The tale of diagnosis: Part 2

My parents asked two of my siblings to drive me to back to my parents’ home. My brother took us to lunch at my favorite restaurant and said I was eating sloppily.

My neurologist told my family that it’s extremely rare for a female of my age to go downhill so rapidly. My mom and sister had to help me shower. I was walking with two canes and my bed had to be inclined so I wouldn’t choke on my saliva in the night. I wore an eyepatch to help with double vision, talked with a British accent, and had crippling anxiety. In addition to behaving like a young child I had few inhibitions and poor impulse control.

My parents didn’t want me to have to reapply to college so they kept me enrolled in one online course per semester that year. I couldn’t focus my eyes enough to read, so my dad would read me the textbook and helped me a lot to understand the concepts.

A friend came to the house to visit and I was laying in bed and couldn’t really get up. I remember their face when visiting but nothing else about the visit.

I also remember a flash of a moment when putting a glass into the sink, but I couldn’t control my arm movement so I ended up shattering the glass on the side of the sink.

I could go on and on about weird things I did or said, and the microscopic memories I have of that time. That is not what is most important about my story though.

When I was at this point, people organized a group fast for me. I was added to many prayer lists both personal and at the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. A family friend lit a candle for me every week at their Catholic church and sent my name to the Vatican as well. The number of people who exercised faith in miracles and in God brought about a miracle in my health.

I improved from that point forward, getting put on a medication that not only calmed down the activity in my brain but also shrunk lesions (the scars in my brain). My neurologist said that is extremely rare.

One year later I ran a half-marathon. I was back at college, living on my own, dating, driving, and participating in life. A few years later I got married, graduated from college, worked full-time at a job I loved and then had a baby.

Multiple Sclerosis has been a little more active since I had my baby, but my 5 years of stability is a miracle from God. Without that miracle I would likely still be living at home and would have been unable to run, finish school, get married, or have a daughter.

When you are given a gift so great that it changes the course of your life it leads you to wonder: Why me? Why did I get this miracle? What am I meant to do that was important enough to have such a transformation occur?

I’m still working on the answer. All I know for sure is that God is real, He is good, faith produces miracles, and all things are possible through Jesus Christ.