“Oh don’t worry, you just have a sinus infection” or so I thought. Never in a million years would I guess that me having sinus and allergy issues (I’ve always had bad allergies and the occasional sinus headache) would be what is known as an MS Flare-Up. I was your average 14 year old kid, a freshman at a school for the gifted and talented, that also doubled as a school for the arts. At the time, my “talent” was visual arts, meaning that I was a darn good artist. But one day while attending school, my hands began to feel a tad off/strange. I didn’t really give it much attention and went about with my daily life.

Aside from being an art student, I also dabbled in dance. My mother has me enrolled in dance school since 1995. At that time, 2005 to be exact, I had officially been a student at this school for 10 years. Being a dancer also had its perks. I was always complimented on my stature/told that I walked like a model. Well while this was all true when it concerned me, one day while running laps in gym, my coach kept asking me “why are you tripping yourself up when you run?”At the time, I noticed that something was up with my legs as of late, it felt as if I had “no control” over them…..and I wasn’t thinking so in a good way. I basically pushed that thought and feeling aside and went about my merry way.

As if tripping up over my feet while running laps wasn’t enough, over time I noticed my vision changing. I had always had excellent vision, but now, things looked blurry. After a trip to the eye doctor, I was told that my blurry vision was due to me using the computer a lot (like any teenager) and that I would need to wear reading glasses. I took the doctor on his word and purchased a pair of reading glasses. Although the glasses offered temporary relief, I still felt strange. One of the new strange feelings I experienced was dizziness or vertigo. I found myself asking my classmates “is the room spinning?” in which they would inform me that the room was perfectly still. Confused, I believed them and went along my way.

Dizziness, blurred vision, stumbling while walking/running, would later lead to me becoming extremely tired even after I had 8 hours of sleep at night. If anyone knows me, they will tell you that I don’t really like taking naps during the day, but now, I found myself doing that a lot. Taking extremely long naps after school and still waking up tired, this was out of character for me, but I still ignored the symptom and thought it was “just me getting adjusted to being in high school.” Boy was I wrong. It wasn’t until I woke up one morning and went to take my grandmother a package that she alerted my father “My baby isn’t walking right, something isn’t right with her. Take her to the ER!” My Dad agreed with what my Grandmother stated and I was then taken to the ER. Doctors performed the typical tests on me x-rays, blood tests, and a C-T scan. I will forever remember when I got the C-T scan done, doctors whispering to my parents “her brain doesn’t look normal, we need to keep her to see what could be wrong with her.” Alarmed, I just told the medical staff, “My brain doesn’t look normal? I know I have been cramming my brain with French vocabulary in preparation for my exam tomorrow, but I’m fine! I have to leave now to get ready for that test.” The doctors in the room just smiled at my optimism and told me that they seriously needed to keep me for observation and not to worry about anything school related at the moment. I sighed in defeat and informed them “I guess you’re right, I mean, I feel fine….but I can’t feel my legs right now…..I’ll stay.”

New symptoms making themselves present by the minute it seemed, but I was under medical care in the hospital. After a day of tests and doctors making me feel nervous about what to expect, the on-site neurologist told my family “She’s only 15….but we think it’s MS. I’ll have to perform a spinal tap to verify the diagnosis. I mean, she’s so young and after all of my years in the field of neurology, I have never known someone so young to develop it!” Astonished, I lay on my hospital bed, thinking that whatever this “MS” thing is, I wondered if it was deadly?

The following day, I was scheduled for a spinal tap. The doctors told me that “it’s ok if you cry during this procedure since even some of the strongest of people break down in tears when they undergo one. I just laid on the bed while the procedure took place, asking “why should I cry? I can’t feel anything?” The feeling of numbness over my body wasn’t related to any numbing medicines, but the fact that it was yet another one of those “strange” new feelings from what was “thought” to be MS. Following the spinal tap, I waited anxiously with my family in the hospital to hear the diagnosis of the cause of all of my new strange symptoms. On April 13, 2005, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis at the age of 15. I had no feeling in my arms, hands, legs or feet and was basically in a vegetated state. My neurologist even said “I have never treated someone so young with MS and from the looks of her spine on the MRI, I highly doubt she will ever walk again; it’s just that bad. Don’t worry though, honey, we can get you the right wheelchair and scribes at your school to help you get around. With these devastating statements said, I made an oath to myself that I would walk again and regain the use of my hands, it would just take a bit of getting used to in the meantime.

Sure enough, I proved all my doctors wrong. I may have taken a somewhat “untraditional” path to some elements of high school (ex: while my friends were enjoying being 16 in drivers ed, looking forward to getting their driver’s license, I was 16, looking forward to mastering the art of using a wheelchair and eventually learning how to walk again. Although some days were a bit tough for me, I made it. From not knowing what the heck was wrong with me, being diagnosed with MS at 15, being confined to a wheelchair on and off in high school, a walking cane when I was 17, and finally back to my two feet when I was 18, I made it. Now 29 years old and a college graduate, I share my story in hopes of giving people hope that are battling this disease. What people said I would never be able to do, I have, and then some. Never give up!