Sort of an anniversary

Some time this month or thereabouts, two years have passed since the first concrete signs of what was to become MS showed up. I believe I had some symptoms before that as well but from this point it was to be an unbroken chain of them instead of some isolated occurrence that took care of itself after a while. The very first thing I can firmly connect to MS was that I suddenly had trouble with the workout group program at work.

At my workplace, we have some very nice arrangements that allow us to use a gym and access to workout groups and other activities and I really liked doing those workout sessions. Then, for no obvious reason, I discovered I had trouble keeping my balance in some of the exercises, not enough to skip that class but enough to notice. Other things got in the way and kept me from the workout class for a while and after that I had already gotten so sick I couldn't do any of the group stuff at all.

That was about 6 months after what I now see as the first signs. Another 6 months later, I had to stop trying to go to work at all - so that's about a year ago now. (Actually, it'll be another month until that anniversary.)

For me it was balance that was the only symptom I could pinpoint for a very long time. That was unlucky, cause it's not what causes doctors to start thinking about MS. I realize now that I had temperature issues long before I got my diagnosis and that fatigue was an issue from almost as far back as balance but I didn't realize it at the time. Numbness or tingling didn't show up until much later and still only happens for very short periods when I'm having a bad day.

And when I say balance, I don't actually mean balance. It's neurological control of the legs that is failing, not my actual sense of balance. I took several rounds of tests and they all showed my sense of balance was just fine.

So, happy birthday MS. I still think I'm gonna beat you. Now, I'm heading over to the gym.

Item #8452673

Yet another odd thing about a nervous system reset, or whatever it is: You may be familiar with "Bilar" even if you're not Swedish. The candy stuff, cars, I understand IKEA sells them in some countries. Y'know they're three different colors, ostensibly three different flavors? At least that's how I always saw it, I never did find much difference between green-white-pink cars.

But I suddenly found out, now I do. I'm not a huge fan of bilar but the train shop had limited selection so I bought some and ... either the maker changed the recipe or I can now tell those different flavors which I didn't use to be able to distinguish.

Weird.

Six month report?

It's been what, six months? Two weeks? My sense of time and proportions have almost entirely disappeared but here's a bit of summary of how I'm doing lately. I'm doing fine, sort of. Apart from the fact that my body developed a taste for self.destruction, I'm doing great. I moved to a much better apartment (ground floor, no stairs), and that's great. I'm trying to increase the amount of work I can take on and spending three days a week at the office. That part of recovery is one of those areas where I set impossibly high goals for myself and won't be happy with anything short of coming back to "normal" but I can value progress anyway and there is some of that. At least I think there is.

The move to the apartment came just after the holidays and the end of my previous agreements on therapy and training but I'm renewing that now and will be back in the gym soon. The lapse in workouts doesn't bother me in the least, I'm certain I'm getting enough exercise. Gonna try some water exercise in the upcoming months, see if I can find some of the movements I lost.

I have a bunch of doctor's appoinments, some days the stack of mail is just preposterous and it's all medical stuff. Still I think at this point I've more or less exhausted the available options. Depending on what's gonna happen in the next months I might be switching modification meds but that's no big deal, really. Be nice to get one that one goes in to get once a month instead of self-administration. It's gotten to the point where it's such a non-issue that I tend to forget to take my meds.

Attention span and concentration are probably my biggest problem right now. Fatigue makes them worse and it's sort of a showstopper for me. Losing count of how many meds I've tried for dealing with that and I'm well into stuff I'd never have wanted to try a year ago. But I need to handle this somehow, I'm not happy with the current state.

My tingly fingers stopped tingling when I use touch-screens. Kinda sad about that, but it does make using the phone and tablet slightly less uncomfortable.

All other stuff, I can't think of anything else to say than, it's going fine.