I waxed my bikini area for this???
Did I ever tell you about the time I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)? Fortunately for me, it was a self-diagnosis and as usual, I was wrong. It happened not too long ago and was almost funny enough to share at a funeral and since this blog is occasionally more fun than a funeral, I'll share it here.
It started in late May with some tingling and numbness. I was training for an Ironman so I was used to being uncomfortable in certain parts of my body that tend to get sore after being on a bike seat for several hours at a time. In fact, in the heart of my training, the question wasn't if I was going to hurt, but where I was going to hurt that day. But this time was different. Sure my saddle area was numb, but so was one of my arms and even my face. My face was not only tingling but it was physically cold. As the tingling and numbness spread through my arm into my fingers, things got a little more difficult. The everyday stuff that we take for granted, was getting tough to do. I remember struggling to open an envelope because the manual dexterity just wasn't there. As it seemed to be getting worse instead of better, I turned to WebMD.
If you aren't familiar with this, webmd.com is a website where you can enter your symptoms and it will let you know that you are a big fat hypochondriac. When I entered mine, it said I needed to see a doctor immediately. Yikes! I just knew I was going to lose my...umm... saddle area. My mind started racing as I sent a text message to my wife. Maybe I had MS? I didn't know anything about it but for some reason it reminded me of Ms. as in Ms. Texas or Ms. California. I was imagining myself in the swimsuit portion of the Miss USA pageant wearing a sash that said, "why does she get to be da ho?". Another unanswered text to my wife and my racing mind moved to Lou Gehrig's disease. No... I stunk at baseball, it couldn't be that. Where in the heck was my wife didn't she know my junk was going to fall off at any second???
Actually, I knew where my wife was, I just didn't know why she wasn't answering my texts. I didn't want to call as I thought the friend she was helping take care of may have been sleeping. It turns out she wasn't sleeping and she wondered why in the heck I was all of a sudden blowing up my wife's cell phone with a bunch of text messages. When my wife explained my predicament her friend responded in that typical funny fashion that we are going to miss, "I'm over here fighting cancer and Tom is worried about his freaking numb-nuts???"
Long story short, I didn't lose my junk and I don't have MS. I simply had a pinched nerve and I'm now fine (at least physically anyways). Melissa on the other hand, doesn't just have a pinched nerve, she really has MS. I met her this weekend and she helped educate me on MS and the need for creating more awareness about it. As of right now, there is no cure. Melissa explained that MS basically attacks the nerves in the body. Medicine helps slow the progression of it so her boyfriend helps administer her shots once a month. She looked like she could be competing in a real beauty pageant as the lesions she mentioned having on her neck weren't visible under her long brown hair. To me she looked like a perfect picture of fitness and health with her warm smile and athletic frame. You would have no idea by just looking at her that she was battling MS and sometimes goes weeks without the ability to even walk. That of course didn't prevent her from running her first half marathon the day after I met her. What a stud!
It's nice to see real medical progress. In some areas we have come so far and in others, well...we still have so much further to go. I was discussing Melissa and just MS in general with a friend of mine that lost her Mom to it. I was sharing what Melissa had just shared with me about how she was first diagnosed. At the age of 20, she lost her vision for a week. What was interesting was the same thing happened to my friend's mom years ago, but back then they diagnosed her as having a stroke. I'm not saying that if they had diagnosed her correctly she still be alive today, I'm simply appreciating the fact that at least we are making progress. Until we find a cure, I'll pray and I'll gladly use this spot to create even any extra bit of awareness I can. Heck, I'll even go as far as to say I'll completely boycott entering beauty pageants AND waxing my bikini area until we completely eradicate Multiple Sclerosis.
It started in late May with some tingling and numbness. I was training for an Ironman so I was used to being uncomfortable in certain parts of my body that tend to get sore after being on a bike seat for several hours at a time. In fact, in the heart of my training, the question wasn't if I was going to hurt, but where I was going to hurt that day. But this time was different. Sure my saddle area was numb, but so was one of my arms and even my face. My face was not only tingling but it was physically cold. As the tingling and numbness spread through my arm into my fingers, things got a little more difficult. The everyday stuff that we take for granted, was getting tough to do. I remember struggling to open an envelope because the manual dexterity just wasn't there. As it seemed to be getting worse instead of better, I turned to WebMD.
If you aren't familiar with this, webmd.com is a website where you can enter your symptoms and it will let you know that you are a big fat hypochondriac. When I entered mine, it said I needed to see a doctor immediately. Yikes! I just knew I was going to lose my...umm... saddle area. My mind started racing as I sent a text message to my wife. Maybe I had MS? I didn't know anything about it but for some reason it reminded me of Ms. as in Ms. Texas or Ms. California. I was imagining myself in the swimsuit portion of the Miss USA pageant wearing a sash that said, "why does she get to be da ho?". Another unanswered text to my wife and my racing mind moved to Lou Gehrig's disease. No... I stunk at baseball, it couldn't be that. Where in the heck was my wife didn't she know my junk was going to fall off at any second???
Actually, I knew where my wife was, I just didn't know why she wasn't answering my texts. I didn't want to call as I thought the friend she was helping take care of may have been sleeping. It turns out she wasn't sleeping and she wondered why in the heck I was all of a sudden blowing up my wife's cell phone with a bunch of text messages. When my wife explained my predicament her friend responded in that typical funny fashion that we are going to miss, "I'm over here fighting cancer and Tom is worried about his freaking numb-nuts???"
Long story short, I didn't lose my junk and I don't have MS. I simply had a pinched nerve and I'm now fine (at least physically anyways). Melissa on the other hand, doesn't just have a pinched nerve, she really has MS. I met her this weekend and she helped educate me on MS and the need for creating more awareness about it. As of right now, there is no cure. Melissa explained that MS basically attacks the nerves in the body. Medicine helps slow the progression of it so her boyfriend helps administer her shots once a month. She looked like she could be competing in a real beauty pageant as the lesions she mentioned having on her neck weren't visible under her long brown hair. To me she looked like a perfect picture of fitness and health with her warm smile and athletic frame. You would have no idea by just looking at her that she was battling MS and sometimes goes weeks without the ability to even walk. That of course didn't prevent her from running her first half marathon the day after I met her. What a stud!
It's nice to see real medical progress. In some areas we have come so far and in others, well...we still have so much further to go. I was discussing Melissa and just MS in general with a friend of mine that lost her Mom to it. I was sharing what Melissa had just shared with me about how she was first diagnosed. At the age of 20, she lost her vision for a week. What was interesting was the same thing happened to my friend's mom years ago, but back then they diagnosed her as having a stroke. I'm not saying that if they had diagnosed her correctly she still be alive today, I'm simply appreciating the fact that at least we are making progress. Until we find a cure, I'll pray and I'll gladly use this spot to create even any extra bit of awareness I can. Heck, I'll even go as far as to say I'll completely boycott entering beauty pageants AND waxing my bikini area until we completely eradicate Multiple Sclerosis.
Thanks for sharing my story Tom. MS can be difficult at times but I have a positive attitude that keeps me going. If I can trade MS for some numbness from a bike seat, I'll do it!!!
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