Welcome!

Hello, my name is Erika. Welcome to my blog! You’ve probably guessed already, that I have MS. (Who says we’re losing cognitive skills!?) The world might not need one more blog (ya think?), but I'm doing this for me. If you want to read along, welcome!

I’m 52 and live in La Crescenta, CA. No one had ever heard of La Crescenta until last month when the largest fire in the state’s history tore through here and we made national news. I live alone with 2 cats, Clark and Cleo; and have 2 grown daughters, Anna and Liza. I have a wonderful mom who is 89 and going strong; an older sister in Seattle, an older brother in Northern California and a total of 4 nephews. Ok, now you know all about me.

Oh yes. The MS thing. I had some very weird thing happen to my right eye when I was about 27 years old. I went to the Jules Stein Eye Institute here in LA because they thought it might be a detached retina. Hmmm....no. Maybe it’s this? Hmmm....no. Maybe it’s that? hmmmmm....no. So I was sent off to see a neurologist who pricked me with pins, hit me with rubber mallets and sent me home perplexed. Back in 1984, MS was not so prevalent? Easily diagnosed? I don’t know.

Fast forward to 2000. I’m jogging around the high school track with my young teenaged girls. Sweethearts that they are, they start teasing me for running like a 90 year old man with a dragging foot. Shaddyup! But they do have a point. So, like any well adjusted American, I quit running. Never did like it anyway.

Now it’s early 2001 and I'm up in Seattle visiting Lisa. We decided to go on a nice walk around the arboretum (it is lovely ~ go if you get the chance!). It’s an easy, flat walk, maybe a couple of miles. As we get back near her house there is this little gentle hill about two blocks long, and I tell her I can’t make it and need to rest. Did I forget to mention that Lisa is on her way in two weeks to run the NY Marathon? That’s she’s sailed through the Boston Marathon, like, 3 times? Needless to say, my sister becomes just a little bit alarmed. So on her gentle urging (YOU BETTER GET THAT CHECKED OUT SIS!) I went to my doctor. He sent me to a neurologist. The neurologist sent me to the MRI. The MRI sent me to the lab. The lab sent me back to the neurologist. He finally gave me something. A diagnosis of MS. WTF!?