So, that was it.  We were headed home.  What I thought was 4 days in the hospital was actually 8.
The ride home was the longest ever.  I was so uncomfortable, but knew everything would be OK once I was there and this nightmare would be over.