Neuro Note #2 - Multiple Sclerosis


For my second neuro note, I watched a YouTube series called “Multiple Sclerosis – My Story” from a woman named Carolyn who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and she recounts a lot of the experiences she had leading up to her diagnosis. I chose to watch this because I did not really know a lot about multiple sclerosis in general, so I thought it would be interesting and a good way to learn from someone who is living with the diagnosis.

In her videos, Carolyn mentions that she believes she was living with symptoms of multiple sclerosis for around 12 months until she received an actual diagnosis. It seemed like she always knew in the back of her mind that this is what it was, but she never wanted to believe it. She even stated that she had worked or volunteered at a facility that worked with people who had multiple sclerosis, but just could not believe how someone who worked there could eventually end up having the diagnosis themselves. I think she thought that it seemed just way too coincidental.

Carolyn starts her story with talking about some life-changing events that happened to her during the time when she started to have symptoms of multiple sclerosis. She had just gotten out of a serious relationship that was very important to her when she started to notice numbness in the left side of one of her hands and eventually the foot on the same side of her body. Eventually this wore off and was just attributed to stress, anxiety, and depression and she did not think too much into it. Then later on during the same year, her father’s health was declining relatively quickly. On the same night of her father’s funeral, which Carolyn stated went really well, she started to get symptoms again. By the time she woke up the next morning, the entire left side of her body was almost completely numb, including her face and left side of her tongue, besides a few random spots. She also reported symptoms such as dizziness and feeling like the room was spinning, having trouble walking, trouble with spelling when she was writing, and some trouble speaking. For me not really knowing what multiple sclerosis was prior to this series, a lot of these symptoms reminded me of stroke a little bit, which she said was eventually ruled out when she went to the hospital to see what was going on. Carolyn talks about her experience with tests and some doctors, the first person she saw suspected multiple sclerosis but that she needed more testing to be sure. When Carolyn went to the more specialized doctor, he insisted her symptoms were due to anxiety, and even though Carolyn had a gut feeling it wasn’t true, she did not want to question someone who was supposed to know what they were talking about and she was trying to hold out hope that it was not something worse. At some point, she got some brain tests done but did not hear the results from them, and was too scared to call and ask, so for a while everything seemed okay. When she went in to see her doctor, she had him call to ask about the results. They called her not long after and wanted Carolyn to come in for a few day hospital stay (it turned into 6 days) for some more tests and observing. When she found this out, her symptoms started to come back again. During her hospital stay was when she finally found out that she did indeed have multiple sclerosis, which was what she had thought all along but just did not want it to be true.

This whole story led me to look up what multiple sclerosis was in general and what symptoms were common for people who have this diagnosis. I learned that it is a central nervous system disease that causes communication issues between the brain and the rest of the body (Mayo Clinic Staff 2020). I also learned that while symptoms may present differently for everyone who has multiple sclerosis, Carolyn had a lot of the common symptoms someone would experience. While some of these did seem like stroke symptoms, there were aspects of each that ruled out stroke as a cause.

I am split on recommending this YouTube series to someone who wants to learn more about multiple sclerosis. I found Carolyn’s story intriguing and I liked following along in her journey to her diagnosis, however, it does not seem like it gives a lot of information about multiple sclerosis in general, but that may be because she was still learning about it herself. Overall, I did enjoy this series!





References:

Carolyn. [MSBunnyCuddles]. (2011, May 18). Multiple sclerosis – my story part 1 – 18/5/11 [Video].
YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m8BcVM0NOc&t=1s

Mayo Clinic Staff. (2020, June 12). Multiple sclerosis. Mayo Clinic. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/multiple-sclerosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20350269

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Locus of Control

Locus of control is a phrase that refers to a person’s views about what causes different things and events to happen in his or her life, whether from their own doing (internal) or from outside factors (external). My OT class did an activity to determine whether we had a more internal or external locus of control, and I scored an 11, which is almost directly in the middle. I would say this is pretty accurate for my personality. While I do believe most things are within my control to an extent, one of my favorite phrases is also “que será será” which is Spanish for “whatever will be, will be.” I do the most that I can to handle different situations and get my desired outcomes, but I also know that some things in life are just simply out of my control. For example, when applying to OT schools, I did my best to maintain good grades in undergrad, have a great application, and apply to a variety of schools. However, after interviewing and doing everything I could on my part, it was out of my...
Read more

Imposter Syndrome

  Imposter syndrome is when a person does not feel like they are competent or intelligent enough to be doing the things they are qualified to do. It seems like this is especially evident in the healthcare field. And even though most people think they are the only person who feels this way, as it turns out, most people actually do or have at some point. This is something we have learned about a lot during our master’s program, and it has made me realize that I have also felt this way in multiple different situations. However, learning about imposter syndrome has helped me figure out what can cause it and what I can do to combat it. The times I have felt most like an “imposter” has been leading up to a fieldwork or being on fieldwork. There is always the anxiety of “I don’t know what I’m doing” or “I feel like I don’t know anything” or the fear of failure, but I also know that I would not be where I am if I wasn’t capable of doing it. From reading the article “Facing Imposter Syndr...
Read more

"Man from the South"

I enjoyed reading the Man from the South story from Roald Dahl. It was about a bet between an older man and a soldier. The solider was to light a lighter successfully 10 times in a row without fail. If the solider lost, the old man got to chop off his pinky finger. If the solider won, the old man had to give the soldier his Cadillac, which we found out later was not even his, but his wife’s instead. The soldier in the story thought that losing his pinky finger would not be that big of a deal and that “it doesn’t do anything for him anyway,” but assuming the solider lost the bet, he would realize that the pinky, along with the rest of the fingers, all serve a function in our hand strength and movements. The solider would have a difficult time completing his necessary tasks on his ship if he lost his little finger. The little finger provides a lot of hand strength for many different activities and losing it would mean losing a lot of strength. Navy soldiers have to do a lot of mai...
Read more