Double Whammy

It all started May of last year, my father was ill and work was busier than ever. I am a graphic designer for an ad agency in New York City. Twenty nine years old, my career was on track but soon the stress would be too much to cope with. The first symptom were headaches that I quickly dismissed because I would stare at a screen for 10+ hours a day, then the optical nerve palsy started.

My left eye decided to give up and that was the scariest thing I've ever had happened. My sight was failing me and I'm an artist I had to figure out what's was going on. I took this opportunity to take the day off of work and have an MRI whilst taking my dad to his appointment. Turns out I have RRMS and dad had stage 4 Liver cancer (cirrhosis).

From then on I was on overdrive, I couldn't stop to think about my MS. Dad was dying and I had so much to take care of, he was diagnosed May 31st and passed away July 4th, 2014. The next day my MS hit me like a ton of bricks, literally, couldn't get out of bed. Vertigo, depression, muscle spasms, pain, nausea, insomnia, dragging my left side, forgetting my address you name it, I got it. I definitely couldn't work like this so I decided to take a few days off of work. I received a phone call by my current employer stating that if I didn't come back to work on Monday I would be fired.

This is where my love for my doctor and medical staff started, they informed me of my rights and HELLO FMLA! Needless to say this started a vacuum for me, I kept asking myself ,"Why me?" and the pity party started. First my dad and now my life was in shambles. Prednisone IVs made me crazy, vomiting was an everyday occurrence, pity party was in full effect. This negative energy wasn't helping my MS.

Something I realized is that body and mind are more linked than I cared to admit. It felt like my emotions were too much for my body to handle and it was making me implode. I was so angry! "This isn't fair, I'm only 29..." so on and so forth but MS doesn't discriminate. Once I stopped asking,"why?" and started wanting to live again, my life changed.

I got proactive, if the universe doesn't give me something I can't handle then I have to try. I was too young to give up and succumb to this so I got educated. Whal's Protocol changed my life: watch the video here <--Ted Talk Tysabri + her book changed my life. I started the Paleo diet and I can't tell you how much I recovered. A year later I have no new activity in my MRIs and I FINALLY felt healthy again, it was a miracle. There are days that the heat gets to me and a MS hug here and there but nothing compared to my last relapse, I finally felt "normal" again!

Long story short, a year later I learned a positive outlook and a good diet...truly loving your body and NEVER losing the will to live is what worked for me. Hopefully this will work for someone else.