My Multiple Sclerosis first manifested itself eighteen years ago. I had to wait close to a decade for a full diagnosis, meanwhile it got steadily worse. I now struggle to walk, I have constant pain, muscle spasms, have trouble sleeping and it affects my mental faculties: I have trouble digesting information and thinking straight, I have what's called 'brain fog' most days.
Within the past few months it has started affecting my eyesight. At times I can get extreme tunnel vision and only see a tiny speck in my now limited field of view, sometimes I have a dark spot in the center of my vision. Other times I struggle to focus. This brings me to one of my biggest fears: losing my eyesight.
Optic neuritis is an inflammation of the optic nerve. The way if can affect you varies from blurred vision to a total loss of sight. It can affect one or both eyes. Colour vision is affected, some colours appearing more washed out or muted. Light flashes when moving the eyes is also a familiar symptom. The effects can last from hours, to days. In rare cases much longer. A course of steroids may help to alleviate symptoms, but then you run the risk of the many side effects from the medication.
As a keen artist having problems seeing is an obvious burden. As a writer, I can somewhat mitigate things with technology such as voice to text. Everyday things such as walking from room to room brings challenges such as bumping into furniture and doorways. Being unable to read with my daughter would be heartbreaking, which brings me onto my biggest fear.
When my beloved and I got together twelve years ago, she was aware of my MS. Regardless, at the time I was not so ill and we decided to have a child together. Our son was born ten years ago. Although my health deteriorated somewhat, she pushed for us to have another child five years later. I was very reluctant: I have two sons from a previous relationship and our son together. Chances seemed high that we might have a girl. You see, although MS is not strictly hereditary, a child with a parent who has MS stands a greater chance of developing it themselves. Add to this the fact that, statistically, women are more prone to develop MS. Despite my reluctance, we went ahead and five years ago we were blessed with our daughter.
Pixie and I
I know that research is ongoing and new treatments are being developed and yet I often worry: prevention is always preferable to treatment and as things stand, there is no cure. It would break my heart to learn that I have passed on this horrible condition to any of my children, yet I feel worse for knowing the risks and going ahead with bringing my last two children into the world. I am not a praying man, but if there is a God, I ask that he keeps them free from MS.
Thank you for reading.
